Upcoming Moon and Lunar Space Events

The Perseids meteor shower peaks under favorable New Moon conditions, creating strong viewing opportunities across much of the world.

Chang'e 7/CE-7 is scheduled to launch in 2026, including an orbiter, a lander, a mini-hopping probe, and a rover. The mission will land in the South Pole regions of the Moon to study lunar surface environment around the South Pole, especially in looking for water ice in lunar soil.

First flight of Blue Origin's Blue Moon MK1 lunar lander, MK1-SN001 "Endurance".

MMX is a Japanese scientific mission to land on Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars, to collect samples before bringing them back to Earth. The mission includes a small French/German rover to explore the surface of Phobos.

A Christmas Eve full Moon occurs near its closest point to Earth, making it appear larger and brighter than average.

2nd lunar lander developed by Firefly Aerospace. The Blue Ghost lander will be of a new two-stage version utilizing an Elytra Dark transfer vehicle to place it and the European Space Agency's Lunar Pathfinder experimental communication satellite into Lunar orbit. The lander will land on the far side of the Moon with 2 NASA payloads: * Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment (LuSEE-Night) * User Terminal (UT)

Demonstration flight of the Astrobotic Griffin lander and its engines, initially contracted for the cancelled NASA VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) mission. The vacated payload spot will now host the FLIP (FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform) lunar rover from Astrolab.

The Lunar Polar Exploration mission (LUPEX) is a robotic lunar mission jointly developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), deploying a lunar rover and lander to explore the south pole region of the Moon. JAXA will provide the under-development H3 launch vehicle and the rover, while ISRO would be responsible for the lander.

Payload is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) nuclear thermal spacecraft.

Plato, for PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars, is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission with 26 cameras to study terrestrial exoplanets in orbits up to the habitable zone of Sun-like stars. Its goal is to measure the sizes of exoplanets and discover exomoons and rings around them, as well as characterise planets' host stars by studying tiny light variations in the starlight it receives.

Artemis III is the second crew mission as part of the Artemis program. Artemis III will send a crew of 4 on a Low Earth Orbit mission, with the Orion rendezvous and dock with one or both commercial lunar landers in development by SpaceX and Blue Origin, performing in-space tests of the docked vehicles, integrated checkout of life support, communications, and propulsion systems, as well as tests of the new Extravehicular Activity (xEVA) suits.

2nd of the National Team’s Blue Moon MK1 lunar lander test missions to validate the necessary technologies for its HLS lunar module. Some of the life support hardware will travel on this mission in preparation for the first crew Blue Moon flight. This mission will also carry NASA’s VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) lunar rover. VIPER is designed to explore the relatively nearby but extreme environment of the Moon in search of ice and other potential resources. This mobile

This is the fourth mission to the Moon for Intuitive Machines with its Nova-C lunar lander. This mission also carries two lunar data relay satellites.

Third Astrobotic lunar mission, details TBA.

The Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) are the foundational elements of NASA's lunar-orbiting space station "Gateway". The PPE is a 60-kilowatt class solar electric propulsion spacecraft that also will provide power, high-speed communications, attitude control and the capability to move the Gateway to different lunar orbits. The HALO is the pressurized living quarters where astronauts who visit the Gateway, often on their way to the Moon, will work. I

First test launch of CASC/CALT’s Long March 10 rocket. Payload is expected to be a prototype of the lunar mission version of the Mengzhou crew spacecraft.

Chandrayaan-4 is a planned lunar sample-return mission of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and will be the fourth mission of its Chandrayaan programme. The mission consist of five modules, namely the DM (Descender Module), AM (Ascender Module), TM (Transfer Module), RM (Re-entry Module) and PM (Propulsion Module). The planned mission life is 1 lunar day and the landing site will be near the Lunar South Pole. The first launch will lift the DM (Descender Module) and AM (Ascender Module)

Chandrayaan-4 is a planned lunar sample-return mission of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and will be the fourth mission of its Chandrayaan programme. The mission consist of five modules, namely the DM (Descender Module), AM (Ascender Module), TM (Transfer Module), RM (Re-entry Module) and PM (Propulsion Module). The planned mission life is 1 lunar day and the landing site will be near the Lunar South Pole. The second launch will lift the TM (Transfer Module), RM (Re-entry Module) and

Luna 26 (also named Luna-Resurs) is a planned lunar polar orbiter, part of the Luna-Glob program, by the Russian space agency Roscosmos. In addition to its scientific role, the Luna 26 orbiter would also function as a telecommunication relay between Earth and Russian landed assets. The scientific payload on board the orbiter is composed of fourteen instruments that will be fabricated by Russia. The payload will study the lunar surface and the environment around the Moon, including the solar win

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

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

Fourth flyby of ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission on its way to the Jovian system.