Mission Dashboard
We are tracking all active missions beyond Low Earth Orbit — sorted by most recent update.
Active Missions
Mission
Current Location
Distance from Earth
Last Update
Latest Update:
📡 MMX launches toward Mars’s moon Phobos
Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft launched on an H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center at 04:41 JST on October 20, 2026 (19:41 UTC, October 19). It was the 10th flight of the H3. After a second burn of the upper stage sent it on its way to Mars, MMX separated about 71 minutes after liftoff, and JAXA confirmed the spacecraft was in its planned orbit.
MMX now begins a roughly 10-month cruise, arriving at Mars in August 2027. It will study both Martian moons, deploy the French-German IDEFIX rover on Phobos, and land twice to collect samples. If all goes to plan, it will leave Mars in November 2030 and return its samples to Australia in 2031. The goal is to settle how Phobos and Deimos formed: as captured asteroids, or as debris from a giant impact on Mars.
Full mission details →
Sun-Earth L1 — halo orbit
1,500,000 km
October 11, 2026
Surface of Mars
225,000,000 km
October 6, 2026
Latest Update:
📡 Dawn Over Mount Sharp — Curiosity Captures Mars Sunrise
NASA's Curiosity rover captures a striking image of dawn on Mars, showing sunlight bathing ancient wind-carved cliffs on Mount Sharp approximately one hour after sunrise.
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Highly elliptical Earth orbit (apogee ~60,000 km)
60,500 km
October 5, 2026
Low Earth orbit
547 km
October 2, 2026
Lunar orbit (highly elliptical, 55-degree inclination)
384,400 km
October 1, 2026
Sun-Earth L1
1,500,000 km
September 30, 2026
Inner solar system, highly elliptical orbit
43,000,000 km
September 30, 2026
Frozen elliptical lunar orbit, 60 × 200 km
384,400 km
September 29, 2026
Latest Update:
📡 JUICE Captures Stunning View of Earth During September 2026 Flyby
Earth and Moon photographed by JUICE monitoring camera JMC1 at 13:56 CEST on September 28, 2026, as the spacecraft departed closest approach. Africa and Madagascar are visible; the Moon appears as a small grey dot upper right. Credit: ESA/JUICE/JMC1 — processed by Simeon Schmauß
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Loiter orbit near Sun-Earth L2, looping back toward Earth for a November 2026 gravity assist
1,500,000 km
September 28, 2026
Halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point
1,500,000 km
September 28, 2026
Orbiting Mars
232,000,000 km
September 26, 2026
En route to Earth
67,270,000 km
September 22, 2026
Latest Update:
📡 Active at Mars for more than 7,200 sols
As of September 2026, MRO has returned over 450 terabits of data from Mars — more than all other interplanetary spacecraft combined. It has been active at Mars for more than 7,200 sols. I
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Orbiting Mars
225,000,000 km
September 19, 2026
Orbiting Mars
372,000,000 km
September 19, 2026
Main Asteroid Belt (en route to L4 Jupiter Trojans)
550,000,000 km
September 18, 2026
Weeks away from Didymos
188,000,000 km
September 17, 2026
Sun-Earth L1 — halo orbit
1,500,000 km
September 11, 2026
Latest Update:
📡 New Horizons wakes from record 321-day hibernation in good health
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft woke from its longest ever hibernation on June 23, 2026, after 321 days of planned sleep. Flight controllers at Johns Hopkins APL confirmed all systems healthy — every weekly status beacon during the hibernation returned green. The spacecraft is now 9.5 billion km from Earth; confirmation signals take nearly 9 hours each way. Science data downlinking has begun.
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Latest Update:
📡 Sample cache growing — 23 tubes collected
Perseverance has now collected 23 rock core samples cached for eventual return to Earth via the Mars Sample Return mission. The rover continues exploring the ancient river delta in Jezero Crater, one of the most promising sites for ancient microbial life.
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Latest Update:
📡 Still transmitting after 47 years — signal takes 22 hours to arrive
Voyager 1 remains the most distant human-made object ever, now over 23.9 billion km from Earth. Operating on roughly 4 watts of power, it continues to return data on interstellar space. Engineers successfully restored full science data transmission in 2024 after a months-long communications anomaly.
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Interplanetary cruise — between Mars and Earth orbits
290,000,000 km
September 6, 2026
Latest Update:
📡 Mars gravity assist completed — on course for Jupiter
Europa Clipper successfully completed its Mars gravity assist flyby, using the planet's gravity to accelerate toward the Jupiter system. The spacecraft remains healthy with all instruments performing nominally. Jupiter orbital insertion remains on track for 2030.
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Latest Update:
📡 Confirmed water vapor in exoplanet atmosphere
Webb's NIRSpec instrument detected clear signatures of water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b — a potentially habitable world 120 light years away. The finding marks the most detailed atmospheric analysis of a sub-Neptune planet to date.
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Heliocentric orbit — repeated close solar approaches
136,400,000 km
September 4, 2026
Latest Update:
📡 Parker Solar Probe completes 29th solar flyby — records matched again
Parker Solar Probe completed its 29th close approach to the Sun on September 4, 2026, again matching its record distance of 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) from the solar surface and record speed of 430,000 mph. The mission has been extended to 2029 following the 2026 Heliophysics Senior Review. All systems and instruments are healthy.
Full mission details →
Latest Update:
📡 Mercury Transfer Module separates after eight-year journey — orbital insertion on track for November
On September 3, 2026, mission controllers confirmed that BepiColombo's Mercury Transfer Module successfully separated from the spacecraft stack after nearly eight years of powering the mission across the solar system. Confirmation came via ESA's deep-space tracking antennas in Cebreros, Spain, and Malargüe, Argentina, with telemetry showing all systems functioning normally. The MTM provided solar electric propulsion throughout the interplanetary cruise — including nine gravity assist flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury — and its job is now done. ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter is powering the joined MPO-Mio stack toward Mercury orbit insertion on November 21, 2026. MPO and Mio will separate from each other on December 9–10, 2026, before reaching their individual science orbits. Routine science operations are scheduled to begin April 6, 2027. BepiColombo's arrival is one of the most complex planetary orbital insertion sequences ESA has ever attempted.
Full mission details →
Geosynchronous orbit, 35,786 km above Earth
35,786 km
September 1, 2026
STEREO-A: heliocentric orbit, STEREO-B: heliocentric orbit no contact since 2014
140,000,000 km
September 1, 2026
Sun-Earth L1 — halo orbit
1,500,000 km
September 1, 2026
Latest Update:
📡 NASA's "Big Bang" Fix Extends Voyager 2 Science Mission
Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have successfully implemented a power management approach they nicknamed the "Big Bang" — a creative workaround that buys Voyager 2 additional operational life without shutting down another science instrument. Without the fix, a fourth instrument would have had to be switched off before the end of 2026.
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Orbiting the Moon
383,998 km
June 26, 2026
Latest Update:
📡 LRO marks 17 years in lunar orbit — longest-lived lunar orbiting mission in history
As of June 23, 2026, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed 17 years of continuous operations around the Moon, making it the longest-lived lunar orbiting mission ever flown. The spacecraft remains active and continues to support Artemis landing site selection at the lunar South Pole while conducting ongoing science observations. Engineers continue careful fuel management to extend the mission as long as possible, though no fixed end date has been announced.
Full mission details →
In proximity to asteroid Kamoʻoalewa — active sampling phase
40,000,000 km
June 10, 2026
Sun-Earth L1 — halo orbit ~1.5 million km from Earth
1,499,997 km
April 12, 2026
Distant retrograde orbit around the Moon
580,000 km
March 25, 2026
Orbiting Mars
325,000,000 km
February 12, 2026
Far side of the moon
420,000 km
September 1, 2024
Planned & Complete
Planned
Mission
Destination
Target Launch
Agency
Moon
March 1, 2028
NASA
Latest Update · October 23, 2026:
📡 NASA delays Artemis IV lander choice, keeps SpaceX and Blue Origin competing
At an October 23, 2026 briefing, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman reaffirmed the goal of returning astronauts to the lunar surface in 2028 on Artemis IV, the first crewed landing since Apollo 17. NASA has delayed choosing which company’s lander will carry the crew, to give SpaceX and Blue Origin more time to prove their designs. Both are revising their plans: SpaceX is studying using Starship to help propel Orion toward the Moon, and Blue Origin is pursuing a version of its lander that uses three transfer stages. NASA has also placed its own engineers inside both companies to help solve supply-chain problems that have delayed their test vehicles.
Full mission details →
Moon
November 30, 2026
NASA / Voyager Technologies
Latest Update · October 13, 2026:
📡 Environmental testing at JPL completed
Griffin went through its final environmental tests at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Full mission details →
Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point
September 1, 2027
NASA
Moon
January 1, 2027
Firefly Aerospace / NASA
Moon
February 1, 2027
Intuitive Machines / NASA
Moon
June 30, 2027
Advanced Space / NASA
Saturn System
July 5, 2028
NASA
Latest Update · July 9, 2026:
📡 Dragonfly fuselage completes structural testing — integration on track for 2028 launch
NASA's July 9, 2026 project update confirmed that Dragonfly's nearly 13-foot fuselage has completed structural testing and been delivered for the next stage of integration at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Integration and testing of the flight rotorcraft began in January 2026 and is proceeding on schedule. The mission remains targeted for a July 2028 launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy, with Titan arrival expected in 2034.
Full mission details →
Moon
October 1, 2028
Firefly Aerospace / NASA
Complete
Mission
Destination
Mission Dates
Agency
Jupiter System
1990–2009
ESA / NASA
Moon
2025
Firefly Aerospace / NASA
Dashboard updated manually as missions report new data. Distance figures are approximate and updated periodically. Browse all missions →