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man have been explore space for almost 70 eld . But if we call up all that experience would make it any easier for us to venture beyond our planet , then 2024 has put that estimate to perch .
While there have been some major achievement in place geographic expedition this year , includingChinareturning farside lunar samples to Earth for the first fourth dimension , arecord - breaking student - made rocketand thefirst - ever secret spacewalk , there have also been some major bungle from NASA , SpaceX and other brass from across the globe .
Boeing’s faulty Starliner capsule returned to Earth from the ISS without any passengers in September.
From astronauts stranded on board a leaky space post and crashlanding moon landers to a tumbling solar sail , here are 10 of the biggest space mischance of 2024 .
Related : NASA delays historic Artemis mission — yet again
Astronauts stranded in space
The most high - profile and long - running space bad luck chronicle in 2024 was probably the saga of Boeing ’s blabbermouthed Starliner capsule , whichstranded NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williamson instrument panel theInternational Space Station(ISS ) in June .
The bad abridgment , which had multiple proceeds , eventuallyreturned to Earth without passengersin September , after several delays asNASA shinny to line up a solution . Some expert claimed that the astronautswould have been perfectly safeon board the returning vessel . However , this was disputed by other experts .
The pair were originally supposed to spend just a calendar week in space , but by the end of 2024 they will have expend 209 Day on the ISS and arenot scheduled to return until at least March 2025 .
Boeing’s faulty Starliner capsule returned to Earth from the ISS without any passengers in September.
ISS leak and ‘areas of concern’
If Wilmore and Williams ' clip on card the ISS was not already dramatic enough , in September , a novel report highlight the importunity of a long - run passing water aboard the place place andidentified 50 extra " areas of concern"related to it .
The outflow was first identified in Russia ’s section of the ISS in 2019 and has since breed several other crevice in that part of the station . The news leak and lead cracks have been temporarily treated with " sealant and while " but are still letting some air scat into space .
The Modern paper warned that a permanent kettle of fish is demand to avoid a cascade of other issues and a potential " ruinous failure " in the next few years . However , the Russian space agency Roscosmos disagrees about the severity of the issuance and isso far reject to fix it , likely because the ISS isscheduled to be demolished in 2030 .
A new report highlighted the dangers of a leak in the Russian section of the ISS that has been ongoing since 2019.
Florida house hit by space junk
The final and potentially most alarming ISS mishap of greenback this year was when a mysterious firearm of space junk fall back to Earth in March andcrashed through the roof of a family house in Naples , Florida .
NASAlater admitted that the fall debris , which was around 4 inches ( 10 centimeters ) across , was the charred remains of apallet of batteries force out from the ISS in 2021 . The debris was expected to entirely burn up in the atmosphere , but this did not happen .
In June , the home ’s ownersfiled a case against NASA , asking the agency to pay off up to $ 80,000 in damages . This case has not been resolved yet .
The space junk that hit the house was later confirmed to be the remains of a pallet of batteries discarded in 2021.
Moon lander fails
While China ’s lunar sample return military mission has been a immense winner this year , other agencies and individual organizations have had less success in sending spacecraft to the lunar month in 2024 .
First , in January , Astrobiotic Technology ’s Peregrine spacecraft , which was carrying the first private lunar lander to the lunation , malfunctioned shortly after takeoffandbecame strand in spacebefore eventually falling back toward our planet andburning up in our ambiance . This launch had already been hard criticized before takeoff because the ballistic capsule wasattempting to carry human remains to the lunation .
after the same calendar month , Japansuccessfully launched and landedits Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon ( SLIM ) , also known as the " synodic month sniper " thanks to its incredibly accurate sailing system . However , the spacecraft did n’t live up to its nickname andended up shoot down upside down . Despite this , the lander managed to survive for several months despite its solar panels being manoeuver at the priming .
Intuitive Machine’s Odysseus lander faceplanted on the lunar surface shortly after this photo was taken on Feb. 22.
In February , another private lander , Odysseus , completed its trip to the moon and became the first U.S. ballistic capsule totouch down on the lunar surface in more than 50 year . However , the spacecraft , built by Intuitive Machines , also did n’t quite stick the landing place andended up faceplanting in the dust , shortly before yield to the bitter common cold of the lunar night .
Tumbling solar sail
In August , attention turn to NASA ’s newfangled Advanced Composite Solar Sail System ( ACS3 ) , which ultimately unfurl its monolithic 860 - hearty - groundwork ( 80 square meter ) foil sail after launching into space in April . However , the expectant reveal did n’t exactly go to design .
lively Science was the first electrical outlet to report that initial observationssuggested the solar cruise was uncontrollably break down end over endin field around Earth , which was later confirm by thefirst photos of the giant silver sail . However , delegation scientists claimed this had been anticipate and said the issue would be break up shortly .
But in October , Live Science ’s sister siteSpace.com revealedthat the main bonanza hold ACS3 ’s sail had bent and the spacecraft was still tumbling . It is unclear if this problem has been rectified .
NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) finally unfurled its massive foil sail on Aug. 26. But things didn’t go to plan.
Mars robots take a hit
In January , NASA ’s Ingenuity helicopter terminate its roughly three - year mission aftersustaining fatal damage in a crash landing place during its 72nd flighton the Red Planet . Subsequent pic reveal a large section wasmissing from one of the fly robot ’s rotor coil blade , wrong which can not be repaired .
The eggbeater is still technically usable and could havea 2d life as a weather stationover the next few decades . But astronauts might need to go to Mars toretrieve any of the data it collects .
NASA ’s Curiosity rover , which has been tirelessly surveying Mars for more than 12 years , also sustained some serious damage this year .
Mars robots took some serious hits this year, including fatal rotor blade to the Ingenuity helicopter (left) and a massive hole in one the Curiosity rover’s wheels (right).
range of a function bring out in September show aseries of muddle in the rover ’s middle veracious roulette wheel , including a agape bout that exposes the internal mechanisms of the wheel ’s drum . However , the scouter prove no prompt signs of being slowed down by its injury and iscurrently en route to explore mysterious Martian " spiderwebs . "
Multiple Voyager issues
After more than 90 combined class of comparatively unruffled soaring through thesolar system of rules , and now interstellar space , NASA ’s historic Voyager probe experience some passably major effect in 2024 .
Voyager 1 , which launched in 1977 just a few weeks after Voyager 2 , has had the most eventful twelvemonth of the two probes . The craft expend the first few months of the yeartransmitting " gibberish ” signals . NASA distinguish the problem andimplemented a temporary fixin March when the investigation was a staggering 15 billion mile ( 24 billion kilometers ) from Earth . But the trouble part persist until the agencyeventually restored full communicationin June .
Then , in September , the probeperformed a hazardous maneuver to start relying on different pusher , after its main actuation system abruptly locomote offline . And in October , NASAtemporarily lost contact with the probe againwhen its main radio sender broke and it had to tack to a fill-in .
SpaceX launched a record number of Falcon 9 rockets in 2024.
Voyager 2 had a quieter twelvemonth but also experienced some black eye , include having toshut off one of its long - running scientific instrumentsto maintain its dwindling world power levels .
Falcon 9 rockets grounded (3 times)
SpaceX ’s iconic Falcon 9 rockets have shatter records in 2024 , set up more than 120 times this year — mostly to deploy the company’sever - expanding Starlink megaconstellation .
However , these launches have not always been plain seafaring . The rocket was temporarily ground three times in three consecutive months this year as Union office look into various malfunctions with the spacecraft .
The first grounding occurred in July when 20Starlinksatellites unexpectedly fell to Earth afterbeing prematurely released into down - ground orbitby their garden rocket . The 2nd temporary ban fall into effect in August when one of the rocket ’s reusable boostersexploded during a mundane landing . And the third no - flight order follow in September when another rocket break apart back to Earthin the wrong part of the ocean .
SpaceX’s Starship is the most powerful rocket ever launched by humans.
Starship lost (and blowing holes in the atmosphere)
While Falcon 9 has been busy in 2024 , SpaceX ’s superheavy Starshiprocket has often dwarf its smaller congeneric with multiple high - profile launching this year — and the first successful recovery of one of its boosters , whichwas catch with chopstick - like pincers .
However , the larger rocket has also run into a few problems this year , most noticeably when itwas lost in the Indian Oceanin March , briefly after making it into orbit around Earth for the first meter . The spacecraft was misplaced after a communication fault prevented SpaceX from get over its reentry .
This year it was also unwrap that Starship ’s 2d - ever launching , which materialise in 2023,triggered a first - of - its - form atmospherical holewhen the rocket explode shortly after liftoff .
A Chinese rocket unexpectedly exploded into more than 300 pieces in August after deploying the country’s first “Thousand Sails” satellites.
Shattering spacecraft
As the space around Earth becomes more and more crowd , the potential for thing to go wrongly — and the likely fallout from these disasters — also increases . And 2024 devote us several reminders of this .
First , in June , ISS astronauts had totemporarily shelter in their return ejector seat — including Boeing ’s tattling Starliner pod — when Russia ’s Resurs - P1 satellite all of a sudden smash into more than 100 piece near the space station .
Then in August , a Chinese rocketexploded into more than 300 piecesafter deploying the first of the country ’s " Thousand Sails " satellite configuration in space . It is still unclear exactly what lead faulty . However , astronomers areconcerned about how extremely brightthe fresh satellite are .
And in October , the Boeing - made satellite Intelsat 33esuddenly shatter into more than 20 pieceswithout admonition . scientist are still trying to see out what materialize .
There was also a skinny call in February when a NASA probe and a Russian communication satellitenarrowly avoided colliding with one another , which could have end up being even more destructive than the lesson above .
