In 2023, notable achievements were marked in various space programs, encompassing missions to Jupiter's moons and the asteroid Psyche, deployment of space telescopes to Lagrange points, and lunar exploration endeavors. Orbital launches reached unprecedented levels during this period.
April 14 witnessed the launch of the JUICE interplanetary station (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) by the European Space Agency (ESA). JUICE is set to conduct an in-depth examination of Jupiter and its icy moons—Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa—with the mission of investigating potential signs of life. Anticipated to reach Jupiter in 2031, the spacecraft faces a challenging journey involving gravitational maneuvers, including flybys of the Earth-Moon system in August 2024, Venus in August 2025, a second Earth flyby in September 2026, and a final Earth flyby in January 2029. JUICE is projected to enter Ganymede's orbit in December 2034 for detailed studies before being intentionally directed to impact Ganymede in late 2035 upon depleting its fuel.
On July 1, the Euclid Space Telescope was launched by the European Space Agency, finding its position in a halo orbit around the second Lagrange point L2, approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. Over six years, Euclid will measure the shapes of galaxies at varying distances, investigating the correlation between distance and redshift to enhance our understanding of dark energy and dark matter. The telescope's optical and infrared instruments provided captivating full-color images of space on November 7, 2023.
September 2 marked the launch of the Aditya-L1 coronographic spacecraft by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), dedicated to observing the Sun. Aditya-L1 is positioned in a halo orbit around the L1 Lagrange point, where it will study the solar atmosphere, magnetic storms, and their impact on Earth's surroundings, with an expected arrival at its designated orbit on January 6, 2024.
NASA, on October 13, initiated the Psyche mission targeting the large metallic asteroid (16) Psyche, set to approach it in 2029. Psyche, equipped with Hall effect engines and solar-powered ion engines, will orbit the asteroid from August 2029 to the end of 2031, exploring the potential iron-nickel composition and shedding light on the asteroid's origin as a possible exposed iron core of a protoplanet.
Simultaneously, four lunar landing attempts occurred in 2023. ISRO's Chandrayaan-3, launched on July 14, successfully landed near the Moon's south pole on August 23, making India the fourth country to achieve a successful lunar landing, and the first to do so in the southern hemisphere. Despite limitations in the lunar rover's operational period, it provided valuable insights, including the discovery of sulfur and unexpected surface temperatures. Additionally, Indian scientists successfully transferred the orbital module from lunar orbit to near-Earth orbit, potentially facilitating future lunar soil sample deliveries to Earth.
On September 6, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched the XRISM X-ray Space Telescope and the SLIM lunar Lander. XRISM entered orbit successfully, and the lunar module is expected to land on the Moon on January 19, 2024. SLIM aims to demonstrate precise lunar landings, with success making Japan the fifth country to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.
Lastly, on April 25, Hakuto-R Mission 1, a private Japanese spacecraft carrying the UAE's Rashid lunar rover and the Japanese SORA-Q transformable lunar robot, encountered communication loss during its attempted lunar landing in the last
