Name: Space In 2021: These Are The Most Exciting Stories To Look Out For Next Year
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Space In 2021: These Are The Most Exciting Stories To Look Out For Next Year

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BETAThis is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by&nbsp;Dec 29, 2020,Despite the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 has been a surprisingly busy year for space – and next year looks to be equally enthralling.In the last 12 months we’ve seen , SpaceX’s (and ) human spaceflights for NASA, and sample return missions and .In 2021 we’re expecting even more exciting missions to launch, including a much-delayed space telescope, while we’ll also likely see major continued developments in private spaceflight.Here’s what to look forward to…Mars missions arriveThe year will begin with the arrival of , two of which will land on the surface.On 18 February 2021, NASA’s Perseverance rover is scheduled to touch down on Mars, where it will perform the most extensive search for past life on Mars to date.It’ll be joined in April by China’s Tianwen-1 rover, which will also arrive at Mars in February but remain in orbit until it attempts its landing.And the United Arab Emirates’ Hope mission will also enter orbit in February, the first Arabian mission to Mars, where it will study the climate and weather of the Red Planet, among other goals.MORE FOR YOUJames Webb Space TelescopeFollowing many, many delays, is 2021 finally going to be the year we see NASA, ESA and Canada’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launch?Hopefully so, with the launch of the telescope – a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope – on an Ariane 5 rocket currently scheduled for .The complex telescope will be positioned 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, where it will afford us glorious and unprecedented views of the universe in infrared. There’s just the small matter of getting it to space first.More Starship launchesEarlier this month we saw the stunning of SpaceX’s Starship Mars prototype rocket, SN8, designed to one day take humans to the Red Planet.In early 2021, we’re expecting to see a similar flight from the next prototype, SN9, which will hopefully be able to stick the landing this time around.But 2021 might also be the year that we actually see a Starship vehicle make it to orbit, with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk saying he was that would happen.New rocketsAside from Starship, 2021 could also be the year we see several other rockets successfully launch for the first time.The most notable of these is NASA’s (SLS), intended to be the rocket that will take astronauts back to the Moon in 2024. However, with the incoming Biden administration, the future of this rocket and Artemis Moon programme remains uncertain.Elsewhere, we’re also expecting to see Virgin Orbit attempt , while 2021 could also see maiden launches for Blue Origin’s New Glenn orbital rocket, the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan rocket, and Arianspace’s .Boeing launches humansWhile 2020 saw the first and second launches of humans on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, it was also supposed to see similar launches from Boeing’s Starliner vehicle, funded under the same NASA program.However, on a test flight in December 2019 meant its human flights were delayed while the issues were addressed.Presuming we see a successful second attempt of that test flight soon, then we might see Boeing launch astronauts on Starliner for the first time at some point later in the year.SpaceX launches humans again (and again)While Boeing is aiming for its first human launch, SpaceX will be aiming for its third with the Crew-2 mission in March 2021.On board will be NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet.SpaceX is also aiming for Crew-3 in October, and may even perform some separate of Crew Dragon, including one with a certain …Moon missionsSeveral missions to the Moon are expected to launch next year. One of these, in July, will be Astrobotic’s , scheduled to touch down in a region called Lacus Mortis.Another private mission from the company Intuitive Machines is expected to launch in , with a lander called Nova-C on board.And, , we may see India launch its Chandrayaan-3 mission, a second attempt at landing on the Moon after the crash of the Vikram lander on the Chandrayaan-2 mission in 2019.Lucy launchLater in the year, in a three-week launch window that opens on October 16, we’ll be seeing the launch of a new NASA spacecraft called Lucy, an exciting mission to study Jupiter’s trojan asteroids.Lucy will spend 12 years travelling to and exploring six of these asteroids, the first ever mission to study trojan asteroids.Studying these asteroids, which share the orbit of Jupiter, will provide some , giving us a new window into a little-understood group of asteroids in our Solar System.Other bitsNASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission will leave the asteroid Bennu in March 2021, taking with it a large amount of sample that it scooped from the surface, arriving back at Earth in 2023.Also in March, the asteroid Apophis will make a distant flyby of Earth, at 16.9 million kilometers. This will be our last chance to observe the asteroid before a much closer pass in 2029 of just 31,000 kilometers.July should see the launch of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, a mission by NASA to practice deflecting an asteroid away from Earth.Also in July, NASA’s Juno mission is scheduled to come to an end at Jupiter. However, the mission may be extended to explore the moons of Jupiter.Several missions are scheduled to fly past Venus next year, including ESA’s Solar Orbiter and BepiColombo spacecraft, and NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.China is expected to launch the core module called Tianhe for its upcoming space station, Tiangong 3, at some point in 2021.The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will take its , ahead of the beginning of full operations in October 2022.And NASA’s Near-Earth Asteroid Scout (NEA Scout) is also scheduled to launch in late 2021, which will attempt to fly past a near-Earth asteroid called 1991 VG.All in all, it’s scheduled to be a pretty busy year. So, goodbye and good riddance 2020, and see you all in 2021!.&nbsp;my&nbsp;.&nbsp;

BETAThis is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by&nbsp;Dec 29, 2020,Despite the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 has been a surprisingly busy year for space – and next year looks to be equally enthralling.In the last 12 months we’ve seen , SpaceX’s (and ) human spaceflights for NASA, and sample return missions and .In 2021 we’re expecting even more exciting missions to launch, including a much-delayed space telescope, while we’ll also likely see major continued developments in private spaceflight.Here’s what to look forward to…Mars missions arriveThe year will begin with the arrival of , two of...

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Jonathan O'Callaghan

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Space In 2021: These Are The Most Exciting Stories To Look Out For Next Year

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