Here's your 2026 guide to major moon missions and sky events

Summary

The new year’s celestial lineup blends a familiar favorite—the moon—with a packed set of events that spans eclipses, planet-watching and space-weather forecasts, all alongside renewed attention to lunar exploration. A 2026 mission led by NASA’s Reid Wiseman is planned to take a close look at lunar far-side regions Apollo astronauts did not reach, while commercial efforts and China’s program also target lunar landings.

The moon mission is scheduled as a flyby and return. Wiseman, who is billed as the commander for the upcoming NASA moonshot mission, is set to lead a crew for a 10-day trip that will zip past the moon, make a U-turn behind it, and then head back to Earth. NASA said the goal includes observations that could support geologists and that may help inform future landing site selection.

On the schedule, the mission is expected to launch early in the year with “three Americans and one Canadian,” and the mission is not described as a moonwalk. The agency said the Artemis lunar exploration program will be the next step for landing on the surface, with the earlier crew’s role centered on far-side viewing rather than leaving footprints.

Robotic lunar landings are also a major theme for 2026, with plans coming from both commercial companies and China. Blue Origin, associated with Jeff Bezos, is preparing to launch a prototype of its lunar lander designed for NASA’s astronauts, described as standing 26 feet (8 meters)—taller than the hardware that carried Apollo’s 12 astronauts to the moon. The story says a crew version of Blue Moon is expected to be almost double that height.

Additional commercial targets include Astrobotic Technology and Intuitive Machines, both described as aiming for 2026 landings with scientific gear. Firefly Aerospace, identified as the only private company to have nailed a lunar landing so far, is aiming for the moon’s far side in 2026, while China is targeting the south polar region with both a rover and a “hopper” designed to jump into permanently shadowed craters to search for ice.

The eclipse calendar begins in the far south with a ring-of-fire solar eclipse. The plan calls for a Feb. 17 eclipse over Antarctica, where only a few research stations would sit in the prime viewing locations, while South Africa and parts of southern Chile and Argentina would see partial views. The next major eclipse phase comes about two weeks later, with a total lunar eclipse scheduled to follow, followed by a partial lunar eclipse at the end of August.

The year’s biggest solar eclipse event is set for later in the summer, with a total solar eclipse on Aug. 12 beginning in the Arctic and crossing Greenland, Iceland and Spain. The reporting notes that totality is expected to last two minutes and 18 seconds during the Aug. 12 event as the moon moves directly between Earth and the sun, while a separate total solar eclipse in 2027 is forecast to deliver longer totality—6 1/2 minutes—and cross more countries.

For planetary viewing, the story points to a late-February “parading planets” window when six of the solar system’s eight planets will appear in a lineup around Feb. 28. The planets described as visible with naked-eye conditions soon after sunset are Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, while Uranus and Neptune would require binoculars or telescopes. Mars is described as the exception for that sequence, with the red planet expected to join another six-planet parade in August.

Supermoons and auroras round out the year’s repeatable sky thrills. The report says three supermoons will occur in 2026, with the first in January and the others on Nov. 24 and during the night of Dec. 23 into Dec. 24. The article also says the Dec. 23–24 supermoon will pass within 221,668 miles (356,740 kilometers) of Earth.

Finally, the year’s view includes space weather, with NOAA and other forecasters anticipating more geomagnetic activity as the sun churns out more eruptions in 2026. The story says auroras could become more common because solar action is expected to ease as the 11-year solar cycle begins to move down the slope, and it highlights plans to use new solar wind measurements from an observatory launching in the fall. Rob Steenburgh at NOAA is quoted saying that 2026 will be an “exciting year for space weather enthusiasts,” adding that the new spacecraft and others will help scientists “better understand our nearest star and forecast its impacts.”