2024 in spaceflight

2024 in spaceflight

Gravity-1 Europa Clipper IM-1 Odysseus
Orbital launches
First	1 January
Last	29 May
Total	105
Successes	101
Failures	2
Partial failures	2
Catalogued	90
National firsts
Space traveller	Belarus  Turkey
Rockets
Maiden flights	Angara A5 / Orion Gravity-1 KAIROS Long March 6C Vulcan Centaur VC2S
Retirements	Delta IV Heavy
Crewed flights
Orbital	4
Orbital travellers	14
Suborbital	2
Suborbital travellers	12
Total travellers	26
v t e

The year 2024 is expected to exceed 2023's 223 orbital launches. So far, the year saw the successful first launch of Vulcan Centaur, Gravity-1, and notably the third developmental launch of SpaceX's Starship – IFT-3, with IFT-4, IFT-5, and IFT-6 planned for this year. Additionally, the final launch of a Delta family rocket occurred in April with a Delta IV Heavy. In May, China launched the Chang'e 6, the first sample return from the far side of the Moon. By 13 May, there were 92 total launch attempts, equaling the total number of attempts for the whole year in 2014, just 10 years prior. Following the trend of the 2020s, it is expected that many more privately-developed launch vehicles will feature a maiden launch in 2024.

In terms of other national-level scientific space missions, NASA's Europa Clipper probe, NASA's EscaPADE probe, ESA's Hera probe, and NISAR Earth observation satellite are planned to launch in 2024. NASA's Ingenuity helicopter ended operation in January due to damages to rotor blades after its 72nd flight. This year is also expected to see many lunar landing attempts. JAXA's SLIM and Intuitive Machines' IM-1 have successfully survived soft-landings on the Moon but were tipped over during final moments of descent.

Two crewed space stations, the International Space Station (ISS) and Tiangong, are in operation in 2024. In terms of crewed missions, the ISS will be visited by Expedition 70, 71, and 72, while Shenzhou 18 and 19 will visit Tiangong. The ISS will also host private crews of Axiom Mission 3 and Axiom Mission 4. The ISS is also expected to see docking of Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser Demo-1.

This year saw Alper Gezeravcı become the first Turkish astronaut, as a crew member on Axiom Mission 3. Belarus also had its first citizen reach space, when cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya launched on Soyuz MS-25 (not counting Pyotr Klimuk, Vladimir Kovalyonok, and Oleg Novitsky who were Soviet or Russian citizens of Belarusian origin when they traveled to space).