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The year ahead could be pretty bleak here on Earth as the economy tries to recover from the pandemic and vaccine delivery runs into problem after problem.
But in space, 2021 is shaping up to be a record year. New probes, landers, rovers and instruments are penetrating deeper into the solar system and beyond, stepping up humanity’s efforts to extract valuable resources, prepare for manned missions and, perhaps most intriguingly, research evidence of extraterrestrial life.
Here are some of the most exciting space stories of 2021.
THE MOON
It seems like everyone wants to get to the moon these days. There is a lot of important science we can do on the Dusty Orb and valuable things we can build in the low gravity of the moon, using the satellite’s own resources. The moon is also a possible launching pad for tracking missions to Mars.
Under Donald Trump, NASA’s Artemis mission aimed to place astronauts on the lunar surface by 2024. That has never been a realistic goal, and President-elect Joe Biden looks set to delay the mission for a few years. China is following America’s heels with its own manned mission that could reach the moon in the 2030s. Experts expect Russia to launch its own moon landing effort in 2021.
In the meantime, more and more robots are linked to the moon. Thanks in large part to the rapidly growing private space industry, lunar probes have become so small and cheap that it’s hard to keep track of them all. These days, a refrigerator-sized lander sells for a few hundred million dollars, including launch.
Among other 2021 lunar missions, Pittsburgh space company Astrobotic plans to launch one of its Peregrine landers in July. This machine is intended for a huge lunar crater called Lacus Mortis, where it will deliver up to 28 NASA instruments. Payloads include devices that will test new lunar navigation and landing technology–key systems for future lunar missions. A few months later, in October, Intuitive Machines in Houston plans to launch one of its Nova-C landers, carrying five NASA instruments, to a dark lunar “dark spot” called Oceanus Procellarum. The mission is a sort of dress rehearsal for a subsequent manned mission that may land at a similar location.
For moon watchers, November is expected to be huge. This is when NASA plans to perform the first launch test of its Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule, the main vehicles for the possible US manned mission to the Moon.
The American space agency takes advantage of the unmanned test mission to transport a pile of “cubesats” the size of a shoebox to the moon. The idea is for the Lunar Flashlight, Lunar Ice Cube, and LunaH cubesats to scan and map the moon’s dark south pole in hopes of spotting ice deposits that future explorers could turn into fuel.
“The success of the rocket and these missions will be a big step forward and a very long time coming,” Matt Siegler, an astronomer with the Arizona-based Planetary Science Institute, told The Daily Beast.
MARCH
Years of work in three countries culminate on the Red Planet in a matter of days at the start of 2021. That’s when “Mars becomes competitive,” said the University of Ottawa astronomer. Arizona Chris Impey at The Daily Beast.
NASA’s Perseverance rover is expected to land in mid-February, kicking off a decade-long sample collection effort that is part of a larger effort to find solid evidence of the microbial life on Mars. (Although to be fair, at least one scientist believes that we already found evidence of life on the planet.)
Not to be outdone, the Chinese space agency has its own probe on Mars, Tianwen-1. He should reach the Red Planet a few days after Perseverance. Tianwen-1 is an orbiter-lander-rover combination, which Siegler described as “cool.” The orbiter scans potential landing sites before jettisoning the lander, which in turn deploys the rover.
“It’s also a huge political statement,” Siegler added. “China is on the right track to truly lead in space exploration and it will be a big decision for the United States as to how or if they are going to keep pace.”
The UAE’s first Mars mission also arrives on the Red Planet in February. The Hope Orbiter contains sensors to analyze the atmosphere and climate of Mars. Getting a probe to Mars is “a huge achievement for a new space nation,” Siegler said.
All this competition on Mars, with each mission fueling a growing body of research, brings us closer to what many scientists see as an inevitable and profound conclusion.–that life evolved on other planets.
The Perseverance rover is at the heart of this possible historic moment. “The big story for the start of 2021 won’t be that the rover has found tantalizing evidence of biology beyond Earth – we expect it will,” said Seth Shostak, an astronomer from the SETI Institute based in California, at the Daily Beast. “The great story would be a failure to find promising sites. “
SPACE TELESCOPE
Since 1990, astronomers have relied on a multibillion-dollar instrument for many of their most important observations on other planets. The Hubble Space Telescope.
But Hubble is old, outdated and, frankly, falling apart. NASA had to send astronauts to the 44-foot-long telescope to do repairs five different times over the years.
In 1996, NASA, in conjunction with Northrop Grumman and Bell Aerospace, began to develop the new James Webb Space Telescope to replace Hubble. Ten billion dollars, several design issues and several launch delays later, the 66-foot-long telescope is finally ready to go.
The mission is slated to take off in October, 14 years later than NASA initially hoped.
The main mission of the James Webb Space Telescope is to inspect distant galaxies for clues to the origin of the universe. But there are also tempting possibilities closer to home. “Webb’s big discovery could be to find a relatively close exoplanet–let’s say within a few tens of light years–with oxygen or methane in its atmosphere, ”Shostak explained.
“It would be solid proof that our solar system’s talent for cooking for life is not terribly remarkable, and that biology is surely a cosmic infection, rather than a rare, semi-miraculous event.
With likely significant developments on the Moon and Mars and the planned deployment of the new space telescope, the coming year could be significant for humanity as it slowly spreads through the cosmos … and seeks proof that it is not the only one.
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