2023 has come to an end and 2024 is just around the corner. As 2024 is the year of the blue dragon soaring into the sky, humanity’s challenge toward space will be more active than ever. What new news will we hear from space in 2024?
The most important and at the same time receiving the most attention is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Artemis project. The second mission of Project Artemis, America’s manned lunar exploration project, is scheduled to head to the moon in November 2024. According to news coming from inside and outside NASA, the launch of Artemis 2 may be delayed to early 2025, but NASA’s official launch schedule is still November 2024.
NASA’s lunar landing project, Project Artemis, will begin full operation in 2024. The photo shows the SLS rocket launching from the Florida Space Center for the Artemis 1 project on November 16, 2022. / Reuters Yonhap News
The main mission of Artemis 2 is to fly in lunar orbit and secure data for a safe landing ahead of the lunar landing of Artemis 3, which is scheduled for 2026 or 2027. A total of four astronauts board Artemis 2, three men and one woman. Of these, three all have the modifier ‘first’. Victor Glover is expected to become the first black astronaut to fly in lunar orbit, and Christina Hammock Koch will be the first female astronaut to fly in lunar orbit. Jeremy Hansen is Canadian and becomes NASA’s first non-American astronaut. NASA explains, “We secured diversity by reflecting the purpose of the Artemis project, in which more than 30 countries participated.”
The scheduled launch date for Artemis 2 is November, but even before then, the mission is progressing at a brisk pace. Astronauts plan to continuously train for safe flights, and NASA is preparing the space launch vehicle Space Launch System (SLS) used in Artemis 2 and ‘Orion’, a module for the crew to board. If the schedule goes as planned, launch vehicle preparations will be completed in June 2024.
NASA’s main event takes place in November, but even before then, there are endless events big and small. The supersonic aircraft ‘X-59’ is receiving the most attention from the scientific community. Strictly speaking, the X-59 is not a space launch vehicle. However, it is attracting attention as the first supersonic jet since Concorde, which crossed the Atlantic in the past. The X-59 is being jointly developed by NASA and American defense company Lockheed Martin. The maximum speed is about 1,500 km/h, which is slower than the Concorde, which exceeded 2,000 km/h, but it is much safer and succeeded in minimizing the sonic boom, which was a problem with supersonic jets.
The X-59 is a supersonic jet jointly developed by NASA and Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense company./Lockheed Martin
Although a specific schedule has not been released, NASA and Lockheed Martin plan to begin test flights of the X-59 in early 2024. If the test flight is successfully completed, it is expected that we will once again see a supersonic jet flying in the sky carrying 44 passengers. Paris and New York are now only 3 hours away.
‘Dream Chaser’, a small space shuttle developed by Sierra Space, will also make its first flight in 2024. Dream Chaser has already completed assembly in November of this year and is undergoing testing by NASA for launch in April of next year. Dream Chaser was created to transport cargo and crew to the International Space Station (ISS), and unlike existing spacecraft, it was designed to land on the runway like any other airplane rather than falling into the sea when returning to Earth. Sierra Space is confident that it will revolutionize space transportation services, saying that each system can be reused for missions up to 15 times.
Deep space exploration continues. NASA plans to launch the Clipper probe toward Jupiter’s moon Europa in October 2024. Europa is a satellite whose surface is covered with ice and has a total diameter of only 3122 km. It is a satellite smaller than the moon. However, astronomers are very interested in the existence of an underground ocean beneath Europa’s ice layer. This is the first time that NASA is sending a separate spacecraft to explore a satellite rather than a planet.
Japan is conducting the ‘MMX project’ to explore Mars’ satellite. This is a project to collect samples from Mars’ satellites Phobos and Deimos and return to Earth. It is scheduled to leave Earth in 2024 and return in 2029. China is also pursuing a project to return Chang’e 6 lunar samples in 2024.
‘Dream Chaser’, a small space shuttle developed by Sierra Space./Sierra Space
Astronomers are also preparing for a busy year. Chile’s Vera Rubin Observatory plans to survey the entire southern hemisphere’s sky over a period of 10 years starting at the end of next year, and the Simmons Observatory in the Atacama Desert, another region in Chile, is scheduled to be completed in mid-2024. Simmons Observatory plans to search for signals of primordial gravitational waves, remnants of the Big Bang, in the cosmic microwave background.
Korea’s space exploration is taking a short break. Nuriho, a Korean launch vehicle, is scheduled for its fourth launch in 2025. Hanwha Aerospace and Korea Aerospace Research Institute plan to prepare for the fourth launch in 2024. Officials explain that they will take time to reorganize while building infrastructure, including the establishment of the Aerospace Administration and the construction of a private launch site.
