The year 2010 saw a number of notable events in worldwide

spaceflight Spaceflight (or space flight) is an application of astronautics to fly spacecraft into or through outer space, either with or without humans on board. Most spaceflight is uncrewed and conducted mainly with spacecraft such as satellites in o ...

activities. These included the first test flight of the

SpaceX Dragon American private space transportation company SpaceX has developed and produced several spacecraft named Dragon. The first family member, now referred to as Dragon 1, flew 23 cargo missions to the ISS between 2010 and 2020 before being retired. ...

commercial resupply spacecraft, which is intended to resupply the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

(ISS), and the maiden flights of the

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and pay ...

and

Minotaur IV Minotaur IV, also known as Peacekeeper SLV and OSP-2 PK is an active expendable launch system derived from the LGM-118 Peacekeeper ICBM. It is operated by Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, and made its maiden flight on 22 April 2010, carry ...

rockets. In June 2010,

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

conducted a second

Naro-1 Naro-1 ( ko, 나로호), previously designated the Korea Space Launch Vehicle or KSLV (also KSLV-1), was South Korea's first carrier rocket, and the first South Korean launch vehicle to achieve Earth orbit. On January 30, 2013, the third Naro-1 ...

launch, after the failure of the rocket's maiden flight in 2009; however, the second attempt also failed. The

Kosmos-3M The Kosmos-3M (russian: Космос-3М meaning "''Cosmos''", GRAU index 11K65M) was a Russian space launch vehicle, member of the Kosmos rocket family. It was a liquid-fueled two-stage launch vehicle, first launched in 1967 and with over 42 ...

was retired from service, making its final flight in April. The

Molniya-M The Molniya-M (russian: Молния, meaning "lightning"), designation 8K78M, was a Soviet Union (later Russian) launch vehicle derived from the R-7 Semyorka Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The original 8K78 booster had been the ...

was also retired from service, making its final flight in September.

Overview

The first suborbital launch of 2010 was conducted at 23:00 GMT on 10 January, when a

Black Brant IX The Black Brant is a family of Canadian-designed sounding rockets originally built by Bristol Aerospace, since absorbed by Magellan Aerospace in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Over 800 Black Brants of various versions have been launched since they were firs ...

sounding rocket was launched as a target for the Boeing YAL-1 airborne-laser platform. On 11 January, China conducted an ABM test, involving two missiles. The first orbital launch occurred at 16:12 UTC on 16 January, when a

Long March 3C The Long March 3C (), also known as the Changzheng 3C, CZ-3C and LM-3C, is a Chinese orbital launch vehicle. It is launched from Launch Complex 2 and 3 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC). A three-stage rocket with two strapon liquid ...

launched the Compass-G1

navigation satellite A satellite navigation or satnav system is a system that uses satellites to provide autonomous geo-spatial positioning. It allows satellite navigation devices to determine their location (longitude, latitude, and altitude/elevation) to high pre ...

from the

Xichang Satellite Launch Centre The Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC), also known as the Xichang Space Center, is a spaceport of China. It is located in Zeyuan Town (), approximately northwest of Xichang, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan. The facility beca ...

. Seventy-four orbital launches were attempted in 2010, with seventy being successful and four ending in failure. The last orbital launch was made on 29 December, when an Ariane 5ECA launched the Hispasat-1E and

Koreasat 6 Koreasat 6 is a South Korean communications satellite operated by Koreasat. Koreasat 6 is the second satellite launched by operator KT (Korea Telecom) Corporation which weighed about 2750 kg at the launching time. This satellite orbital posi ...

spacecraft from

Guiana Space Centre The Guiana Space Centre (french: links=no, Centre spatial guyanais; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximatel ...

, near

Kourou Kourou () is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It i ...

Space exploration

Akatsuki, the first Japanese mission to

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

, was launched on an

H-IIA H-IIA (H-2A) is an active expendable launch system operated by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. These liquid fuel rockets have been used to launch satellites into geostationary orbit; lunar o ...

carrier rocket in May. It is intended to look for lightning and volcanoes on Venus. Despite a successful launch, the spacecraft failed to enter

Cytherocentric orbit Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

in December, but it managed to enter the orbit around Venus five years later in December 2015. IKAROS, the first operational solar sail, was launched on the same rocket as Akatsuki. The first Japanese asteroid probe,

Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. ''Hayabusa'', formerly known as MUSES-C fo ...

, returned to Earth on 13 June, having landed on

25143 Itokawa 25143 Itokawa (provisional designation ) is a sub-kilometer near-Earth object of the Apollo group and a potentially hazardous asteroid. It was discovered by the LINEAR program in 1998 and later named after Japanese rocket engineer Hideo Itokawa ...

in an effort to collect samples. It was also the world's first successful

sample return mission A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as lo ...

from an asteroid. On 1 October at 10:59:57 UTC, China successfully launched the Chang'e-2 spacecraft, the nation's second mission to explore the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

. A

rocket was used for the launch, which occurred from the

. The spacecraft conducted a mission similar to that of the earlier Chang'e-1 spacecraft, but with a focus on mapping potential landing sites in preparation for the Chang'e-3 uncrewed lunar lander.

Crewed spaceflight

Seven crewed launches were planned for 2010, with three

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program ...

missions and four

Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз ( Russian and Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Сою́з Сове́тских Социалис ...

flights for

(ISS) crew rotation.

STS-130 STS-130 ( ISS assembly flight 20A) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). 's primary payloads were the ''Tranquility'' module and the ''Cupola'', a robotic control station with six windows around its sides and ...

, using orbiter '' Endeavour'', was the first crewed flight of the year, launching on 8 February with the ''Tranquility'' node and

Cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...

for the ISS. On 5 April, ''

Discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discover ...

'' launched on mission

STS-131 STS-131 ( ISS assembly flight 19A) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). launched on 5 April 2010 at 6:21 am from LC-39A, and landed at 9:08 am on 20 April 2010 on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space ...

, with the ''Leonardo'' MPLM to resupply the outpost.

Soyuz TMA-18 Soyuz TMA-18 was a 2010 Soyuz flight to the International Space Station (ISS). TMA-18 was the 105th crewed flight of a Soyuz spacecraft since the first crewed flight in 1967. Crew Backup crew Launch After a successful launch on 2 Ap ...

launched the

Expedition 23 Expedition 23 (russian: МКС-23) was the 23rd long-duration mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Expedition 23 began with the Soyuz TMA-16 undocking on 18 March 2010. Shortly thereafter cosmonauts Aleksandr Skvortsov and Mikhail Ko ...

crew to the ISS on 2 April; it was scheduled to spend around six months docked to the station to facilitate crew escape in an emergency. Shortly before, Soyuz TMA-16 undocked, transporting former ISS crewmembers back to Earth. On 14 May, Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'' launched on its second-to-last flight,

STS-132 STS-132 ( ISS assembly flight ULF4) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission, during which Space Shuttle ''Atlantis'' docked with the International Space Station on 16 May 2010. STS-132 was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on 14 May 2010. The prima ...

, carrying the ''Rassvet'' module to the ISS. Soyuz TMA-19 launched with

Expedition 24 Expedition 24 was the 24th long-duration mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Expedition 24 initially had two planned spacewalks, one Russian and one American Extra-vehicular Activity (EVA). The U.S. EVA was re-planned and a second ...

on 15 June. Soyuz TMA-01M, the first flight of a modernised Soyuz-TMA spacecraft, launched on 8 October with the

Expedition 25 Expedition 25 was the 25th long-duration mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Expedition 25 began with the Soyuz TMA-18 undocking on 25 September 2010. Three new crewmembers (Scott Kelly, Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka) arriv ...

crew for the ISS. Then, to end the year,

Expedition 26 Expedition 26 was the 26th long-duration mission to the International Space Station. The expedition's first three crew members – one US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts – arrived at the station on board Soyuz TMA-01M on 10 October 2010. ...

launched aboard Soyuz TMA-20 on 15 December.

Launch failures

Four orbital launch failures occurred in 2010, two affecting Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicles, one affecting a

rocket, and one affecting a Proton rocket. The first occurred on 15 April, when the GSLV Mk.II launched on its maiden flight. The rocket's third stage malfunctioned, resulting in the stage, and the

GSAT-4 GSAT-4, also known as HealthSat, was an experimental communication and navigation satellite launched in April 2010 by the Indian Space Research Organisation on the maiden flight of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk.II rocket. It failed ...

satellite, failing to achieve orbit and falling into the sea. The second failure occurred during the second launch of the

rocket, carrying the STSAT-2B spacecraft. The rocket exploded 137 seconds into the flight. The third failure occurred on 5 December, when a

Proton-M The Proton-M, (Протон-М) GRAU index 8K82M or , is an expendable Russian heavy-lift launch vehicle derived from the Soviet-developed Proton. It is built by Khrunichev, and launched from sites 81 and 200 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Ka ...

with the first

Blok DM-03 The Blok DM-03 (russian: Блок ДМ-03 meaning ''Block DM-03''), GRAU index ''11S861-03'', is a Russian upper stage used as an optional fourth stage on the Proton-M heavy-lift rocket. Three have been launched, the first in December 2010; t ...

upper stage failed to inject three

Glonass-M GLONASS-M (russian: link=no, ГЛОНАСС-М), also known as Uragan-M (russian: link=no, Ураган-М) (GRAU index 11F654M given to the first two pilot satellites and 14F113 to the rest) are the second generation of Uragan satellite design u ...

satellites into orbit. Before launch, the Blok DM was fuelled incorrectly, resulting in the rocket being too heavy to reach its parking orbit. The fourth failure occurred on 25 December 2010, when a GSLV Mk.I exploded during the launch of

GSAT-5P GSAT-5P, or GSAT-5 Prime, was an Indian communications satellite which was lost in a launch failure in December 2010. Part of the Indian National Satellite System, it was intended to operate in geosynchronous orbit as a replacement for INSAT-3E. ...

. The rocket was destroyed by

range safety In the field of rocketry, range safety may be assured by a system which is intended to protect people and assets on both the rocket range and downrange in cases when a launch vehicle might endanger them. For a rocket deemed to be ''off course' ...

, after control of the liquid-fuelled boosters attached to the first stage was lost.

Orbital launches

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