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Our Solar System has 1 star our Sun, 8 Planets, 5 Dwarf Planets, over 3000 Comets, 550,000 asteroids and our nearest star is Proxima Centauri.
Mercury: Closest planet to the Sun. Bepicolombo is scheduled to enter orbit on November 21, 2026.
Venus: Very hot planet. No active spacecraft currently in orbit.
Earth:
– NASA’s Parker Solar Probe closest ever spacecraft to the Sun – mission extended till 2029.
– Artemis III will no longer land astronauts on the Moon. Instead, it is redesigned as a crewed demonstration flight in low Earth orbit (LEO). Launch in 2027.
Moon:
– China’s next lunar mission Chang’e 7 is targeting lunar south pole (near the edge of Shackleton Crater). To launch late 2027.
– SpaceX aiming for crewed moon landings and operational Starship missions perhaps in 2027-2028.
– Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Pathfinder Mission 1 is an uncrewed robotic lunar landing demonstration targeted for launch no earlier than late 2026 or 2027. Destination: Lunar South Pole
– Chandrayaan-4: India’s 4th lunar mission will launch in 2027-2028 (sample-return mission)
Near-Earth Asteroids: OSIRIS-REx extended as OSIRIS-APEX to study asteroid Apophis in 2029.
Mars: 2 moons – Deimos & Phobos.
– NASA Perseverance Mars Rover at present actively exploring Jezero Crater.
– Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission to explore Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos and return a surface sample from Phobos to Earth in 2031. led by JAXA is scheduled to launch on October 20, 2026.
Asteroid Belt: Dawn Spacecraft was the last spacecraft to orbit Dwarf Planet Ceres.
Jupiter: Juno in currently in orbit. Europa Clipper is NASA’s next big mission. Destination: Europa Moon. Planned to enter Jupiter orbit in 2030.
Saturn: Cassini is doing a fantastic job around the ringed planet. Mission ended in Sept ’17. NASA’s Dragonfly Mission is scheduled to launch in July 2028 and arrive at Saturn’s moon Titan in 2034.
Uranus and Neptune – no missions
Pluto: has 5 moons. New Horizons flew past in 2015. New Horizons will be 100 AU from the Sun in 2038.
Vehicles visiting the International Space Station:
Crew: Russian Soyuz Spacecraft, Dragon & Shenzou.
Future Crewed Vehicles: CST-100 & Orion (Artemis), Starship HLS & Gaganyaan.
Cargo: Progress Spacecraft (cargo), SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, Northrop Grumman Cygnus. Future cargo carrier: Dream Chaser.
Famous Rockets: Proton Rocket, Soyuz Rocket, Ariane 6 (Ariane 5 no longer active), Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Atlas V still in use, but United Launch Alliance (ULA) is transitioning its launch manifest to Vulcan Centaur and Electron by Rocket Lab.
Other rockets: Space Launch System – next launch 2027, Starship – next launch 2026, New Glenn – next launch late 2026.
X-37B – USA’s Secret Spaceplane OTV-8 launched August 21, 2025. Return to Earth date unknown!!!
Did You Know?
– NASA James Webb Space Telescope – the largest and most powerful infrared space observatory ever launched. Status: Operational. Located near 2nd Lagrange Point.
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