Five space exploration missions to look out for in 2023

2023 is set to be another busy year. Here are five of the most exciting missions to watch out for.

(1) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer

In April, the European Space Agency (ESA) is set to launch the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice), in what will be Europe’s first dedicated robotic mission to Jupiter.
Juice is due to reach the planet in July 2031 after performing an incredible flight path through the Solar System.
The mission will enter into orbit around Jupiter and perform numerous flybys of its large icy moons: Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
After four years of moon flybys, Juice will then enter into orbit around Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar System — becoming the first spacecraft ever to reach orbit around the moon of another planet.
The icy moons of Jupiter are interesting as they are all believed to host oceans of liquid water beneath their frozen surfaces.
Europa, in particular, is regarded as one of the most likely abodes in the Solar System for extra-terrestrial life.

Starship will be the largest spacecraft capable of carrying humans from Earth to destinations in space (the International Space Station is larger, but it was assembled in space).
It will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever to fly, capable of lifting 100 tonnes of cargo to low Earth orbit.
Starship is the collective name for a two-component system consisting of the Starship spacecraft (which carries the crew and cargo) and the Super Heavy rocket.
The rocket component will lift Starship to some 65km altitude before separating and returning to Earth in a controlled landing.
The upper Starship component will then use its own engines to push itself the rest of the way to orbit.

The long-awaited dearMoon project, which will take members of the public on a six-day trip around the Moon and back, is due for launch on Starship and was originally planned for 2023.
It will be the first true deep space tourism launch.
This mission will mark a big change in the way we think about space, as previously only astronauts picked using incredibly stringent criteria have been able to go into deep space.
The success or failure of the dearMoon mission could affect whether deep space tourism becomes the next big thing, or it is relegated back to being a pipe-dream.

The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security — Regolith Explorer, mercifully more commonly known as OSIRIS-REx, is a NASA mission to near-Earth asteroid Bennu.
A key goal of this robotic mission was to acquire samples of Bennu and return them to Earth for analysis.
OSIRIS-REx is now fast returning to Earth with up to a kilogram of precious asteroid samples stored aboard.
If all goes well, the capsule will detach from the spacecraft, enter the Earth’s atmosphere and parachute to a soft landing in the deserts of Utah.
Asteroid sample return has only been achieved once before, by the Japanese Space Agency’s Hayabusa 2 mission in 2020.
Bennu is an approximately diamond-shaped world just half a kilometre in size, but has many interesting characteristics.
Some of the minerals detected within it have been altered by water, implying that Bennu’s ancient parent body possessed liquid water.
It also has an abundance of precious metals, including gold and platinum.
It is however classed as a potentially hazardous object with a (very) small possibility of Earth impact in the next century.

Skyroot Aerospace, which successfully launched its Vikram-S rocket in November 2022, is soon to become the first private Indian company to launch a satellite.
The rocket itself reached 90km in altitude, a distance that would need to be improved upon to get a constellation of satellites into orbit.
Skyroot’s first satellite launch is planned for 2023, with a goal of undercutting the cost of private space launch rivals by producing its 3D-printed rockets in a matter of days.
If successful, this could also provide a route for cheaper launches of scientific missions, enabling a faster rate of research.

With many bold advances and launches due in 2023, we are entering a new phase akin to the “Golden era” of space launches in the 1960s and ’70s.