As space innovation accelerates, 2024 promises to be a year full of exciting rocket launches, satellite technology improvements and space exploration breakthroughs. Mark your calendars for these significant upcoming launches:
If you’re interested in the increasingly vital space domain, you won’t want to miss exclusive insights at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Space Summit on March 21. Government and industry space experts and officials will gather to discuss what’s on the horizon for space developments, threats, challenges and opportunities in 2024 and beyond. Register here.
ULA’s Vulcan Centaur
United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture, is preparing to launch its new Vulcan rocket on Jan. 8. The rocket, which runs on Blue Origin-built engines, will carry the Peregrine lunar lander, built by Astrobotic, to the moon. The lander is expected to demonstrate the ability to deliver payloads to the moon’s surface in support of NASA’s Artemis program.
If successful, the Vulcan Centaur launch will become the first private mission to touch down on the moon’s surface.
Artemis II
Artemis is NASA’s historic mission to send humans back to the moon for the first time in decades. Following a successful uncrewed test flight in 2022, NASA is now planning to send a crew of four astronauts on its moon-orbiting Artemis II mission as early as November 2024.
NASA initiated the first simulated Artemis II launch at the Kennedy Space Center in July of 2023. More recently, in September 2023, Northrop Grumman delivered ten booster motor segments that will be built into NASA’s Space Launch System rocket, signifying an important milestone in the preparations for the Artemis II launch.
The eight day lunar mission will be conducted using an Orion spacecraft and a Space Launch System rocket. If the Artemis II flyby is successful, the next iteration of the mission, Artemis III, will be the first American crewed lunar landing since 1972.
Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture Tranche 1
The Space Development Agency is making progress on its layered network of military satellites known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. In 2023, SDA launched 23 Tranche 0 demonstration satellites, and the remaining four missile-tracking satellites in Tranche 0 are expected to launch in early 2024.
SDA Director Dr. Derek Tournear, a Wash100 Award winner, said the agency will begin an 11-month launch campaign in September 2024 for its 161 Tranche 1 data transport satellites. This tranche includes 126 Link 16 data relay satellites built by York Space Systems, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman as well as 35 missile-tracking sensor satellites built by L3Harris Technologies, Northrop and RTX.
Hear Dr. Tournear’s keynote speech at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Space Summit on March 21! Register here to save your seat at this can’t-miss event.
Europa Clipper
In addition to Artemis II, NASA is planning to launch a mission that will explore Jupiter’s ice-covered moon, Europa, and allow scientists to investigate the moon’s potential to support life. The Europa Clipper will make nearly 50 close flybys of Jupiter’s moon to study its environment and geology.
The mission will be conducted on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket and could launch as soon as October 2024.
