The top 10 spaceflight stories of 2023

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The top 10 spaceflight stories of 2023
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By Josh Dinner published about 18 hours ago
A lot happened last year.

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a massive plume of fire shoots out of a rocket engine
The engine of an Antares rocket fires during the launch of the NG-18
cargo mission to the International Space Station. (Image credit: Josh
Dinner)
Last year was a very busy one in the final frontier.

Here's a rundown of some of the highlights, from the highly anticipated
debut of SpaceX's giant Starship Mars rocket to the safe landing on
Earth of NASA's first-ever pristine asteroid sample.

Related: 8 ways that SpaceX has transformed spaceflight

SPACEX'S STARSHIP LAUNCHES FIRST 2 TEST FLIGHTS
a giant rocket rises from its smoke plume in the disatnce. boaters look
on from the water

SpaceX's Starship launches on its second integrated flight test on Nov.
18, 2023. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner)
Last year, we saw SpaceX make some significant headway in the company's
development of its next-generation launch vehicle, Starship. The fully
stacked rocket lifted off for the first time on April 20.

That flight lasted about 4 minutes. During the test, Starship's upper
stage failed to separate from its Super Heavy booster. The vehicle began
toppling end-over-end through the sky, ultimately reaching an explosive
end with an autodestruct command. Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines also
blasted out a crater in the concrete beneath the launch pad at SpaceX's
Starbase facility in South Texas, prompting upgrades to both the rocket
and ground infrastructure.

Starship's next flight was delayed, pending the conclusion of
investigations led by the United States Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) and Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) into the causes and
consequences of Starship's April 20 mishap. SpaceX enacted 63
"corrective actions" at the direction of the FAA and was finally cleared
to launch Starship again about seven months later, in November.

Starship launched for the second time Nov. 18. A water deluge system
installed beneath the pad, and a new "hot-fire" staging system
incorporated into Starship's launch procedures, solved two of the major
issues the vehicle experienced during its first test, but Starship again
failed to complete its full flight profile. A short time after stage
separation, Super Heavy exploded, followed shortly by a communications
loss with the Starship upper stage and its subsequent destruction.

After the November launch, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk voiced
optimism that the third Starship test flight could lift off shortly
after, in December. And, in the middle of the month, SpaceX rolled
Starship hardware to the pad for testing ahead of that anticipated
launch. However, that flight still hasn't happened.

MAJOR SCIENCE MISSIONS
a triple booster rocket blasts off from a launch tower with a blue hazy
sky behind

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off with NASA's Psyche probe to a
metal-rich asteroid, Oct. 13, 2023. (Image credit: Josh Dinner)
2023 was a great year for science missions launching into space. In
April, the penultimate launch of Europe's Ariane 5 rocket sent the
European Space Agency's (ESA) JUICE spacecraft on a journey to the
Jovian system to study three of Jupiter's largest moons.

JUICE (short for "Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer") will spend the next eight
years traveling to the gas giant, completing several gravity-assist
maneuvers around Earth and Venus during the interim years. Once JUICE
arrives at Jupiter in July 2031, it will begin studying the big moons
Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, all of which are believed to contain
liquid-water oceans beneath their icy, outer layers.

Another ESA mission launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in July of last
year, to study and map the "dark universe." The Euclid telescope is
designed to study dark matter and dark energy, and will spend the next
six years scoping out areas of the universe outside our Milky Way galaxy.

A third science mission, NASA's Psyche probe, launched on a Falcon Heavy
in October. Psyche is on a 2.2 billion-mile (3.5 billion kilometers)
journey to an asteroid of the same name, which is composed primarily of
nickel and iron. Scientists believe the asteroid 16 Psyche may be the
remnant of an ancient protoplanetary core, and they hope its study will
yield clues into the processes of planetary formation.

OSIRIS-REX ASTEROID SAMPLE RETURN LANDING
A capsule with a sample of asteroid Bennu inside, delivered to Earth on
Sept. 24, 2023, by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, is seen shortly after
touching down on the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range.

OSIRIS-REx's asteroid sample return capsule landed at the Department of
Defense's Utah Test and Training Range on Sept. 24, 2023. (Image credit:
NASA/Keegan Barber)
The return capsule from NASA's first mission to retrieve samples from an
asteroid touched town in September of last year. OSIRIS-REx launched in
2016 and spent two years traveling to its target asteroid, Bennu. After
an extensive survey in orbit around the space rock, OSIRIS-REx
maneuvered to the asteroid's surface to collect its samples in October 2020.

After another few years in space, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft's trajectory
brought it back toward Earth, providing a window to eject the probe's
sample return capsule on Sept. 24. As the capsule shot through Earth's
atmosphere, the craft's heat shield protected the asteroid samples
despite friction-induced temperatures as high as 5,300 degrees
Fahrenheit (2,900 degrees Celsius) and speeds up to 27,000 mph (43,450 kph).

Following its fiery flight, the sample return capsule successfully
deployed its main parachute and touched down for a soft landing at the
Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range.

In a twist, NASA has yet to open OSIRIS-REx's main sample container, and
is developing a new tool in order to safely remove its cover. However,
even with the main samples still sealed shut, enough material was found
to have collected outside the main sample container to exceed
OSIRIS-REx's mission targets.

Though this is not the first material recovered from an asteroid in
space, it is NASA's first such effort, and the largest amount snagged to
date. Once the agency is able to open the probe's sample container, it
plans to send 25% of the Bennu samples to more than 200 scientists
across the globe, including those representing the space agencies of
other nations.

Following the separation of its return capsule, the main OSIRIS-REx
spacecraft changed its course toward a different target, an asteroid
named Apophis. Now on a new mission called OSIRIS-APEX, the spacecraft
will reach Apophis in 2029.

INDIA LANDS ON THE MOON
a lander on the lunar surface

The first image of the Chandrayaan 3 mission's Vikram lunar lander on
the moon's surface, taken by the mission's Pragyan rover. (Image credit:
ISRO)
India became the fourth nation to successfully land on the moon when its
Chandrayaan-3 mission achieved the feat in August of last year.
Chandrayaan-3's landing duo consisted of two vehicles, the Vikram lander
and the Pragyan rover. The Chandrayaan-3 propulsion module remained in
lunar orbit to perform its own research.

The lander-rover duo touched in the moon's southern hemisphere, at
around 70 degrees south, on Aug. 23. Once on the surface, Pragyan exited
Vikram to begin its mission of analyzing the lunar soil and other
surface material.

A few days after landing, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)
released an image of Vikram, snapped by Pragyan as it rolled along the
surface of the moon. Their primary mission goals accomplished, both the
rover and lander were later placed in sleep mode, as the lunar night set
in on their landing site. However, after the dark, two-week lunar frost,
teams at ISRO were unable to wake the vehicles.

RUSSIA'S MOON CRASH
a small crater appears on the moon's surface in a before-and-after animation

Before and after stills of Luna-25's crash site on the surface of the
moon. (Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State
University)
Russia also launched a mission to land on the moon during 2023.
Unfortunately, however, its attempt was not successful.

Luna-25, the first Soviet/Russian lunar mission in 47 years, launched
from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, in Russia's eastern Amur Region, on Aug.
10. Its mission was to land in the moon's south polar region, near
Boguslawsky Crater, but a malfunction during one of the spacecraft's
engine burns caused the probe to crash into the lunar surface.

"At about 14:57 Moscow time [on Aug. 19], communication with the Luna-25
spacecraft was interrupted," the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, wrote
in a Telegram update (in Russian; translation by Google). "The measures
taken on August 19 and 20 to search for the device and get into contact
with it did not produce any results."

Several days later, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
photographed the location of Luna-25's crash, and the crater its impact
created.

FRANK RUBIO SETS RECORD FOR LONGEST US SPACEFLIGHT
an astronaut floating in spies smiles while handling laboratory equipment

Expedition 69 Flight Engineer Frank Rubio completes a Surface Avatar
session in the Columbus Laboratory Module. Surface Avatar investigates
how haptic controls, user interfaces and virtual reality could command
and control surface-bound robots from long distances. (Image credit:
NASA/JSC)
International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 68/69 Flight Engineer Frank
Rubio broke the U.S. single-spaceflight duration record last year. Rubio
and his Russian cosmonaut crewmates, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri
Petelin, launched to the ISS on Sept. 21, 2022, and were originally
scheduled for a six-month stint aboard the orbital laboratory.

However, their MS-22 Soyuz spacecraft, which was supposed to carry them
back to Earth, sprang a coolant leak in December 2022.

A replacement Soyuz (MS-23) was sent up as their ride home, but Rubio
and his crewmates were unable to leave the space station without getting
a replacement crew in place — which wasn't possible until September of
last year.

Finally, Rubio and crew were able to return to Earth aboard the MS-23
Soyuz, landing in Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on Sept. 27, 2023. In total,
Rubio spent 371 continuous days in space, breaking the previous U.S.
spaceflight record of 355 days, held by NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei.

RUSSIAN SPACECRAFT LEAK
A short video clip of a Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft leaking coolant at the
International Space Station on Dec. 14, 2022.

A short video clip of a Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft leaking coolant at the
International Space Station on Dec. 14, 2022. (Image credit: NASA TV)
About that Soyuz leak.

The MS-22 Soyuz launched with Rubio, Prokopyev and Petelin on Sept. 21,
2022, and docked with the ISS later that day. All was nominal for the
trio's first few months, but just a couple of weeks before the end of
2022, the Soyuz spacecraft sprang a significant leak, draining all its
coolant out into space.

The leak ostensibly stranded Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio aboard the
space station with no way home, though contingencies were put into place
should the ISS crew need to evacuate in an emergency situation. An empty
replacement Soyuz arrived at the station in February, finally offering
the three a dedicated ride back to Earth.

However, the Soyuz they received (MS-23) was originally slated to fly
Expedition 69's replacement crew. Its use in place of MS-22 meant the
next ISS crew couldn't launch to the space station until Soyuz MS-24 was
ready to fly, which wasn't until September, when Rubio, Prokopyev and
Petelin finally came home.

The leaky Soyuz MS-22 returned to Earth without crew, and was recovered
by Roscosmos for evaluation in March of last year. Russian officials
have yet to announce a definitive cause for the coolant leak, but
initial hypotheses at the time of the event suggested it may have been
the result of a micrometeor impact.

'SILENT BARKER,' THE MYSTERIOUS US MILITARY LAUNCH
A white rocket with side boosters lifts off from a seaside launch pad

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket launches the Silent Barker
mission for the U.S. Space Force on Sept. 10, 2023. (Image credit:
United Launch Alliance)
The United States National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) launched a
sizable classified satellite last year on a mission called "Silent Barker."

The September launch took place aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V
rocket, accompanied by the vehicle's largest payload fairing option. The
launch took the satellite, designated NROL-107, to a geosynchronous
orbit (GEO) above Earth, essentially parking the spacecraft in place in
the sky.

Prior to launch, U.S. Space Force Lt. General Michael Guetlein,
commander of Space Systems Command, said in a teleconference, "A huge
element of deterrence is the ability for the adversary to know what we
can and cannot see."

"So we actually want our competitors to know that we have eyes in GEO
and that we can see what's happening in GEO," Guetlein added. "Not only
are we going to maintain custody and the ability to detect what's going
on in GEO, but we'll have the indications and warnings to know there's
something out of the normal occurring, and that goes a long way towards
deterrence."

VIRGIN GALACTIC BEGINS COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHTS
Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity space plane lights its rocket motor during
the Galactic 05 suborbital mission, which launched on Nov. 2, 2023.

The rocket engine of the Virgin Galactic space plane VSS Unity ignites
and sends the ship to space on June 29, 2023. (Image credit: Virgin
Galactic)
After years of delays, Virgin Galactic began flying regular private
missions to suborbital space in 2023.

The company's first mission, Galactic 01, took off June 29 and carried
members of the Italian Air Force and Italy's National Research Council
on a research flight that provided the trio a few minutes of
weightlessness at their trajectory's apex.

Before launching under its own power, Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity space
plane is flown to altitude by the double-fuselaged carrier aircraft VMS
Eve. At around 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) up, VSS Unity is released
from Eve to burn its rocket motor and complete its climb to space.

Both carrier aircraft and space plane then return for landing on the
same runway where the duo take off, at Spaceport America in New Mexico.

After Virgin Galactic's first commercial launch in June, the company
kept pace with another mission every month for nearly the rest of 2023,
flying a total of 15 private customers. Topping off the year with
Galactic 05 in November, the company announced it would ground Unity in
December, and resume flights again in January 2024.

On Dec. 19, Virgin Galactic announced Galactic 06 would fly Jan. 26 of
this year using VSS Unity, which is expected to be grounded sometime in
2024 and replaced with the company's next-generation "Delta class" vehicle.

SPACEX TOPS ITS OWN LAUNCH RECORD, AGAIN
a white rocket with stowed/folded black landing legs is launching.
yellow orange fire spews from its engines above a glowing plume. a
support tower leans away from the ascending rocket. a launch tower and
access arm stand behind. the sky is blue.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the Crew 5 mission to the
International Space Station on Oct. 5, 2022. (Image credit: Josh Dinner)
SpaceX has, once again, had its busiest year yet. In 2022, the company
set a new record with 61 orbital launches. SpaceX blew through that
total in 2023, with more than 90 orbital liftoffs — though the company
likely won't hit the century mark, a milestone Elon Musk had floated
earlier in the year.

The majority of SpaceX launches last year have used the company's
mainstay Falcon 9 rocket, and have supported the growth of SpaceX's
Starlink broadband megaconstellation. Thanks to its increased launch
cadence, SpaceX was able to increase the number of its internet
spacecraft on orbit by nearly 2,000 last year.

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Josh Dinner
Josh Dinner
Writer, Content Manager
Josh Dinner is Space.com's Content Manager. He is a writer and
photographer with a passion for science and space exploration, and has
been working the space beat since 2016. Josh has covered the evolution
of NASA's commercial spaceflight partnerships, from early Dragon and
Cygnus cargo missions to the ongoing development and launches of crewed
missions from the Space Coast, as well as NASA science missions and
more. He also enjoys building 1:144 scale models of rockets and
human-flown spacecraft. Find some of Josh's launch photography on
Instagram and his website, and follow him on Twitter, where he mostly
posts in haiku.