Space odyssey: 2021 promises to be very interesting for space exploration

In 2021, the first Indian will be propelled by our own rocket into space. The Chandrayaan-3 demonstration mission will try to land on a lunar land again after the Vikram commander of the Chandrayaan-2 mission collapsed in July 2019. The new mission is expected to be launched in March this year and it would include a lunar rover and a stationery landlord approved by the Indian government.

K Sivan, chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), revealed that the estimated cost for Chandrayaan-3 was Rs 6.15 billion (about $ 91.2 million), a much lower figure compared to Chandrayaan-2, which cost Rs 9.7 billion, according to news reports.

Launched in 2008, Chandrayaan-1 was one of the top missions in India’s space program. Introducing a surface penetrator orbiter and probe, this was one of the first missions that confirmed evidence of lunar water. Chandrayaan-3 rubs down in the Aitken hollow of the southern lunar pole, an essential part of future lunar stable habitat.

The group has also identified four astronauts for Gaganyaan, the country’s first human spaceflight launched in 2021. In 1984, Rakesh Sharma flew in a Russian model, but this time, the Indian astronauts flying in an Indian model. Sharma, the first Indian to travel into space, was part of the Soviet Union’s Soyuz T-11 mission, launched in April 1984 as part of the Intercosmos program.

Clearly, 2021 promises to be very exciting for space missions, and not just because of India’s space plans. There are other key countries in addition to planning their upcoming space missions. Russia, for one, has renewed its Luna program to launch the lunar mission in 2021 with nine instruments on board, according to news and space discovery website Space.com. The country is setting the stage to put cosmonauts on the moon under the Russian emperor Luna-25, the first Russian ship to reach the lunar surface since it was part of the Soviet Union.

China’s ambitious Tianwen-1 mission is the first mission to Mars with an orbiter, lander and rover to explore the red planet. Tianwen-1, which entered space in July 2020, is now more than 15 million km from earth on its way to the red planet.

South Korea and Japan are also building lunar missiles. South Korea, with the first release of a lunar orbiter slated for the second half of 2022, has been working on a lunar orbiter program since 2016, Yonhap news agency reported. The spacecraft is expected to reach the moon by December 2022 and take a year-long mission that could be extended, according to the state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).

Japan’s first moon rover called Yaoki will fly aboard the rookie mission for United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan Centaur rocket in 2021. The U.S. Artemis project, which includes the goal the first and next woman to be sent to the moon in 2024, the most ambitious mission. Subsequent missions explore more of the moon and test the technologies and methods needed for human exploration of Mars. In this regard, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is seeking new partners to help the group tell the story of a human study of the moon with the Artemis program in ways that go hand in hand. engaging, uplifting and inspiring.

Boeing, too, hopes to launch a second attempt on March 29 this year after addressing the software issues that prevented Starliner from reaching its destination for the first time.

The Washington-based company Blue Origin will launch its first orbital rocket in 2021. Named New Glenn after NASA Mercury astronaut John Glenn, the rocket can carry up to 14 tons. sent to geostationary orbit and 50 tons to low earth orbit.

NASA’s new advanced mission called Lucy is expected to launch in November this year to study eight space rocks over nearly a decade. Raised from the depths of the earth, it will complete a 12-year journey to eight different asteroids – a Main Belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids. The swarms of Trojan asteroids associated with Jupiter are thought to be the remnants of the primordial material created by the outer planets. The Trojans orbit the sun in two scattered groups, with one group leading ahead of Jupiter in its path, the other sliding behind it. The Jupiter trojans, often called Trojan asteroids or simply Trojans, are a large group of asteroids that divide the planet’s orbit around the sun. These primitive bodies hold vital evidence for determining the history of the solar system, and perhaps even the origin of organic matter on earth.