| Designation | Date | Country | Event |
| RHESSI | February 5 | United States | Successful launch of NASA's Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager into a 587 x 600 km orbit for basic physics research of elementary particles. |
| ENVISAT | March 1 | Europe | Successful Ariane 5 launch of ESA's highly advanced environmental satellite, with ten instruments, gathering information to survey and protect the planet. |
| STS-109 (Columbia) | March 1 | United States | 4th "service call" to the Hubble Space Telescope, with five spacewalks to upgrade the observatory with new systems and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).. |
| Grace 1 & 2 | March 17 | United States/ Europe/Russia | Launch of the twin satellites "Tom" & "Jerry" for highly accurate mapping of the Earth's gravity field. Successful launch on a Russian Rockot rocket. |
| Shenzhou 3 | March 25 | P.R. of China | 3rd uncrewed test flight (& recovery after several orbits) of an experimental manned capsule for future use by human "taikonaut" crews on a Long March 2F rocket. |
| STS-110 (Atlantis) | April 8 | United States | ISS mission 8A, with the S-Zero (S0) truss segment, the Canadian-built Mobile Transporter (MT), and a crew of seven. Four spacewalks to install S0 and MT. |
| Soyuz TM-34/ISS-4S | April 25 | Russia | Launch of 3rd "taxi flight" to ISS, bringing a fresh Soyuz crew return vehicle (CRV) and carrying the 2nd "space tourist", South Africa's Mark Shuttleworth. Return on TM-33. |
| Aqua | May 4 | United States | NASA's EOS-PM satellite, launched on a Delta-2, to observe Earth's water cycle, i.e., evaporation, water vapor, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, ice, and snow. |
| STS-111 (Endeavour) | June 5 | United States | ISS mission UF-2, carrying Multi-Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo (3rd flight), Canada's SSRMS Mobile Base System, meteoroid protection shields, and resupply. |
| POES-M (NOAA-M) | June 24 | United States | Launch of polar operational weather satellite POES-M for NOAA, to provide, with GOES-M, global data for weather forecasting and meteorological research. |
| STS-112 (Atlantis) | October 7 | United States | ISS mission 9A, carrying the 2nd truss element, the 14.5-ton S1, which was attached to S0. Mission featured 3 spacewalks, bringing total EVAs for ISS to 46. |
| Soyuz TMA-1/ISS-5S | October 30 | Russia | Launch of 4th taxi flight to ISS, delivering a fresh Soyuz CRV. Three-person crew included ESA/Belgium guest cosmonaut Frank De Winne. Crew returned on Soyuz TM-34. |
| STS-113 (Endeavour) | November 23 | United States | ISS mission 11A, with 5th ISS replacement crew, the 4th truss element P1 (of 11 total), and other equipment and resupply. Expedition 4 crew return on Shuttle. |
| Shenzhou 4 | December 29 | P.R. of China | 4th uncrewed test flight (& recovery after several orbits) of another experimental "Divine Vessel" for future use by human "taikonaut" crews on a Long March 2F rocket. |