2020 in spaceflight
This article documents notable spaceflight events during the year 2020.
Overview
Exploration of the Solar System
Three missions to Mars are planned to be launched in 2020, including two rovers, two orbiters, and a lander. NASA plans to launch the Mars 2020 mission, which includes the Perseverance rover and Mars Helicopter, and will cache samples for eventual return to Earth. The China National Space Administration will launch its Tianwen-1 mission, which includes an orbiter, a lander, and a small rover; it will be China's first mission to another planet using its own delivery vehicle. Finally, the United Arab Emirates will launch the Hope Mars Mission orbiter on a Japanese rocket.China also intends to launch Chang'e 5, the first sample-return mission to the Moon since Luna 24 in 1976. Chang'e 5 will use the recently developed Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket.
NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission will sample the asteroid 101955 Bennu in August. JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission will return samples of 162173 Ryugu to Earth in December.
Two solar missions are scheduled to be launched: ESA's Solar Orbiter to a heliocentric orbit, and India's Aditya-L1 to the Sun–Earth point. Parker Solar Probe, launched in 2018, will decrease its minimal distance to the Sun further to 14.2 million km.
Human spaceflight
China conducted a flight test of a next generation crewed spacecraft in May, and continues preparations for the 2021 launch of the Tianhe Core Cabin Module of the Chinese Space Station.In the United States, SpaceX's SpaceX Dragon 2 made its first crewed flight to the International Space Station on 31 May 2020 as part of the Commercial Crew Program, enabling American human orbital spaceflight capability for the first time since the Space Shuttle's retirement in 2011. Boeing's CST-100 Starliner will conduct a second uncrewed test flight in advance of a first crewed test flight in 2021.
NASA astronaut Christina Koch set a women's record-breaking 328 days in space ending on 6 February 2020. Scott Kelly still holds the all-time American record with 340 days in space; Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov holds the all-time record of 437 days. Koch also participated in the first all-female spacewalk with Jessica Meir on 18 October 2019.
Rocket innovation
aims to begin orbital testing of its fully reusable two-stage-to-orbit vehicle Starship.The trend towards cost reduction in access to orbit is expected to continue. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries's H3 launch vehicle, scheduled to enter service this year, will cost less than half that of H-IIA, its predecessor. Despite the increasing competition the cost of delivering cargo to the ISS will go up.
Satellite innovation
SpaceX expects to begin operation of its Starlink constellation in 2020, with over 1000 satellites launched by the end of the year. As of, 538 satellites have been launched. OneWeb planned to start service in 2020 as well, but filed for bankruptcy in March 2020 after 74 satellites were launched.The Mission Extension Vehicle MEV-1 became the first telerobotically-operated spacecraft to service another satellite on-orbit when it completed the first phase of a 5-year mission to extend the life of the Intelsat 901 satellite. In February 2020 MEV-1 captured the I-901 commsat, which had been moved to graveyard orbit some months before. In April MEV-1 successfully brought I-901 it back to position in geosynchronous orbit where it is now expected to operate for another five years. This was a space industry first as satellite servicing had previously been accomplished only with on-orbit human assistance, during the missions to service the Hubble Space Telescope in the early 2000s.
Orbital launches
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
To be determined
Suborbital flights
Off-World Launches
Deep-space rendezvous
Extravehicular activities (EVAs)
Orbital launch statistics
By country
For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of orbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. For example, Soyuz launches by Arianespace in Kourou are counted under Russia because Soyuz-2 is a Russian rocket.By rocket
By family
By type
By configuration
By spaceport
By orbit
| Orbital regime | Launches | Achieved | Not achieved | Accidentally achieved | Remarks |
| Transatmospheric | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Low Earth / Sun-synchronous | 39 | 35 | 4 | 0 | Including flights to the ISS |
| Geosynchronous / GTO | 11 | 9 | 2 | 0 | |
| Medium Earth / Molniya | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
| High Earth / Lunar transfer | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Heliocentric orbit / Planetary transfer | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 59 | 53 | 6 | 0 |