In 2019, 29 probes all of which are robotic missions explored the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and the Sun, monitoring space weather at Lagrange 1, conducting astronomy observation at Lagrange 2, etc. In the 50th anniversary of human's landing on Moon, US pushed forward the Artermis Program, and China CE-4 lander's in-situ detection and Yutu 2 rover's patrol yielded promising scientific output. Besides, New Horizons'encounter of Kuiper Belt small body "2014 MU69" unveiled the geology and composition of the contact binary. Japan's Hayabusa 2 finished the sampling of Ryugu twice and started to return to Earth. Apart from Parker solar probe, several space weather monitoring missions, such as SOHO and WIND, "forgotten" at L1 in extended missions, were in great status of operation. In 2020 the launch window for Mars mission will open, and several Mars missions by China, US, and Europe-Russia, respectively will be coming into the spotlight.

deep space exploration  /  2019 hotspot  /  space science  /  discovery