Two frightened navigators , three frozen hibernauts, and a talkative computer named Hal ride on the spacecraft Discovery, hoping to unravel the mystery of a crystal monolith left on the moon by alien intelligence.

Fifty years after meeting the spirit of Dave Bowman aboard the abandoned Discovery and witnessing the fiery transformation of Jupiter into Earths second sun, 103-year-old Dr. Heywood Floyd boards the luxury spaceship Universe for the historic first landing on the surface of Halley's Comet. At the same time, the Galaxy expedition sets out to probe the evolutionary upheaval on Jupiter's former moon Europa haunted by the fate of a doomed Chinese mission...