Space exploration will give us a 2021 of great emotions.
2021 will be a year of incredible importance for the future of space exploration.
It seems that the leading nations of our planet are finally convinced of the need
to seriously commit resources and technologies in a new space race. So we will see the growth
of new mega satellite constellations, we will witness the formation of orbiting human outposts,
there will finally be the launch of a huge space telescope, we will see the definitive breakthrough
of private companies on the scene, and the rise of new powers such as China, India, Arabia, Japan...
And then the siege of the Moon, and then the siege of Mars...
Every day more and more space proves to be the crucial strategic asset of our times.
The economic flywheel of technological and scientific development. In human activities
beyond the atmosphere converge major issues such as the protection of the environment
and national borders, climate monitoring, global connectivity, as well as the vanguard
of research and exploration of all mankind. For this reason, drawing up the agenda of the
space events of the new year means listing the stages of progress tout court, whose benefits,
starting from space, will gradually contribute to improve the quality of life here on Earth.
We have tried to condense all that will be important in 2021 in this video, listing month by
month the enterprises that deserve to be followed. Are you ready for the big space ride?
January. On Jan. 17, the Parker Solar Probe, launched on Aug. 12, 2018, for the purpose of
studying the Sun and its stellar wind will reach the perihelion of its seventh orbit,
then head to Venus, which it will fly over on Feb. 20 to receive a gravitational assist.
During the seven-year mission, the spacecraft will move closer and closer to the Sun,
with the final three passes bringing it within 7 million miles of the surface in 2025.
February. Robotic probes from three different nations will arrive on Mars in February,
each representing a milestone in the exploration of the Red Planet.
On February 8, the Hope probe, launched by the United Arab Emirates on July 19, is scheduled to
enter into Martian orbit. If successful, it will be the first scientific mission in deep space
led by an Arab nation. The probe, developed in collaboration with the University of
Colorado-Boulder, is designed to be the most comprehensive weather satellite ever sent to Mars.
On February 11, it will be the turn of the Chinese probe Tianwen-1,
launched on July 23, 2020, to enter orbit around Mars. A mission that has already made history by
ejecting last September a small camera capable of photographing the spacecraft during the trip.
On April 23 the Tianwen-1 will drop a lander that will rest on the sands of Utopia Planitia,
near the glorious Viking 2. In turn, the lander will release a rover.
Instead, the Mars 2020 mission will arrive on Feb. 18, consisting of a large rover,
Perseverance, that will descend to the shore of the Jazero crater, which was once a lake.
Perseverance will conduct extensive chemical investigations to look for chemical evidence
of Martian life and prepare rock samples intended to be collected
and brought back to Earth by a joint NASA-ESA mission within the next decade.
March. On March 3, the Osiris Rex probe will begin its journey back to Earth
with samples taken from the asteroid Bennu last October.
In the meantime, India's lunar dreams will continue: at the beginning of the month,
the Indian Space Research Organisation is expected to launch the Chandrayaan-3 probe towards our
natural satellite. The mission, consisting of a lander and a rover, will be carried out in
collaboration with Jaxa, the Japanese space agency, and will explore the polar regions
of the Moon to identify deposits of water ice. On March 25, Boeing's Cst-100 "Starliner" capsule
is expected to perform its second unmanned flight test after its first attempt to dock
with the International Space Station in December 2019, which was unsuccessful
due to an on-board software malfunction. Like SpaceX's Crew Dragon, the Starliner shuttles are
expected to provide NASA with transportation of astronauts to and from the Space Station.
April. It is not to be excluded that on April 12, in conjunction with the 60th anniversary
of Gagarin's feat and the 40th anniversary of the first Shuttle mission, SpaceX's Crew Dragon
shuttle will be launched to the International Space Station, carrying NASA astronauts Shane
Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet.
On April 23, the Chinese probe Tianwen-1, orbiting Mars since last February, will drop a lander that
will descend into the sands of Utopia Planitia, near the site where the glorious Viking 2 rested.
In turn, the lander will release a rover intended to explore the surrounding surface.
June. Not having certain dates - it is typical of China not to make them official if not a few days
before the launches - we believe that June is the most probable month for the launch of Tiangong,
the first Chinese modular station. With a mass between 60 and 70 tons
and a pressurized volume of 110 cubic meters, capable of hosting three taikonauts at a time,
the station will be composed of three different modules,
which once assembled will have a T shape, like the historic Soviet Mir station.
July. On 22 July, Vega C, the new European light launcher, almost entirely produced in Italy, will
make its debut on the astronautic scene. It will depart from the base of Kourou, in Guyana, and is
expected to put into orbit Lares 2, a satellite of the Italian Space Agency for laser tracking.
Also on July 22, but from the base of Vandenberg, California, it is expected that a SpaceX Falcon
9 will bring into space for NASA the first real mission of planetary defense, the Double
Asteroid Redirection Test, intended, with a controlled impact, to verify the possibility
of diverting the orbital trajectory of an asteroid at ten million kilometers from Earth.
The DART probe will fly to a double asteroid and in October 2022 will crash into the smaller one
(a 160-meter wide rock called Dimorphos). attempting for the first time to
measurably change the path of an asteroid. In July, the lunar lander Peregrine, from the
private U.S. company Astrobotic Technology, should also launch from a Vulcan Centauri launcher.
Peregrine is designed to send payloads into lunar orbit and onto the Selenian surface. The payloads
can be installed on or under shelves, inside or outside of their designated accommodations,
and can remain docked to the lander or be released into space, based on customer
requirements. On this first mission, it will carry 11 instruments that will measure radiation
levels on the lunar surface. in the Lacus Mortis basaltic plain toward the North Pole.
August. On August 11, ESA's probe, BepiColombo will perform its second fly-by of Venus, passing
within 1007 kilometers of its surface. It will then head toward its final destination, Mercury,
where it will make its first grazing pass, at about 200 kilometers, on October 2.
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October. Month of extraordinary content! On October 1, the Luna 25 mission is scheduled
to launch, marking Russia's return to robotic exploration of the Moon after more than four
decades. Luna 25 is a lander that will have as main task to test how to land inside the
Boguslawsky crater, near the lunar south pole. On October 2, ESA's BepiColombo probe will fly
over the surface of Mercury at an altitude of 200 kilometers.
On Oct. 11, a SpaceX Falcon 9 is expected to carry the Nova-C Lunar Lander Mission 1,
designed by the Intuitive Machines company, into orbit. Initially scheduled for July,
the expedition will carry several scientific payloads including Asagumo,
a small rover shaped like a four-legged spider. Remarkably, after landing,
the lander is able to reposition itself by performing a vertical takeoff and landing again.
Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic are the first two private companies to which NASA has awarded
its first commercial contracts to bring small and medium-sized payloads to the lunar surface.
Axiom's AX-1 mission, bound for the International Space Station aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon vehicle,
is scheduled to launch in October, at a date still uncertain. Note, this mission will not include
actor Tom Cruise, who on the ISS was supposed to shoot some scenes of his upcoming movie.
At a still undetermined time, between October 16 and November 5, will kick off Lucy,
a NASA mission primarily intended to visit in 2027 the so-called Trojan Asteroids located at
L4 and L5, the Lagrangian points of Jupiter's orbit that precede and follow the planet by 60
degrees along its orbit. These objects have been trapped in their positions for billions of years,
probably since the time of the formation of the solar system. First, it will touch down
at the L4 point, after which, Lucy will return toward Earth where it will use a gravitational
assist to reach the Lagrangian L5 point (which orbits 60º back in the Jovian orbit), where it
will visit the Trojan binary 617 Patroclus. During the trip, the probe will also fly over
52246 Donaldjohanson, an asteroid in the main belt named in honor of the discoverer of Lucy,
the Australopithecus fossil from which the mission takes its name.
On October 31 (we hope) the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest telescope ever placed
in space, with a diameter of 6.5 meters and a light gathering power many times that of the
Hubble Space Telescope, will finally launch. JWST is optimized for infrared observations,
which will allow it to study galaxy formation in the early universe in unprecedented detail.
It will also examine the birthplace of new stars and planets and, most importantly,
allow detailed chemical analysis of the atmospheres of exoplanets.
The telescope will be carried into orbit by an Ariane 5 rocket, and one month after
launch it will be positioned at the Lagrangian L2 point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
November. The launch date still uncertain, but it should be the month of November to
see the launch of Artemis 1, certainly the most important mission among those listed so far,
and at the same time one of the most likely to be postponed to 2022.
The first official mission of the Artemis Program will have the main objective to test the correct
functioning of the Orion capsule and the heavy launch vehicle Space Launch System.
The Orion capsule, unmanned, will be inserted in an elliptical lunar trajectory.
It will then perform two different orbits around our satellite before returning to Earth.
Thirteen small missions will be embedded. These include three lunar orbiters:
the Lunar Flashlight, Lunar IceCube and LunaH-Map, which will study the
location of water deposits on the moon's surface. Artemis-1 will also carry NEA Scout, an innovative
spacecraft that will use a solar sail to maneuver to a near-Earth asteroid using only the Sun as
propellant. This mission could be a harbinger of more solar sail-driven space missions.
December. On Dec. 5, the Dream Chaser, the new spaceplane built by Sierra Nevada Corporation
to carry up to seven astronauts in low orbit, is expected to perform its first
re-entry test to Earth. The Dream Chaser is the only spaceplane currently developed
to be able to reach the ISS (via the Vulcan Centaur launcher) and return to
Earth by landing on an airport runway, thereby picking up the legacy of the Space Shuttles.
There, that's pretty much it. Obviously, the dates that we have proposed could be subject to change,
and the missions could be postponed or even canceled, but in principle this
will be the plot that will keep tens of millions of space exploration enthusiasts
in the world. Including you! And if you have questions, come forward!