2023 in spaceflight


2023 in spaceflight


The year 2023 saw rapid growth and significant technical achievements in spaceflight. For the third year in a row, new world records were set for both orbital launch attempts (223) and successful orbital launches (211). The growth in orbital launch cadence can in large part be attributed to SpaceX, as they increased their number of launches from 61 in 2022 to 98 in 2023. The deployment of the Starlink satellite megaconstellation was a major contributing factor to this increase over previous years. This year also featured numerous maiden launches of new launch vehicles. In particular, SSLV, Qaem 100, Tianlong-2, Chollima-1,and Zhuque-2 performed their first successful orbital launch, while SpaceX's Starship – the world's largest rocket – launched two times during its development stage: IFT-1 and IFT-2.

In terms of national-level scientific space missions, ISRO successfully soft-landed Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon, Roscosmos's Luna 25 failed to land on the Moon, NASA's OSIRIS-REx returned an asteroid sample from 101955 Bennu back to Earth and NASA's Lucy probe performed a flyby of asteroid 152830 Dinkinesh. This year also saw the launch of ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer probe, JAXA's XRISM space telescope, JAXA's SLIM lunar lander, and NASA's Psyche asteroid probe.

Two crewed space stations, the International Space Station (ISS) and Tiangong, were in operation in 2023. In terms of crewed missions, the ISS saw Expedition 68, 69, and 70, while Tiangong saw Shenzhou 15, 16, and 17. The ISS also briefly hosted crews of Axiom Mission 2, a private spaceflight mission. Notably, because Soyuz MS-22 was afflicted by a coolant leak, Soyuz MS-23 was launched as a replacement crew return vehicle.

This year also saw the first time citizens of Antigua and Barbuda and Pakistan crossed the 50 mi (80 km) altitude mark, which is the United States's definition of outer space. They did so in a suborbital launch organized by Virgin Galactic, however, they did not managed to cross the Kármán line (100 km or 62 mi). Albania, Djibouti, Ireland, Oman and Vatican City (on behalf of Italy) have their own satellite in orbit for the first time in 2023.

Overview

Astronomy and Astrophysics

European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid satellite was launched towards Sun-Earth L2 point by a Falcon 9 rocket on July 1. The satellite observes distant galaxies to study dark matter and dark energy.

ISRO launched Aditya-L1 to study the Sun on September 2.

JAXA launched XRISM (X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) X-ray space telescope and SLIM lunar lander on September 6.

Exploration of the Solar System

On 14 April, ESA launched the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft to explore Jupiter and its large ice-covered moons following an eight-year transit.

The OSIRIS-REx mission returned to Earth on 24 September with samples collected from asteroid Bennu.

NASA launched the Psyche spacecraft on 13 October 2023, an orbiter mission that will explore the origin of planetary cores by studying the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche, on a Falcon Heavy launch vehicle.

On November 1, NASA's Lucy probe performed a flyby of asteroid 152830 Dinkinesh, revealing it to be a binary pair.

Lunar exploration

ISRO launched its third lunar mission Chandrayaan-3 on 14 July 2023 at 9:05 UTC; it consisted of lander, rover and a propulsion module, and successfully landed in the south pole region of the Moon on 23 August 2023. For technology demonstration experiments, hop experiment on the Vikram Lander was conducted and the Propulsion Module (PM) of Chandrayaan-3 was moved from an orbit around Moon to an orbit around Earth.

Russian lunar lander Luna 25 was launched on 10 August 2023, 23:10 UTC, atop a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. It is the first Russian attempt to land a spacecraft on the Moon since the Soviet lander Luna 24 in 1974. It crashed on the Moon on 19 August after technical glitches.

JAXA launched SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) lunar lander (carrying two mini rovers) and a space telescope (XRISM) on 6 September. SLIM entered orbit around the Moon on 25 December (UTC).

Human spaceflight

A new record for the number of people in space at the same time, though not necessarily all in orbit, was reached on 25 May 2023. 20 people were in space simultaneously, with eleven people aboard the ISS, three on Tiangong, and six on VSS Unity. Five days later on 30 May, the record for the number of people in orbit simultaneously was broken as well, with 17 people in orbit at once; 6 people on Tiangong from Shenzhou 15 and 16, 7 people from Expedition 69 on the ISS as well 4 crew members from Axiom-2 also on the ISS.

Private Human Spaceflight and Tourism

Axiom Mission 2 private crew mission to the International Space Station was launched on 21 May 2023 on a SpaceX Falcon 9. The mission ended with the successful return of the crew to Earth on 31 May 2023.

Virgin Galactic Unity 25 mission took place 25 May 2023. This was the first mission for Virgin Galactic's suborbital spaceplane VSS Unity since 2021. On 29 June 2023, Virgin Galactic flew their first commercial suborbital spaceflight mission, Galactic 01, with their suborbital spaceplane VSS Unity. Onboard Unity were three employees of the company and three passengers (whose flight had been paid from outside the company) from the Italian Air Force and Italy’s National Research Council. On 10 August Virgin Galactic flew their Galactic 02 mission, the first VSS Unity flight carrying a space tourist. Galactic 03 mission flew on 8 September, followed by Galactic 04 on 6 October and Galactic 05 on 2 November 2023. All of these crewed suborbital missions were flown by Unity.

Rocket innovation

On 10 January, ABL Space Systems' RS1 had its debut flight, but failed to reach orbit.

On 10 February, SSLV rocket developed by ISRO had its first successful orbital launch.

On 4 March, IRGC's Qaem 100 performed its orbital maiden flight following a successful suborbital test flight in 2022. However the vehicle, which was carrying the Nahid-1 satellite, failed to put the payload in orbit.

On 7 March, JAXA/MHI H3's maiden flight was terminated in-flight due to failure to ignite the second stage, resulting in the loss of the ALOS-3 land observation satellite.

On 23 March, Relativity Space's Terran 1 had its debut flight. The flight goal, which was to demonstrate the viability of 3D printing for major structural components of a rocket, was achieved when Terran 1 passed max q and continued to perform nominally. However, after stage separation, the second stage failed to ignite, ending the mission. Following the failed launch, Relativity retired the rocket in favor of developing the much larger, reusable Terran R vehicle.

On 2 April, Space Pioneer's Tianlong-2 had its debut flight, and successfully reached orbit. It was the first successful launch of a Chinese privately-funded liquid-fueled rocket. Space Pioneer is the first private company to reach orbit on its first attempt using a fully liquid fueled rocket.

On 20 April, SpaceX's Starship had its first test flight, aiming to complete about three-quarters of an orbit and landing in the Pacific Ocean northwest of Kauai. Several engines on the booster failed during the flight and the flight termination system was triggered, ending the flight before stage separation.

On 22 April, Evolution Space completed its first suborbital space flight test with the Gold Chain Cowboy solid-fueled rocket.

On 30 May, the North Korean Chollima-1 made its first orbital launch attempt, carrying the military reconnaissance satellite Malligyong-1. However, the launch failed to achieve orbit when the second stage ignited too early in the mission. The launch vehicle crashed into the Yellow Sea.

On 12 July, LandSpace's Zhuque-2 rocket, in its second flight, became the world's first methane-fuelled rocket to successfully reach orbit.

On 5 September, the sea-launched version of the Ceres-1 launch vehicle, designated Ceres-1S, made its successful debut.

On 15 September, the Firefly Alpha made its successful flight for a tactically responsive mission for the U.S. Space Force.

On November 18, 2023, SpaceX Starship attempted its second flight test, becoming the heaviest rocket to enter space, although the first stage exploded shortly after separation, while the second stage was lost nearly eight minutes after launch. In the same month, they completed the construction of crew access tower at CCSFS SLC-40 launch pad, where they completed 50 launches alone on that launch pad. They also completed 250th Falcon booster landing.

In December 2023, USA broke the world record of most launches by a nation (108), held by Soviet Union in 1982. In the same month, they completed 200th successful Falcon booster autonomous spaceport droneship landing.

Satellite technology

On January 27, ESA reported the successful demonstration of a braking sail-based satellite deorbiter, ADEO, which could be used by space debris mitigation measures.

In April, Chinese media first reported on tests of flexible organic solar cells on balloons in the 35 km stratosphere.

On 29 July a Falcon Heavy rocket launched the Jupiter-3 (EchoStar-24) communications satellite to geosynchronous orbit. With a mass of over 9 tonnes, EchoStar's Jupiter-3 is the heaviest geostationary satellite ever launched.

On 1 June, Caltech reported the first successful demonstration of solar energy from space via its SSPD-1 spacecraft.

Orbital launches

Deep-space rendezvous

Extravehicular activities (EVAs)

Space debris events

Orbital launch statistics

By country

For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of orbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. As an example, Electron launches from Mahia in New Zealand are counted under USA.

By rocket

By family

By type

By configuration

By spaceport

By orbit

Suborbital launch statistics

By country

For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of suborbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. Flights intended to fly below 80 km (50 mi) are omitted.

Notes

References

External links


Text submitted to CC-BY-SA license. Source: 2023 in spaceflight by Wikipedia (Historical)



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