This article documents notable spaceflight events during the year 2020.

Overview

Exploration of the Solar System

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

were launched in 2020, including two rovers, two orbiters, and a lander.

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

has launched the Mars 2020 mission, which includes the ''Perseverance'' rover and ''Ingenuity'' helicopter, and will cache samples for eventual return to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) has launched its Tianwen-1 mission, which includes an orbiter, a lander, a small rover and a group of deployable and remote cameras; it is China's first mission to another planet using its own delivery vehicle. Finally, the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...

, in partnership with American universities, has launched the Hope Mars Mission orbiter on a Japanese rocket. In November, China launched

Chang'e 5 Chang'e 5 () was the fifth lunar exploration mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, and China's first lunar sample-return mission. Like its predecessors, the spacecraft is named after the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e. It launched ...

, the first sample-return mission to the Moon since

Luna 24 ''Luna 24'' was a robotic probe of the Soviet Union's Luna programme. The last of the Luna series of spacecraft, the mission of the ''Luna 24'' probe was the third Soviet mission to return lunar soil samples from the Moon (the first two sampl ...

in 1976. Chang'e 5 used the recently developed

Long March 5 Long March 5 (LM-5; zh, s=长征五号 , p=Chángzhēng wǔ hào), or Changzheng 5 (CZ-5), and also by its nickname "''Pang-Wu''" (胖五, "''Fat-Five''"), is a Chinese heavy-lift launch vehicle developed by the China Academy of Launch Vehic ...

heavy-lift rocket. The mission performed the first-ever robotic

lunar orbit rendezvous Lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR) is a process for landing humans on the Moon and returning them to Earth. It was utilized for the Apollo program missions in the 1960s and 1970s. In a LOR mission, a main spacecraft and a smaller lunar lander travel to ...

and returned of

lunar soil Lunar soil is the fine fraction of the regolith found on the surface of the Moon. Its properties can differ significantly from those of terrestrial soil. The physical properties of lunar soil are primarily the result of mechanical disinteg ...

and rock samples on 16 December. NASA's

OSIRIS-REx OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) is a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return mission. The mission's primary goal is to obtain a sample of at least from 101955 Bennu, a carbona ...

mission landed on asteroid

101955 Bennu 101955 Bennu (provisional designation ) is a carbonaceous asteroid in the Apollo group discovered by the LINEAR Project on 11 September 1999. It is a potentially hazardous object that is listed on the Sentry Risk Table and has the highest cumul ...

in October to obtain a surface sample for return to earth. JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission returned samples of

162173 Ryugu 162173 Ryugu, provisional designation , is a near-Earth object and a potentially hazardous asteroid of the Apollo group. It measures approximately in diameter and is a dark object of the rare spectral type Cb, with qualities of both a C-type ...

to Earth on 5 December 2020, with its re-entry vehicle recovered in

Woomera, Australia Woomera, unofficially Woomera village, refers to the domestic area of RAAF Base Woomera. Woomera village has always been a Defence-owned and operated facility. The village is located on the traditional lands of the Kokatha people in the Far ...

. One solar mission was launched:

ESA , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

Solar Orbiter The Solar Orbiter (SolO) is a Sun-observing satellite developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). SolO, designed to obtain detailed measurements of the inner heliosphere and the nascent solar wind, will also perform close observations of th ...

, on 10 February 2020, intended to study the Sun's

heliosphere The heliosphere is the magnetosphere, astrosphere and outermost atmospheric layer of the Sun. It takes the shape of a vast, bubble-like region of space. In plasma physics terms, it is the cavity formed by the Sun in the surrounding interstell ...

Parker Solar Probe The Parker Solar Probe (PSP; previously Solar Probe, Solar Probe Plus or Solar Probe+) is a NASA space probe launched in 2018 with the mission of making observations of the outer corona of the Sun. It will approach to within 9.86 solar radii ...

, launched in 2018, decreased its minimal distance to the Sun further to 14.2 million km.

Human spaceflight

In the United States, SpaceX's

Dragon 2 Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed and manufactured by American aerospace manufacturer SpaceX, primarily for flights to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX has also launched private missions such as Ins ...

spacecraft made its first crewed flight to 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 ( ...

on 31 May 2020 as part of the

Commercial Crew Program The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) provides commercially-operated crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station (ISS) under contract to NASA, conducting crew rotations between the expeditions of the International S ...

, enabling American human orbital spaceflight capability for the first time since the

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 ...

's retirement in 2011. Dragon 2 became the first commercial system to fly humans to Earth orbit. The second crewed Dragon mission and its first operational mission,

Crew-1 SpaceX Crew-1 (was also known as USCV-1 or simply Crew-1) was the first operational crewed flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, and the maiden flight of the Crew Dragon ''Resilience'' spacecraft. It was also the second crewed orbital flight l ...

, launched on 15 November 2020. China conducted an uncrewed flight test of a next generation crewed spacecraft in May 2020, and continues preparations for the 2021 launch of the Tianhe Core Cabin Module of the Chinese Space Station. NASA astronaut Christina Koch set a women's record-breaking 328 days spaceflight ending on 6 February 2020. Scott Kelly still holds the all-time American record with 340 days; Cosmonaut

Valeri Polyakov Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov (russian: Валерий Владимирович Поляков, born Valeri Ivanovich Korshunov, russian: Валерий Иванович Коршунов, 27 April 1942 – 7 September 2022) was a Soviet and Rus ...

holds the all-time spaceflight length record of 437 days. Koch also participated in the first all-female spacewalk with Jessica Meir on 18 October 2019.

Rocket innovation

SpaceX made three atmospheric test flights with prototypes of its fully reusable two-stage-to-orbit vehicle Starship. The trend towards cost reduction in access continued and several rockets made their maiden flights in 2020. Despite the increasing competition the cost of delivering cargo to the

ISS 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 (J ...

went up.

Satellite innovation

SpaceX started operation of its

Starlink Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX, providing satellite Internet access coverage to 45 countries. It also aims for global mobile phone service after 2023. SpaceX started launching Starlink satellites in 2019. As ...

constellation in late 2020. As of 2 December 2020, 955 satellites have been launched and Starlink is in a public beta testing phase.

OneWeb OneWeb (legally Network Access Associates Ltd) is a communications company that aims to build broadband satellite Internet services. The company is headquartered in London, and has offices in Virginia, US and a satellite manufacturing facility ...

planned to start service in 2020 as well, but filed for bankruptcy in March 2020 after 74 satellites were launched. OneWeb emerged from bankruptcy and plans to restart launches in December 2020. The

Mission Extension Vehicle A Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) is a type of spacecraft designed to extend the functional lifetime of another spacecraft through on-orbit satellite servicing. They are 2010s-design small-scale in-space satellite-refueling spacecraft first lau ...

MEV-1 became the first telerobotically-operated spacecraft to service another satellite on-orbit when it completed the first phase of a 5-year mission to extend the life of the

Intelsat 901 Intelsat 901 (IS-901) was the first of nine new Intelsat satellites launched in June 2001 at 18° West, providing Ku-band spot beam coverage for Europe and C-band coverage for the Atlantic Ocean region. It is capable of selectable split upli ...

(I-901) satellite. In February 2020, MEV-1 captured the

communications satellite A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth ...

, which had been moved to graveyard orbit some months before. In April 2020, MEV-1 successfully brought Intelsat-901 it back to position in

geosynchronous A geosynchronous orbit (sometimes abbreviated GSO) is an Earth-centered orbit with an orbital period that matches Earth's rotation on its axis, 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds (one sidereal day). The synchronization of rotation and orbital ...

orbit where it is now expected to operate for another five years. This was a space industry first as satellite servicing had previously been accomplished only with on-orbit human assistance, during the missions to service the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most vers ...

in the early 2000s.

Orbital launches

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