These are the space missions to look out for in the 2020s

“We can all aspire to the Moon and beyond." That’s what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after his country made its historic landing on the Moon’s south pole in August – and it also appears to be what is happening.

Aspirations to reach the Moon – and other parts of space – are growing, with numerous space missions planned for the 2020s.

Japan has followed quickly on India’s heels, launching its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon in early September. India’s Chandrayaan-3 is searching for water ice that could support future Moon exploration – although it has recently run into problems, with extremely low temperatures impacting the functioning of the mission's lander. Japan, meanwhile, wants to prove that “high-accuracy landings” are possible on the moon, by touching down within 100 metres of its target site.

Governments raised their spending on space exploration by $9 billion in 2022, meaning it made up 45% of defence spending, up from 41% a year earlier, the Space Foundation says. But it’s not just countries exploring space – private-sector companies are also developing space programmes.

This is expanding the possibilities of space exploration, which could help us tackle some of the biggest problems facing planet Earth.

“Satellites that circle the globe provide the most accurate weather reports and warn us of impending storms; they monitor our climate every day, helping to track increasing rates of climate change and its effects,” says the World Economic Forum’s briefing paper Six Ways Space Technologies Benefit Life on Earth. “Scientific research that takes place in orbit is helping to push the frontiers of our understanding of health and material science, robotics and other technologies.”

Here’s a look at some of the potentially most important space missions planned in the 2020s.

Humans could walk on the moon for the first time in 50 years if the Artemis III mission is successful in 2025.

Like India, US space agency NASA plans to explore the area around the Moon’s south pole. Astronauts will take pictures and make videos to survey the region’s geology. They will also take samples with the hope of increasing our understanding – not just of this part of the Moon, but of the entire solar system.

“This mission will usher in a future in which humans consistently access the Moon, and human planetary exploration missions are within reach,” NASA says. It adds that the additional knowledge and technological developments built up thanks to Artemis III will help pave the way for the first human mission to Mars.

Is there life on Mars? Has there ever been life on Mars? The European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars programme aims to find out after it launches in 2028.

It aims to send a vehicle, the Rosalind Frank Rover, across the surface of the Red Planet and to drill two metres into the surface to obtain geological samples. A separate Trace Gas Orbiter will study the atmosphere around Mars.

The ExoMars landing is expected in 2030, and timing will be important. The mission wants six months of study time, but it also needs to leave before the arrival of Mars’ northern hemisphere winter, which is likely to bring huge amounts of dust that could jeopardize the rover’s ability to function.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has also been launching missions around Mars. Its Hope probe entered the planet’s orbit in 2021, and the pictures it took have led to the creation of a new map of Mars that shows the entire planet in one shot. The UAE has a long-term goal to build a settlement on Mars by 2117.

The Martian Moons eXploration mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is scheduled to enter Mars’ orbit in 2025 and explore the moon of Phobos.

A series of meteorite impacts are believed to have left Phobos covered with material from Mars, and JAXA hopes to obtain the world's first sample return of Martian surface material containing traces of life.

“A major scientific goal for the mission is clarifying the origin of the two Martian moons and the evolution process of the Martian Sphere (Mars, Phobos and Deimos),” JAXA says. “The creation of this system is one of the keys to solving the mysteries of planetary formation in the solar system.”

Elon Musk’s company SpaceX says that reusable rockets would power breakthroughs in space exploration, as they would slash the costs of going into orbit dramatically.

Most rockets are currently used only once, but SpaceX says its Falcon launch vehicles are the first to be capable of reflight.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 is due to launch on 29 September as part of the company’s plan to establish a space-based internet communication system named Starlink. This could make high-speed internet available worldwide, SpaceX says.

Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system and least explored planet of the inner solar system. The ESA’s BepiColombo mission launched in 2018 and aims to arrive at Mercury in 2025 following a series of flybys.

BepiColombo will be only the second mission in history to orbit Mercury and will try to find out more about why the planet has a magnetic field, and why it has ice in its polar craters, despite being the closest planet to the Sun and facing temperatures of up to 430°C.

“Mercury is particularly interesting to scientists who study exoplanets, planets that orbit other stars,” according to NGO The Planetary Society. “Thousands of known exoplanets orbit extremely close to their stars. By studying Mercury right here in our backyard, we can better understand what these close-orbiting worlds might be like.”

Four spacecraft will be involved in China’s Chang’e 6 mission, due to launch in May 2024. It aims to take rock samples from the southern hemisphere on the far side of the Moon, in an area known as the Apollo Basin, according to Space.com.

The basin is a 538-kilometre-wide crater believed to hold substantial deposits of “mare”, which is formed when basaltic lava flows into depressions on the Moon’s surface.

The Chang’e 6 mission aims to recover 2 kilograms of mare and other lunar materials, with the hope of finding out more about the history of the Moon. Chang'e 7 and 8 missions are expected to follow in 2026 and 2028. China also says it wants to put astronauts on the moon by 2030.

NASA’s Dragonfly mission heads off to Saturn in 2026, but won’t arrive at the planet’s moon, Titan, until 2034. It will spend two years taking surface samples and making measurements to establish how habitable various sites might be.

Dragonfly will pass Venus on its way to Saturn, but the DAVINCI mission in 2029 will head straight to Earth’s closest neighbour in the solar system.

The mission aims to understand the origin and evolution of Venus’ atmosphere, as well as how and why Venus differs from Earth and Mars. It will also look for evidence of oceans and investigate levels of volcanic activity.