In 2026, astronauts will travel around the Moon for the first time since the Apollo era, powerful new space telescopes will prepare to survey billions of galaxies, and multiple nations will launch missions aimed at finding habitable worlds, water on the Moon and clues to how our solar system formed.
Together, these launches will mark a turning point in how humanity studies the universe – and how nations cooperate and compete beyond Earth. Coming from one of the world’s largest astrophysical research institutes, I can tell you, the anticipation across the global space science community is electric.
Mapping the cosmos at unprecedented scales
Several of the most ambitious missions slated for launch in 2026 share a common goal: to map the universe on the largest possible scales and reveal how planets, galaxies and the largest cosmic structures evolved over billions of years.
The centrepiece of this effort is NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Construction completed on the Roman telescope in December at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and if all goes well, it could launch as early as fall 2026.
What makes Roman more special than NASA’s other flagship space telescopes is not just what it will see, but how much of the sky it can see at once. Its 300-megapixel camera can capture regions of sky about 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope’s field of view while maintaining comparable sharpness – like switching from studying individual tiles to surveying the entire mosaic at once.
During its five-year primary mission, Roman is expected to discover more than 100,000 distant exoplanets, map billions of galaxies strewn across cosmic time and help scientists probe dark matter and dark energy – the invisible scaffolding and mysterious forces that together account for 95% of the cosmos.
Roman also carries a coronagraph, a pathfinder instrument that can block out a star’s blinding light to directly photograph planets orbiting around it. The technology could pave the way for future missions, like NASA’s planned Habitable Worlds Observatory, capable of searching for signs of life on Earth-like worlds.
Over in Europe, the European Space Agency’s PLATO mission, short for PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars mission, is scheduled to launch in December 2026 aboard Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket. PLATO will monitor about 200,000 stars using an array of 26 cameras, searching for small, rocky planets in their stars’ habitable zones, while also determining the stars’ ages.
For China, 2026 is expected to mark a milestone of a different kind: the launch of its first large flagship space telescope dedicated to astrophysics. The Xuntian space telescope, also known as the Chinese space station telescope, is currently expected to launch in late 2026. Xuntian will survey enormous regions of the sky with image quality comparable to Hubble’s, but with a field of view more than 300 times larger.
Like NASA’s Roman Space Telescope, Xuntian is designed to tackle some of modern cosmology’s biggest questions. It will hunt for dark matter and dark energy, survey billions of galaxies and trace how cosmic structure evolved over time. Uniquely, Xuntian will co-orbit with China’s Tiangong space station, allowing astronauts to service and upgrade it and, potentially, extending its life for decades.
Together with the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory on the ground, which will repeatedly scan the entire southern sky to capture how the universe changes over time, the Roman, PLATO and Xuntian space telescopes will study the cosmos not just as it is but as it evolves.
Global milestones in human spaceflight
While robotic observatories quietly expand our view of the cosmos, 2026 will also mark a major step forward for human spaceflight.
NASA’s Artemis II mission, now readying for launch as early as April 2026, will send four astronauts on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back. It will be the first time humans have travelled beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972.
Across the globe, India is preparing to reach a similarly historic milestone. Through its Gaganyaan program, the Indian Space Research Organisation is planning a series of uncrewed test flights in 2026 as it works toward sending astronauts to space. If that happens, India would become only the fourth nation to achieve human spaceflight on its own – a significant technological and symbolic achievement.
Meanwhile, China will continue regular crewed flights to its Tiangong space station in 2026, part of a broader effort to build the experience, infrastructure and technologies needed for its planned human missions to the Moon later in the decade.
In parallel, NASA is relying increasingly on commercial spacecraft to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, freeing the agency to focus its own human spaceflight efforts on deep-space missions beyond Earth.
Together, Artemis II, Gaganyaan and China’s ongoing crewed space station missions reflect a renewed global push toward human exploration beyond Earth orbit – one in which governments and commercial partners alike are laying the groundwork for longer missions and a sustained human presence in space.
The origin and geology of the Moon and Mars
Another set of 2026 missions focuses on a more grounded question: how rocky worlds – and the resources they contain – came to be.
Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration mission, slated to launch in late 2026, will travel to Mars, spend three years studying both of its small, potato-shaped moons – Phobos and Deimos – and collect a surface sample from Phobos to bring back to Earth by 2031.
Scientists still debate whether these moons originated as captured asteroids or debris from an ancient giant impact with Mars. Returning pristine material from Phobos could finally settle that question and reshape our understanding of how the inner solar system evolved.
Read More: Superheavy-lift rockets like SpaceX’s Starship could transform astronomy by making space telescopes cheaper
China’s Chang’e 7 mission, expected to launch in mid-2026, will head to the Moon’s south pole, a region of intense scientific and strategic interest. The mission includes an orbiter, lander, rover and a small flying “hopper” designed to leap into permanently shadowed craters, where sunlight never reaches. These craters are thought to harbour water ice, a resource that could one day support astronauts or be converted into rocket fuel for deeper-space missions.
The Chinese and Japanese missions both highlight how planetary science and exploration are becoming increasingly intertwined, as understanding the geology of nearby worlds also informs future human activity.
It’s the Sun’s solar system, we’re just living in it
In 2025, powerful solar storms forced airlines to reroute and ground flights, disrupted radio communications and pushed vivid auroras far beyond their usual polar haunts – lighting up skies as far south as Florida. These events are reminders that space is not a distant abstraction: Activity on the Sun can have immediate consequences here on Earth.
Not all of 2026’s major missions look outward into deep space. Some are focused on understanding the dynamic space environment that surrounds our own planet.
In a notable example of international cooperation, the solar wind magnetosphere ionosphere link explorer, SMILE – a joint mission between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences – is scheduled for launch in spring 2026.
SMILE will provide the first global images of how Earth’s magnetic field responds to the constant stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun. That interaction drives space weather, including solar storms that can disrupt satellites, navigation systems, power grids and communications.
Understanding those interactions is critical not only for protecting modern infrastructure on Earth but also for safeguarding astronauts and spacecraft operating beyond the planet’s protective magnetic shield.
At a time of growing geopolitical tension in space, the mission also stands out as a rare and consequential example of sustained scientific cooperation between Europe and China.
The global stakes
These missions unfold against a complex geopolitical backdrop. The United States and China are both racing to return humans to the Moon by the end of the decade.
Yet for all the competition, space science remains profoundly collaborative. Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration mission carries instruments from NASA, ESA and France. International teams share data, expertise and the sheer wonder of discovery. The universe, after all, belongs to no one nation.
Having spent my career studying the universe, I see 2026 as a year that reflects both the rivalries and the shared ambitions of space exploration today. Competition is real, but so is cooperation at a scale that would have been hard to imagine a generation ago. From the search for habitable worlds around distant stars to plans for returning humans to the Moon, the work is global – and the sky is shared by all.
- is a Federal Astrophysicist and External Relations Lead at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Smithsonian Institution
- This article first appeared in The Conversation
