There are incredibly many cool space things happening in 2021

Writing about the space industry kept me healthy during the turbulent and difficult times of 2020. While the pandemic swept across the globe and America dealt with extremely divisive social and political issues, the space industry was more or less linked.

Three missions launched to Mars. NASA has returned to the human spaceflight game, thanks to SpaceX’s spacecraft Crew Dragon. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft touched an asteroid, while a Japanese vehicle returned with a few grams of asteroid, and China brought back some lunar rocks to Earth. In South Texas, some Starships lived, and some Starships died. It was lovely to watch.

As we look forward to a new year, there is so much, if not more, space-goodness. I asked readers for suggestions on Twitter about what they expect next year and have received more than 400 responses. This list is a distillation of these ideas, plus some of my own, to put together the spatial goodness we should be most looking forward to in 2021. very.

But first a warning: history has taught us that not everything will happen (see, for example, last year’s space preview). And if a rocket or other important technical program has a timeline that expires next year on a “Q4” flight, it will most likely slip into the next year. Nevertheless, we best advise on what might happen in space this year.

The Mars fleet arrives

Three Mars missions launched from Earth during the summer of 2020, and all three are now approaching the red planet. The big question is, will all three make it safe there in February?

The United Arab Emirates’ first mission to the red planet, Mars Hope, will arrive on 9 February. At this moment, the spacecraft will make a challenging maneuver to rotate more slowly and around Mars with an altitude above the planet as low as 1,000 km. If all goes well, the spacecraft will study a Mars year – 687 Earth Days – and study the planet’s atmosphere and better understand it again.

China has not said exactly when its ambitious Tianwen-1 mission will arrive on Mars, but it is expected in mid-February. Once the spacecraft is in orbit, it will take several months to descend to the surface and assess the planned landing in the Utopia Planitia region. Then China will try to become only the second country to softly land a spacecraft on Mars that survives longer than a handful of seconds. This will be a big moment for the country’s space program.

NASA’s Mars Perseverance will likely be the last of three missions to arrive on Mars, which will reach the red planet in mid-February and attempt a landing in the Jezero crater on February 18. in 2012 – will be the TV you need to watch.

History suggests that at least one of these three missions will not make it, but we hope to take the chance.

More Starship Flights

SpaceX finally flew its Starship vehicle three times in 2020. Twice he sent prototypes with a single engine to 150 meters. Then in December it sent a complete prototype to an altitude of about 12.5 km. During this beautiful flight, the vehicle – with three Raptor engines, a nose cone and valves – performed a belly flop maneuver and landed almost safely in South Texas.

We can probably expect many more flights to higher altitudes in 2021. As SpaceX founder Elon Musk explained to Ars in February, SpaceX was set on building the machine to build the machine in South Texas. Now much of the work has been completed, and SpaceX is rapidly manufacturing Starship vehicles at the Boca Chica launch site. At the end of December, when the company rolled its “Serial Number 9” Starship to the cushion, parts of vehicles 10 to 17 were in different stages of development at the factory under the tents.

At the same time, SpaceX is also starting to manufacture the Super Heavy rocket that will serve as Starship’s first phase. It seems plausible that one of the Starships currently under construction will make a flying attempt on top of Super Heavy this year. Or not. One thing is for sure: it will be fun to witness the trials, tribulations and triumphs of SpaceX, as it wants to build an interplanetary spaceship that has never been seen before.

James Webb Space Telescope

Snoring about the delays in the launch schedule of the ultra-ambitious James Webb Space Telescope has become commonplace in the space community, and this flagship astrophysics mission is indeed far behind schedule and exceeded.

However, it seems that the current scientific leadership of NASA has addressed a number of technical and management issues that have plagued the telescope program and caused delay after delay. There seems to be quiet confidence that NASA’s space telescope will hold up at the launch date of October 31, 2021 on a European Ariane V rocket.

After launch, the voltage will only increase as the telescope undergoes a two-week process, which will allow the deployment of a sunshade as well as primary and secondary mirror installations. All of this could mean an exciting end to 2021 for astronomers – or a heartbreaking process if this complicated process goes wrong.