Six Space Missions to Watch in 2026 After Artemis II
After Artemis II's Moon flyby, six major missions are set to launch in 2026: China's Chang'e 7 will land near the lunar south pole with a rover and a small flying probe; NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will survey large swaths of the sky in infrared; ESA's PLATO will hunt for Earth-sized exoplanets in habitable zones; JAXA's MMX aims to land on Phobos and return a sample to Earth by 2031; ESA's Hera will study the Didymos–Dimorphos asteroid system after the DART impact; and BepiColombo will arrive at Mercury with two orbiters to map the planet and its environment.