French
DeutschList of government space agencies
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Government space agencies, established by the governments of countries and regional agencies (groupings of countries) are established as a means for advocating for engaging in activities related to outer space, exploitation of space systems, and/or space exploration. The listings summarize all countries' and regional authorities' space agencies with a comparative summary of demonstrated capabilities.[citation needed]
The objectives include national prestige, exploitation of remote sensing information, communications, education, and economic development. These agencies tend to be civil in nature (vs military) and serve to advance the benefits of exploitation and/or exploration of space. They span the spectrum from old organizations with small budgets to mature national or regional enterprises such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States, the European Space Agency (ESA) which coordinates for more than 20 constituent countries, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities (Roscosmos) of Russia, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and the China National Space Agency (CNSA).
The space agency listings are segregated to enable identification of subsets of the complete list that have advanced to higher levels or technical or programmatic proficiency in accordance with the following:
- Establishment of agency, initial exploitation of space-based systems
- Development of launch capability
- Capacity for extraterrestrial exploration
- Demonstration of human spaceflight capability across one or more of these domains
Overview
[edit]As of 2024,[update] nearly 80 different government space agencies are in existence, including more than 70 national space agencies and several international agencies.
Launch capability
[edit]This group of agencies have developed or are developing launch infrastructure including space launch sites, suborbital launch technology, orbital launch systems, and reusable hardware technologies.
Extraterrestrial exploration capability
[edit]This group of agencies have developed advanced technological capabilities required for travel and study of other heavenly bodies within the Solar System. These involve the capacity to leave the local area around the planet Earth for lunar and/or missions to other bodies in the Solar System.
| Space agency | Demonstrated capability | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operates flyby spacecraft | Operates extraterrestrial orbiter | Controlled surface impact | Uncrewed soft landing | Uncrewed rover operation | Sample return | |
 CNSA[120] |  (Chang'e 5-T1) | (Chang'e 1) | (Chang'e 1) | (Chang'e 3) | (Yutu-1) | (Chang'e 5) |
 | (Ulysses) | (Mars Express) | (Rosetta) | (Huygens) |  | |
 ISRO[122] | (Chandrayaan-3) | (Chandrayaan-1) | (Moon Impact Probe)[39] | (Chandrayaan-3) | (Pragyan) | |
 JAXA[123] | (Hiten) | (Hiten) | (Hiten) | (Hayabusa) | (MINERVA-II) | (Hayabusa) |
 Soviet space program † | (Luna 1) | (Luna 10) | (Luna 2) | (Luna 9) | (Lunokhod 1) | (Luna 16) |
 NASA | (Pioneer 4) | (Lunar Orbiter 1) | (Ranger 7) | (Surveyor 1) | (Sojourner) | (Apollo 11) |
Without launch capabilities
[edit]This category is formed by agencies that operate and construct satellites in extraterrestrial environments, but do not have the capability to transport those satellites to the desired orbit/trajectory/landing spot. As far as we know as of the 10th May 2024, five space agencies have achieved the requirements to be listed here: [a]
| Space agency | Demonstrated capability | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operates extraterrestrial orbiter | Controlled surface impact | Uncrewed soft landing | Uncrewed rover operation | Sample return | |
 LuxSpace | (Manfred Memorial Moon Mission, flyby only) | | | | |
 ASI | (ArgoMoon) | | | | |
 KARI | (Danuri) | | | | |
 UAESA | (Emirates Mars Mission) | | | | |
 SUPARCO | (ICUBE-Q) | | | | |
Human spaceflight capability
[edit]This small group of countries/space agencies have demonstrated the highest technological capacity with systems and solutions that support human spaceflight along with the ancillary technological capabilities to support human activity in orbit and/or on extraterrestrial bodies. The missions identified (and personnel when appropriate) are the first successful accomplishments of each activity.
| Space agency | Demonstrated capability | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crewed space launch | EVA | Rendezvous and docking | Space station | Crewed circumlunar flight | Crewed Moon landing | |
| CNSA | (Shenzhou 5) | (Shenzhou 7) | (Shenzhou 8 to Tiangong-1) | (Tiangong-1) | | |
| ISRO | | | (SDX01 to SDX02 — as part of SpaDeX) | | | |
 Roscosmos | (Soyuz TM-14) | (Mir, Aleksandr Volkov and Sergei Krikalev) | (Soyuz TM-14 to ISS) | (Mir) | | |
| Soviet space program † | (Vostok 1) | (Voskhod 2, Alexei Leonov) | (Soyuz 4 to Soyuz 5) | (Salyut 1) | | |