Key scientific milestones expected in 2026

New missions to the Moon and Mars, along with the anticipated discovery of Earth-like planets, the results of a test aiming to identify 50 types of cancer through blood analysis, and a Chinese project to drill 11 kilometers into the Earth’s crust to reach its mantle.

Science in 2026 is full of promise, according to an analysis published on the website of the journal Nature, CE Report quotes Kosova Press.

The Artemis II mission is planned for no earlier than February 2026. Fifty years after the Apollo missions, it will carry four astronauts into lunar orbit for 10 days aboard the Orion spacecraft.

The Moon is also the target of China’s Chang’e-7 mission, which aims to reach the lunar south pole in August, landing there to search for water ice and study moonquakes.

Meanwhile, Japan is setting its sights on Mars’ two moons as it prepares to launch the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, which will visit Phobos and Deimos and return samples to Earth.

Still in the field of space exploration, the European Space Agency’s PLATO mission holds great promise. The new space telescope, scheduled for launch in December 2026, will aim to find Earth-like planets outside the Solar System and determine whether they are capable of supporting life.

There are also high expectations for 2026 in biomedicine.

The results of a large clinical study conducted in the United Kingdom on 140,000 people are being closely followed, reports ANSA. The study seeks to identify traces of 50 forms of cancer at an early stage through a simple blood test, before symptoms appear, according to ATSH.

If the trial produces positive results, the tests could be expanded to dozens of hospitals. Authorization is also expected for two clinical trials based on the CRISPR technique, involving personalized gene editing, which in 2025 allowed the correction of a rare metabolic disease in a newborn baby.

Artificial intelligence is also set to become a major presence in research laboratories. The goal is to move beyond large language models (LLMs), which are costly to train, and develop small-scale models that learn from limited datasets and can specialize in solving very specific problems. These systems do not generate text but process mathematical representations of information.

As reported by CE Report, finally, expectations are growing for China’s Meng Xiang mission, which aims to drill up to 11 kilometers into the Earth’s crust to reach the mantle and collect samples that could help scientists understand how the ocean floor forms and what drives tectonic activity.