Six space missions to look forward to in 2024

By Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences, The Open University

It’s going to be a bumper time for space missions in 2024 – especially to the Moon, our nearest neighbour. And that’s following on from an already epic 2023.

I’m a laboratory scientist, so I always like to have a “proper” sample to analyse. Rather than peering through telescopes to look at the stars, I prefer to see them in a vial in my lab. My technique of choice is to burn the material to ashes while measuring the organic compounds and other species that are liberated in the process.

So it was a great delight to see the safe return of Nasa’s…

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