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| Designation | Date | Country | Event |
| ICESat | January 12 | United States | Successful launch of NASA's Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite into a 600 km retrograde near-polar orbit for Earth features observation. |
| CHIPSat | January 12 | United States | Successful launch of NASA's Cosmic Hot Interstellar Plasma Spectrometer Satellite for all-sky spectroscopy into a 600 km retrograde near-polar orbit.. |
| STS-107 (Columbia) | January 16 | United States | 28th and last flight of Shuttle Columbia. Lost on 2/1 during reentry with its seven crew- members, Husband, McCool, Brown, Chawla, Anderson, Clark and Ramon. |
| SORCE | January 25 | United States | Successful launch of NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment Satellite for radiation measurements into a 645 km, 40-deg orbit, by a Pegasus XL. |
| Progress M-47/10P | February 2 | Russia | Uncrewed logistics cargo/resupply mission to the International Space Station ISS, on a Soyuz-U rocket. |
| Soyuz TMA-2/ISS-6S | April 26 | Russia | Launch of the first ISS crew rotation flight on a Soyuz, bringing the Expedition 6 "caretaker" crew of Yuri Malenchenko and Edward Lu. Returned on TMA-2 in October. |
| GALEX | April 28 | United States | Successful launch of NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer telescope platform for UV- observation of galaxies, into a 694 x 700 km, 28.99 deg orbit, by a Pegasus XL. |
| Hayabusa (Muses-C) | May 9 | Japan | Asteroid sample return mission, launched on an M5 solid-propellant rocket towards the Asteroid 25143 Itokawa/1998 SF36. |
| Mars Express | June 2 | Europe | Successful launch of first ESA mission to Mars, on a Soyuz/Fregat. Lander Beagle 2 was lost on entry into Mars atmosphere, but Mars Express entered nominal orbit on 12/25. |
| Progress M1-10/11P | June 8 | Russia | Uncrewed logistics cargo/resupply mission to the International Space Station ISS, on a Soyuz-U rocket. |
| MER-A/Spirit | June 10 | United States | Successful launch of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover-A, named Spirit, toward the Red Planet, on a Delta 2 rocket. The six-wheeled rover had a mass of ~180 kg. |
| MER-B/Opportunity | July 7 | United States | Successful launch of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover-B, named Opportunity, toward the Red Planet, on a Delta 2 rocket. The six-wheeled rover had a mass of ~180 kg. |
| SST (SIRTF) | August 25 | United States | Successful launch of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (formerly: Space Infrared Telescope Facility) into an Earth-trailing orbit around the Sun (first time). |
| Progress M-48/12P | August 28 | Russia | Uncrewed logistics cargo/resupply mission to the International Space Station ISS, on a Soyuz-U rocket. |
| Shenzhou 5 | October 15 | P.R. of China | Successful launch of 1st Chinese astronaut, "Taikonaut" Lt. Col. Yang Liwei , in "Divine Vessel 5", with safe recovery after circling Earth 14 times in 21 hr. 23 min. |
| Soyuz TMA-3/ISS-7S | October 18 | Russia | Launch of the second ISS crew rotation flight on a Soyuz, bringing the Expedition 7 crew of Michael Foale & Alex Kaleri, plus 10-day visitor Pedro Duque from ESA. |
| H-2A | November 29 | Japan | Launch of sixth H-2A heavy lifter, failed shortly after liftoff, with two reconnaissance satellites. |