Upcoming 2028 Space Events

An United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA) planetary mission to visit main belt asteroids. Named after Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, the spacecraft will fly by six main belt asteroids between 2030 and 2033 before rendezvousing on a seventh, Justitia, in 2034, later deploying a lander.

Flyby of the Trojan asteroid (11351) Leucus by NASA's Lucy mission.

DESTINY+ (Demonstration and Experiment of Space Technology for INterplanetary voYage with Phaethon fLyby and dUst Science) is a planned asteroid exploration mission to 3200 Phaethon, the parent body of the Geminids meteor shower. It will demonstrate further improvements of low cost solar electric propulsion in deep space and innovative light-weight solar array panel technology. The spacecraft will carry 3 science instruments: * DESTINY Dust Analyzer (DDA) * Telescopic Camera for Phaethon (TCAP)

As part of its mission extension, JAXA's Hayabusa2 spacecraft will fly by Earth on its way to asteroid 1998 KY26.

NASA's Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission is designed to help advance planetary defense efforts to discover and characterize most of the potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit. These are collectively known as near-earth objects, or NEOs. NEO Surveyor consists of a single scientific instrument: a 50 centimeter (nearly 20 inch) diameter telescope that operates in two heat-sensing infrared wavelengths. It will be capable of detecting bot

Artemis IV is planned to be the first human lunar landing mission since the Apollo Program.

Dragonfly is NASA's 4th New Frontiers program mission that will send a robotic rotorcraft to fly within the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan to sample materials and determine surface composition in different geologic settings, advancing humanity's search for the building blocks of life. The craft is a large quadcopter with double rotors with mass of about 875 kg, featuring rotors of 1.35 m in diameter. It can fly through several kilometers within an hour and will perform 1 flight per Titan day

ExoMars 2028 is a second mission of two-part European Space Agency astrobiology project to search for evidence of life on Mars. The primary objective is to land the rover at a site with high potential for finding well-preserved organic material, particularly from the very early history of the planet. The rover is expected to travel several kilometers during its mission. The European rover will be the first mission to combine the capability to move across the surface and to study Mars at depth

Flyby of the Trojan asteroid (21900) Orus by NASA's Lucy mission.

Artemis V is planned to be the second human lunar landing mission since the Apollo Program.

Luna 27 (also named Luna-Resurs 1) is a planned lunar lander mission by Roscosmos to send a lander to the South Pole–Aitken basin, an area on the far side of the Moon. The purpose is to prospect for minerals, volatiles (nitrogen, water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen, methane and sulfur dioxide, and lunar water ice in permanently shadowed areas of the Moon and investigate the potential use of these natural lunar resources. On the long term, Russia considers building a crewed base on the Moon

Starliner-5 is the fifth crewed operational flight of a Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

Starliner-6 is the sixth crewed operational flight of a Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.