2. Starship refueling demo<\/h2>\n
The next mission on our list is on SpaceX\u2019s Starship roadmap for 2026. A demonstration of large-scale orbital refueling is key to unlocking Starship\u2019s ability to travel beyond low-Earth orbit. SpaceX must master its refueling capability before sending Starships to the Moon to fulfill the company\u2019s lunar lander contract with NASA. The same can be said for SpaceX\u2019s future plans for Starship flights to Mars. This first refueling demo will involve two Starship launches from separate launch pads in Texas, or perhaps Florida. The ships will link up together in orbit, and one will attempt to transfer super-cold methane and liquid oxygen propellants to the other. Cryogenic refueling has never been tried at this scale in space before. Chance of a refueling demo happening in 2026: 50 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n SpaceX plans to debut its next version of Starship\u2014Starship Version 3, or V3, with an inaugural test flight in the next few months. This first flight of Starship V3 will look a lot like SpaceX\u2019s past Starship test flights, with the rocket launching from South Texas and flying on a suborbital arc halfway around the world for a precise ocean landing.<\/p>\n If that goes well, SpaceX could take the next step in Starship development on the following flight. This will entail launching Starship\u2014the world\u2019s largest rocket\u2014into low-Earth orbit and bringing the ship back for a reentry over northern Mexico and recovery back at SpaceX\u2019s test facility at Starbase, Texas. There, the ship will be caught back at its launch pad with giant mechanical arms, similar to how SpaceX has recovered the rocket\u2019s Super Heavy booster. A successful catch would be a major leap toward making Starship fully reusable. Chance of a successful Starship catch happening in 2026: 70 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n SpaceX\u2019s Starship descends toward the Indian Ocean at the conclusion of Flight 11 in October. We may see a similar view of Starship returning to its launch pad in Texas in 2026.<\/p>\n Credit: Blue Origin\u2019s first lunar lander is a behemoth. If successful, the Blue Moon Mark 1 cargo lander will become the largest spacecraft to ever set down on the lunar surface. The craft stands more than 26 feet (8 meters) tall and is more than 10 feet (3 meters) in diameter. Engineers in Florida are finishing up assembly of the first Blue Moon Mark 1 before shipping it to Houston for environmental testing.<\/p>\n The lander will then travel back to Cape Canaveral for preparations to fly on top of Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn rocket. The company\u2019s current plan is to launch the Moon lander on a New Glenn rocket some time this year. The unpiloted lander\u2019s first jaunt to the Moon will take on greater importance as engineers study the possibility of modifying future Blue Moon Mark 1s for astronauts. Chance of Blue Moon Mark 1 launching in 2026: 70 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n Rocket Lab has comfortably held second place among US rocket companies for number of launches per year. The company\u2019s light-class launcher, the Electron, surpassed a monthly launch cadence in 2025. Rocket Lab\u2019s next rocket, the medium-lift Neutron, will open new markets for the company. Neutron is designed with a reusable first stage and integrated payload fairing, which will return to Earth in one piece after releasing the rocket\u2019s expendable upper stage to accelerate into orbit.<\/p>\n The launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, is complete, but the rocket wasn\u2019t ready to meet Rocket Lab\u2019s goal of a first flight by the end of 2025. Rocket Lab\u2019s founder, Peter Beck, has a history of giving his team ambitious schedules for the first flight of Neutron. His latest projection calls for delivering the first Neutron rocket to the launch site in the first quarter of 2026, \u201cwith first launch thereafter.\u201d Chance of Neutron launching in 2026: <\/strong>50 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n Unlike Rocket Lab, Stoke Space has no experience in launching orbital rockets, but the company\u2019s founders have an impressive pedigree with long tenures overseeing propulsion projects at Blue Origin. Stoke\u2019s first rocket, the Nova, is officially scheduled to fly for the first time in 2026. Construction is in an advanced stage for Nova\u2019s launch site at Cape Canaveral, while Nova\u2019s first and second stages underwent qualification testing last year.<\/p>\n Engineers completed the first hot-fire test of the rocket\u2019s first stage engine in 2024 in Washington state, following earlier tests of the upper stage propulsion system. What\u2019s unique about Nova is that it\u2019s designed for full reusability, with a recoverable booster and upper stage. Stoke is the only company besides SpaceX that seems close to actually test-flying a fully reusable rocket. Chance of Nova launching in 2026: 3<\/strong>0 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n China\u2019s goal of landing astronauts on the Moon by 2030 is now less than five years away, and a critical test of the country\u2019s new human-rated spacecraft is scheduled for launch sometime in 2026. The partially reusable Mengzhou spacecraft is designed to carry up to seven people to the China\u2019s Tiangong space station or a smaller crew on voyages to the Moon, eventually replacing China\u2019s Shenzhou crew capsule tailored for low-Earth orbit missions.<\/p>\n Mengzhou is akin to NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft or Apollo command module and is a key element of China\u2019s lunar architecture, along with a human-rated lander named Lanyue, which will make its debut in space on a separate mission. It will launch on China\u2019s new Long March 10A rocket, which the China Manned Space Agency says will make its first flight along with Mengzhou\u2014likely uncrewed\u2014some time this year. We\u2019ve seen hot-fire testing of the rocket\u2019s booster stage in recent months, and China typically does not publicize launch schedules without believing they are realistic. Chance of Long March 10A and Mengzhou launching in 2026: 60 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a view familiar to anyone who has watched a SpaceX launch, but this image comes from a camera onboard China\u2019s Zhuque-3 rocket. The booster extended four grid fins, just like SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9, to help guide it toward a landing attempt downrange.<\/p>\n Credit: The first of several reusable rockets under development in China launched in early December. The medium-class Zhuque-3 rocket, developed by a commercial startup named LandSpace, successfully reached orbit on its debut flight, a remarkable achievement in its own right. But LandSpace\u2019s attempt to land the rocket\u2019s first stage booster downrange showed it is close to recovering\u2014and eventually reusing\u2014a Zhuque-3 booster stage.<\/p>\n The rocket failed during its landing burn moments before landing, then crashed right next to its landing pad in the Gobi Desert. LandSpace will try again with Zhuque-3, and other companies have rockets that will make similar attempts in the coming months. Chance of a Chinese orbital-class rocket making a successful landing in 2026: 60 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n If you look at public schedules, the California-based company Vast seems to have a significant head start in the race to put a commercial space station in orbit before the International Space Station\u2019s retirement in 2030. Vast\u2019s first crewed habitat, named Haven-1, is under construction for launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, followed by the first of up to four visits by private crews on SpaceX\u2019s Dragon spacecraft, with each stay lasting up to 10 days. This capability is far short of the permanent human presence supported by the ISS, but a successful launch and activation of Haven-1 would be a significant accomplishment for the commercial space industry.<\/p>\n Vast aims to follow Haven-1 with a larger space station to accommodate visitors for longer stays. So what\u2019s the status of Haven-1? The primary structure of the flight module completed structural testing in October and was set to undergo final weld inspections and integration soon thereafter. Vast\u2019s most recent public schedule called for the launch of Haven-1 as soon as May 2026, but it seems likely to take longer than that to fully outfit the module\u2019s interior, which appeared bare during structural testing earlier this fall. Chance of Haven-1 launching in 2026: 30 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n The next of NASA\u2019s flagship-class astronomical observatories is now fully assembled at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, named for NASA\u2019s first chief astronomer, will have a field of view at least 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope. Roman\u2019s primary science instrument will perform wide-area surveys of the Universe, covering 50 times more of the sky in five years than Hubble did in its first 30 years.<\/p>\n A secondary coronagraph instrument will advance astronomers\u2019 ability to directly image exoplanets. NASA announced in December that assembly of Roman was completed, kicking off a series of environmental tests before its scheduled launch no earlier than September on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Chance of the Roman Space Telescope launching in 2026: 80 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n The next robotic mission in China\u2019s lunar exploration program is scheduled for launch as soon as August 2026. Chang\u2019e 7 won\u2019t repeat China\u2019s past feat of returning samples from the Moon, but it will have its share of firsts. The lander will attempt to set down in the Moon\u2019s south pole region and deploy a miniature flying probe to search for water ice in cold traps hidden on the floors of dark craters. The target landing site is on the rim of Shackleton Crater, which is within range of cold, unlit regions thought to harbor water ice. If successful, Chang\u2019e 7 will be the first mission to locate and characterize water ice deposits on the lunar surface, beating similar US missions to the Moon by a year or more. Chance of Chang\u2019e 7 launching in 2026: 80 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n Similar to the way we addressed China\u2019s emerging reusable rockets, we decided to group Europe\u2019s new startup launch companies together in a single entry. Three of these European companies say they are targeting the first flight of their small satellite launchers in 2026. One is Isar Aerospace, headquartered near Munich, which launched its first Spectrum rocket in March 2025. The rocket didn\u2019t make it far, but Isar is gearing up for a second orbital launch attempt in the early weeks of 2026.<\/p>\n Trailing behind Isar is Rocket Factory Augsburg, another German company, which appeared to be on track to launch its first RFA One rocket before a fiery accident during a test-firing in 2024. PLD Space of Spain is targeting a first flight of its Miura 5 rocket in 2026, although it seems to be lagging behind Isar Aerospace and Rocket Factory Augsburg. Other serious contenders in the European small launch arena include MaiaSpace of France and Germany\u2019s HyImpulse. Both appear to have delayed their first orbital launch attempts to 2027. Chance of a European launch startup reaching orbit in 2026: 20 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n Relativity\u2019s methane-fueled Aeon R engine is test-fired at NASA\u2019s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.<\/p>\n Credit: Relativity Space is officially targeting the first flight of its heavy-lift Terran R rocket in late 2026, but there is reason for skepticism. At its Long Beach, California, headquarters, Relativity is wrapping up welding on the first stage, second stage, and interstage adapter for Terran R\u2019s first flight, while also installing internal fluid lines to flow propellant to the rocket\u2019s engines. Each stage is expected to undergo structural testing and acceptance testing at NASA\u2019s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi before shipment to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for launch preparations. At Stennis, Relativity is performing acceptance testing on first stage engines and continuing developmental testing on Terran R\u2019s upper stage engine. The company says it has now completed more than 300 hotfire tests of the rocket\u2019s Aeon R booster engine. Construction is still in full swing at the Terran R\u2019s launch pad in Florida. Chance of Terran R\u2019s first launch in 2026: 10 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n Another rocket that is officially scheduled to launch in late 2026 is Eclipse, the new medium-lift launcher under joint development by Firefly Aerospace and Northrop Grumman. On paper, the Eclipse rocket is at about the same stage of development as Relativity\u2019s Terran R. The most recent update from Firefly indicated the company has completed more than 100 hot-fire tests of the Eclipse\u2019s Miranda main engine. Relativity is already test-firing its upper stage engine, while Firefly has not yet achieved that milestone. Chance of Eclipse\u2019s first launch in 2026: 20 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n The first US company to put a spacecraft on the Moon plans to return to the lunar surface in 2026. Intuitive Machines is preparing to launch its third Nova-C lander in the second half of the year, but it hasn\u2019t released a more specific schedule. In the company\u2019s most recent quarterly update, officials said they are targeting May 2026 for a flight readiness review, the last review before shipping the spacecraft to the launch site in Florida.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n Intuitive Machines\u2019 first two landers toppled over after landing but still returned some limited science data to Earth. The next lander will incorporate updated navigation sensors to help guide it to a gentle touchdown in the Reiner Gamma region on the Moon\u2019s near side. A secondary payload will hitch a ride to space on the same launcher with IM-3. The Vestri mission from the asteroid mining company AstroForge will head into the Solar System and attempt to land on a metal-rich asteroid. Chance of IM-3 and Vestri launching in 2026: 50 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n Firefly Aerospace\u2019s Blue Ghost lunar lander completed the first-ever fully successful commercial mission on the Moon\u2019s surface last March. The next Blue Ghost mission is more ambitious, with a landing targeted for the far side of the Moon \u201cas early as 2026,\u201d Firefly says. The next mission actually consists of three spacecraft, with a Blue Ghost lander aiming for the lunar far side, a Firefly-built Elytra orbiter for data relay, and a European Space Agency (ESA) orbiter called Lunar Pathfinder.<\/p>\n This will be the first US mission to attempt a landing on the lunar far side, following two Chinese landers that touched down on the back side of the Moon in 2019 and 2024. Updates from Firefly suggest the company is still in the early stages of manufacturing flight hardware for Blue Ghost Mission 2, while an ESA website shows a target launch schedule no earlier than November 2026. Chance of Blue Ghost Mission 2 launching in 2026: 10 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n Astroscale, a company founded with the purpose of cleaning up space debris, has pivoted to pursuing the more lucrative market of satellite servicing. Many of the key technologies needed for space debris cleanup, such as rendezvous and proximity operations, are also applicable to Astroscale\u2019s new focus. Astroscale launched a satellite last year to approach a derelict Japanese rocket in low-Earth orbit, marking the first time any mission has inspected a piece of space junk.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n Astroscale\u2019s next mission will go for another first: refueling a US military satellite above geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers) above the Earth. Western analysts believe China completed the first geosynchronous satellite refueling mission in 2025, and Astroscale\u2019s contract with the US Space Force will attempt to do the same. The most recent schedule available for this mission shows a launch in mid-2026. Chance of Astroscale\u2019s refueler launching in 2026: 50 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Plato observatory\u2019s 26 cameras.<\/p>\n Credit: The European Space Agency\u2019s next medium-class science mission, named for the Greek philosopher Plato, could become the most prolific planet hunter ever sent into space. Fitted with 26 ultra-sensitive cameras, Plato will search for exoplanets by detecting tiny dips in light as planets pass in front of other stars. Some estimates suggest Plato could discover several thousand to several tens of thousands of extrasolar worlds, doubling or tripling the number of exoplanets in the confirmed archive.<\/p>\n Plato is specifically designed to find Sun-Earth analogs, potentially habitable rocky planets around stars like the Sun. These are expected to be a small percentage of Plato\u2019s total planet haul. Preparations for Plato\u2019s launch appear to be going well. ESA said ground teams finished assembling the observatory in October, and Plato will spend the coming months in vibration, acoustic, and thermal vacuum testing. The mission has at least two months of schedule margin for its official launch date in December 2026. But given the launch is scheduled for so late in the year, there is a chance a minor delay could push the start of Plato\u2019s mission into 2027. Chance of Plato launching in 2026: 60 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n India has lofty ambitions for its space program, including a heavy-lift rocket, a space station in low-Earth orbit, and eventually human landings on the Moon. The precursor to many of these objectives is Gaganyaan, India\u2019s human spaceflight program. Gaganyaan has been in full-scale development since winning approval from the Indian government in 2018. The Gaganyaan program still has government backing, but India has a history of announcing unrealistic schedules for the spacecraft\u2019s initial test flights.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n The first uncrewed orbital test flight of the Gaganyaan capsule has been mere months away for the last five years. The first test flight is currently slated for the first quarter of 2026. India\u2019s space agency has reported some progress in 2025, such as human-rating the capsule\u2019s LVM3 launch vehicle, installation of the spacecraft\u2019s propulsion system, and parachute tests. But it\u2019s a good idea to be skeptical of any of India\u2019s schedules until officials provide more meaningful updates. Chance of Gaganyaan-1 launching in 2026: 30 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n This is an exciting mission, but the most dramatic part of MMX\u2019s journey will come after it arrives at Mars in 2027. MMX will attempt to land on the Martian moon Phobos up to two times and collect samples for a return to Earth. The mission is poised to begin with a launch in October to start its journey to Mars. The launch was previously set for 2024, but Japan\u2019s space agency delayed it due to problems with the country\u2019s new H3 rocket.<\/p>\n The H3 scored a series of successful flights until December, when it failed to deliver a Japanese navigation satellite to orbit. There\u2019s still time for engineers to investigate the failure and return the H3 to flight before MMX\u2019s planetary launch window in October, but the H3 failure introduced some doubt into a scheduled that seemed assured before last month. The fully integrated MMX spacecraft underwent environmental testing throughout 2025. MMX builds on Japan\u2019s successful Hayabusa 2 mission, which brought specimens from an asteroid back to Earth in 2020. If all goes according to plan, samples from Phobos should be back on Earth in 2031. Chance of MMX launching in 2026: 80 percent.<\/strong><\/p>\n Updated at 3:50 pm EST with correct number of Relativity Space engine tests.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last year delivered doses of drama and excitement in the space business, with a record number of launches, breathtaking vistas of other worlds, and a multitude of breakthroughs and setbacks. 2026 is shaping up to be another thrilling year in the cosmos. For the first time in more than 54 years, astronauts are training to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[304,5942,135,25,190,544,316],"class_list":["post-44083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-artemis","tag-artemis-ii","tag-china","tag-launch","tag-nasa","tag-rocket-lab","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44083"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}3. Catch of Starship<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/starshipflight11-presplash.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n SpaceX<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n4. Blue Moon Mark 1<\/h2>\n
5a. Rocket Lab\u2019s Neutron debut (tied with Stoke\u2019s Nova)<\/h2>\n
5b. First flight of Stoke\u2019s Nova rocket (tied with Rocket Lab\u2019s Neutron)<\/h2>\n
7. Debut of China\u2019s Moon ship<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/zq3y1_gridfins.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n LandSpace<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n8. China\u2019s race for a reusable rocket<\/h2>\n
9. Launch of Haven-1<\/h2>\n
10. NASA\u2019s Roman Space Telescope<\/h2>\n
11. China\u2019s Chang\u2019e 7 mission<\/h2>\n
12. The rise of Europe\u2019s commercial launchers<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/aeonr-hotfire.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Relativity Space<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n13. Terran R\u2019s first flight<\/h2>\n
14. Debut of Eclipse<\/h2>\n
15. IM-3 and Vestri<\/h2>\n
16. Blue Ghost Mission 2<\/h2>\n
17. America\u2019s first geosynchronous refueler<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Plato_rotated_upwards_in_the_ESTEC_clean_tent.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n ESA-SJM Photography<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n18. Europe\u2019s Plato mission<\/h2>\n
19. Gaganyaan orbital test flight<\/h2>\n
20. Japan\u2019s Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission<\/h2>\n