Despite the fact that 2020 will be marked as the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, space exploration has met with some interesting challenges such as collecting samples from an asteroid. What does 2021 have in store for us?
Artemis 1
Artemis 1 will be the first flight of the NASA-led international Artemis program whose goal is to put astronauts back on the Moon by 2024 . This mission, specifically, consists of an unmanned Orion spacecraft that will be sent on a three-week flight around the Moon with the aim of fine-tuning the latest details for human life in space (vital systems, hardware and software). It will launch into Earth orbit in NASA’s first Space Launch System, which will be the most powerful rocket in operation. Expected date: June 2021.
Boeing Starliner
In March we will see Boeing’s second Starliner test . Your probability of success is already quite high. Boeing and its Starliner spacecraft, which went through a failed unmanned mission to the ISS in December 2019, hope to use Starliner to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. After fixing the spacecraft’s software that was riddled with bugs, the mission is scheduled for its next test in March. If all goes well, Starliner could send humans to the ISS in 2021.
James Webb Telescope
The big launch in 2021 will be NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for October 31, 2021. Unless there are further delays, as the JWST launch date has not stopped moving for the last decade, its launch It will be on an Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana. The James Webb telescope will head toward the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrange point to begin operating and, unlike Hubble in low Earth orbit, it cannot be reached for repairs or upgrades. However, all the tests carried out so far indicate that everything will be fine. We are all excited about what is the most advanced space telescope in history.
Target: Mars
The red planet has become the most popular destination for upcoming ground missions. NASA will continue to search for life signs with the Perseverance rover , which will store Martian samples for later analysis on Earth and will test the first Mars helicopter, named Ingenuity . China, for its part, has the ambitious Tianwen-1 mission, which will not only be the first mission to Mars in this country, but will also place an orbiter, a lander and a rover to examine the red planet. It will arrive on Mars in February. The United Arab Emirates, for its part, also sent its first mission, the Hope orbiter, to Mars in the summer of 2020 to inspire the “next generation.”
Vera Rubin Observatory
Currently under construction in Chile, we hope that the Large Synoptic Survey or Survey Telescope or LSST, renamed in honor of the American astronomer Vera Rubin, will see its “first light” this year, that is, the first astronomical image captured by the telescope. after being completed. This observatory will have the largest digital camera in the world, capable of detecting a golf ball from about 25 kilometers away while capturing impressive 3,200-pixel images. We expect that first light in mid-2021.
SpaceX Axiom Space-1
The first completely private trip to the International Space Station . SpaceX thus plans to send astronauts with Axion Space for a mission to the ISS. The trip will probably be structured with eight days in the station and two more days of travel. It will be the beginning of what they hope will start a stage of “commercial opportunities” for the station, in order to find greater economic viability for this project.
