New Scientist - USA (2019-12-21)

November

Second ISS mission for Boeing’s Starliner capsule

July

June

December

Launch of Moon Express’s Lunar Scout lander
US firm Moon Express will attempt the first successful private
landing on the moon.

Launch of Emirates Mars mission
The United Arab Emirates is sending its first orbiter
to Mars to study the Red Planet’s atmosphere.

Second ISS mission for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon
capsule (right)

First uncrewed orbital test flight of India’s Gaganyaan

crewed spacecraft

If all goes well with this and subsequent test flights,

the spacecraft will fly with crew in late 2021.

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 returns to Earth

The JAXA spacecraft will return samples from asteroid Ryugu.

13-14 Peak of Geminids meteor shower

14 Total solar eclipse visible in parts of southern Chile and

Argentina, but it will mostly pass over ocean

21 Great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn

The two largest planets will appear close to each other in the

sky, which last occurred in the year 2000.

First half of 2020 (date TBD) Launch of Chang’e 5
Chang’e 5 will be China’s first mission to return samples of
rocks and dust from the moon back to Earth. If successful,
it would become the third country to achieve this feat.

21 Solar eclipse visible throughout most of eastern Africa,
the Middle East and southern Asia

May

5 Launch of European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter (right)
The ESA’s Solar Orbiter will take about three and a half years
to reach the sun, where it will snap our first detailed pictures of
the top and bottom of our star and measure its magnetic field.

13 BepiColombo passes Earth for a gravity assist
The BepiColombo spacecraft, a joint mission between the
ESA and Japan, is headed towards Mercury, but it will have
to use the gravity of Earth and Venus to sling it into orbit.

April

February

Q1 (date TBD) First crewed launch of Boeing’s Starliner
capsule and first crewed test of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule
Both of the new capsules built by US-based private companies
will fly with crew for the first time, heading to the International
Space Station (ISS). The last time astronauts were launched
from US soil was in 2011.

March

Your guide to space 2020

OSIRIS-REx takes a sample of Bennu

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will collect dust from the

asteroid Bennu for eventual return to Earth.

17 Mars 2020 launch

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover (at bottom) will look for signs of

whether Mars was once habitable, or even had life.

23 China’s first Mars rover launches aboard orbiter

The small rover will, like Mars 2020, search for traces of

current or past life.

25 Launch of ExoMars 2020 lander and rover

A Russian lander called Kazachok will carry ESA’s Rosalind

Franklin rover to the surface of Mars, where it will also look

for evidence of life.

August

12-13 Peak of Perseids meteor shower