Having closely explored the Earth, humanity has turned its attention to the universe. When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969, many people believed that by the beginning of the 21st century, space travel would become the norm, and we would be visiting other planets in our solar system. Although we’re not quite at that stage yet, space exploration is pushing the boundaries of science and is continuing to go deeper into our Solar System. There is an abundance of noteworthy missions that have already taken place over the years, and plenty more underway. 2020 is expected to bring a number of milestones in space flight, particularly with the USA, China, Russia, and the EU all planning a race to Mars during rival Red Planet rover missions. Every two years or so, the Earth and Mars move close in their orbits, and as they near one another, a window opens for launching missions to the red planet - and the next opportunity is just around the corner. Take a look below to see what other important milestones are planned for 2020 in space exploration.



Space travel beyond 2020 isn’t looking too bad either, with plenty more missions in the pipeline. In fact, there are a number of different objectives for the next 50 years from both space agencies and commercial companies all around the world. This includes robotic exploration of the Solar System, telescopic exploration of deep space, the development of innovative spacecraft and crewed spaceflight, settlements on planets and even space tourism, to name just a few! Therefore it’s fair to say that the future of space exploration is set to be very different to anything we have seen before and will continue to push the boundaries in more ways than one

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