This artist’s concept shows the Lucy spacecraft tracking a Trojan asteroid. This NASA mission, led … [+]
NASA / Lockheed Martin
Three space missions from the UAE, China and NASA have now reached Mars. “Hope,” “Tianwen” and “Sustainability” may have reached Martian system and are now ready to be explored, but what happens now for space missions in 2021?
Try this: NASA returns to the lunar surface, builds a new Chinese space station, the first ever mission to crash into an asteroid – and slowly launches the latest space telescope expensive and important to humanity yet?
Here ‘s all you need to know about eight amazing space missions set to launch in 2021:
1. The largest space station ever in China
Mission Name: Tianhe
When: March 2021
Even as Tianwen-1 moves to Mars and reads its rover, China could be launching the first parts of a major space station. Tianhe (“celestial river”) is the first of six rapid-fire missions that will complete China’s space station by 2022, some of which will carry taikonauts (Chinese astronauts). This first model with construction from the Wenchang Spaceship Launch Site on the island of Hainan on the Long March-5B Y2 rocket.
2. NASA returns to the Moon
Mission Name: Hawks Mission 1
When: June 20, 2021
To make the famous Artemis program of Moon missions successful NASA needs to send a bunch of cheap, but dangerous, science experiments to the surface of the moon. First in NASA Commercial Lunar Payment Services is Mission 1 Peregrine, built by the private company Astrobiotic. The Lunar Hawk Lander will deliver 14 payloads to Lacus Mortis, a large crater on a side near the Moon. It will be launched on the United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
3. First ‘asteroid reconnaissance’ mission
Mission Name: Dual Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)
When: July 21, 2021
What would we do if we knew that something near Earth (NEO) was on its way to Earth? Could we ignore it? Trying to find out is the Double Asteroid Retrieval Test (DART), a mission from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to fall into a passing binary asteroid called Didymos and Didymoon near Earth in October 2022. The idea is to use a method called “defetic deflection” on Didymoon, mainly by hitting a 500kg spacecraft into it, and by doing so slightly changes its course. DART will launch on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
4. NASA studies lunar lava tunnel
Mission Name: IM-1
When: October 11, 2021
Also to be launched on SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral is NASA’s IM-1, a 14-day mission that sees the Nova-C spacecraft near a lava tunnel that collapsed in Lacus Mortis – “Lake of Death ”- a large crater in the Ocean Stormy Moon. Part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Services (CLPS) program and designed by the private company Intuitive Machines, IM-1 will also test a landing system in detail.
5. Trip to Jupiter Trojan asteroids
Mission Name: Lucy
When: October 16, 2021
“Lucy” is the first ever spacecraft to study Trojan Jupiter asteroids – ancient tiny bodies that move behind and in front of the big planet. His 12-year mission goes something like this: get close to a small asteroid called 52246 Donaldjohanson in the Main Asteroid Belt (between Mars and Jupiter) in 2025 before visiting Five Dwarfs in 2027 and 2028, and then going back around the Earth on its way to a final Trojan in 2033. It is thought that the Trojans may have been able to maintain an early understanding of the Solar System and give an idea of the origin of the Earth’s organic matter.
6. ‘Webb’ finally launches
Mission Name: James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
When: October 31, 2021
The famous long-awaited new Astronomy space telescope is finally on the verge of flight. A generation in the planning, and costing about $ 8.8 billion, the JWST or “Webb” is estimated to be 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope. Her sunshield will be set up in origami style inside a fair at the top of the Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket that departed from the European Spaceport launch center in Kourou, French Guiana. His mission? Look at the first galaxies, take a direct picture of exoplanets around sacred stars, and usually change everything we know about the cosmos.
7. NASA tests the most powerful rocket in the world
Mission name: Artemis-1
When: end of 2021
NASA wants to get back to the Moon by putting the first and next woman on its surface in 2024 as part of the Artemis-3 mission. That’s ambitious, but Biden’s administration seems to like it, so it’s going for now. In preparation, Artemis-1 is an unmanned flight test mission that will see the first test of the Orion spacecraft, European Service Model (ESM) and NASA Space Launch System (SLS) – the most powerful rocket in the world (but so far unconfirmed). It will launch from Complex 39B at NASA’s Canadian Space Center, Earth’s orbit, then Orion and the ESM will fly to the Moon and enter an elliptical orbit that will take them from 62 miles above its surface. to 40,000 miles further afield. It rains off Baja, California.
8. India’s second attempt to land on the Moon
Mission Name: Chandrayaan-3
When: end of 2021
India’s Chandrayaan (“mooncraft”) budget missions to the Moon are back. After finding water on the Moon with Chandrayaan-1 in 2008, Chandrayaan-2 crashed into the Moon in 2019. Cue Chandrayaan-3, another trip that sees a surface and rover on its landed on the Aitken basin at the south pole of the moon.
The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) plans to launch Chandrayaan-3 in late 2021 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC) in Andhra Pradesh. It is expected to cost less than $ 100 million.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.