Produced by: Tarun Mishra Designed by: Mohsin Shaikh
The year 2023 was big for space enthusiasts globally, marked by notable achievements such as Chandrayaan-3's lunar landing, commercial space flights by Virgin Galactic, and the retrieval of samples from Asteroid Bennu. Here is a list of the top 7 human achievements in space exploration this year as 2023 draws to a close
India achieved a significant milestone in space exploration when Indian Space Research Agency’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon's surface on August 23, joining a select group of nations with lunar landing capabilities. This marked the second successful landing this century, following China's achievement
After a seven-year journey, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission concluded with the safe landing of its capsule in the Utah desert on September 24. The capsule carried approximately 250 grams of material collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, providing scientists with valuable insights into these celestial bodies. Bennu is an asteroid which has the potential to collide with Earth in future
The European Space Agency's JUICE mission, launched in April 2023, is currently on an eight-year voyage to explore Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, three of Jupiter's intriguing moons. Scientists are particularly interested in these moons due to the potential of hidden liquid oceans beneath their icy surfaces
NASA's Psyche mission, originally facing setbacks due to software testing issues, successfully got back on track in later half of the year. The mission will focus on studying the metallic main-belt asteroid Psyche, addressed previous challenges and progressed toward its scientific objectives
After overcoming developmental delays and a fatal accident in 2014, Virgin Galactic achieved a milestone with the commencement of commercial flights in June 2023. The company successfully conducted monthly space flights till November, offering customers the long-awaited experience of suborbital space travel
The James Webb Space Telescope, launched in late 2021, made groundbreaking discoveries in 2023. Notably, it detected the earliest-known carbon dust in a galaxy. It also provided astronomers with unprecedented insights into the formation of rocky alien worlds and their water content
The TROPICS mission, involving the development of a 12-channel passive microwave radiometer, successfully overcame challenges in 2023 after a previous rocket failure in 2022. Launched on two Rocket Lab Electrons in May, the mission was commissioned in time for the 2023 hurricane season, showcasing its resilience in weather monitoring
The year 2024 will start with a collaborative mission between ISRO and NASA, known as the NISAR mission. Japan will try to attempt its first successful landing on the moon. The year could also witness substantial progress in NASA’s Artemis mission of landing humans on Moon and ISRO’s Gaganyaan mission of sending Indians in Earth’s orbit for the first time