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About a month after the start of the New Year on Earth, three spacecraft will be heading to close to Mars. These explorers, which were launched in July last year, will be the heralds of a busy year of space exploration, launches and astronomical events.
The following is a look at some of the most notable expected events of 2021. Private companies and global space agencies are expected to announce more. The Times Space and Astronomical Calendar will help you keep track of these dates and you can subscribe to them here.
While China has landed on the Moon three times in the past seven years, NASA has not landed there since 1972, the last Apollo mission. That could change in 2021, deepening the commercial transformation of U.S. space efforts.
Over the past decade, NASA has relied on private companies to build and operate spacecraft that could transport goods, and now people, to the International Space Station. It is trying a similar approach with commercial lunar payload services. The program has contracted with a number of private companies to build robotic lunar landers that will transport goods from NASA and other customers to the moon’s surface.
The first company, Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic, is expected to launch its Peregrine lander to the moon in June. It could be followed in October by Nova-C, a spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines of Houston.
NASA is also planning to bring astronauts back to the moon this decade. Its first stop will be an unmanned test flight of the massive space launch system built for future US deep space launches. The rocket has faced numerous delays and balloon costs, but NASA is still planning a 2021 trip known as Artemis-1. He will send Orion, a capsule for astronauts, around the moon and back to Earth. This test is tentatively scheduled for November.
Deeper into deep space
A second mission, Lucy, will launch in October and travel much further, performing overflights on Jupiter’s orbital path. There, he will study Trojans – asteroids that travel in the same orbit as Jupiter but hundreds of millions of miles forward or backward, trapped by the gravity of the giant planet. Scientists believe that these space rocks could hide secrets about the formation of the outer planets of the solar system.
Odyssey in orbit
Human spaceflight was transformed in 2020 when SpaceX successfully launched a pair of crews to the space station. The company will likely send more astronauts to orbit in 2021, and not all of them may be working for NASA and other government space agencies. Several companies are working with SpaceX to launch paying customers on the Crew Dragon capsule. One of them, Axiom Space, could send its first private tourists to the space station at the end of the year.
When NASA chose SpaceX to build its astronaut transport, it also hired Boeing to do the same. During an unscrewed in-orbit test in December 2019, a series of errors nearly led to the catastrophic loss of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. To compensate for this unsuccessful flight, Boeing will carry out a second test flight in March.
Further human space travel awaits this year as well. Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin could send paying customers for short trips to the far reaches of space and return in 2021. China could also start launching parts of its next-gen space station during the year, putting it on track to have a regular human presence in low earth orbit in the years to come.
Solar system showtime
If 2020 has taught people anything, it is to expect the unexpected. As Covid-19 darkened the world as it traveled around the sun, humanity was surprised by the sights of Comet NEOWISE during the summer months and mesmerized by the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn during the Solstice of ‘winter. It’s a big universe, and there is so much to see from our little part.
A lunar eclipse on May 26 will overlap with a period when the moon is closer to Earth than usual, what some call a “super blood moon.” People in Australia and the Pacific Islands as well as the western United States will have the best views of the event, and part of the event will be visible in other parts of the Americas as well as Asia. from the East and the South.
Most people in North America will have to wait until 2024 to experience the next total solar eclipse like the one in August 2017. But on June 10, some North Americans will get a taste of what will happen in three years when a annular solar eclipse will darken. some skies.
Also known as a “ring of fire” eclipse, it occurs when the moon is too far from Earth to completely obstruct the sun, leaving a halo of sunlight around its edges. This unusual eclipse will cross the North Pole on its journey, and only people living in small areas of Canada and Russia will have the full effect. But those who want to wake up early enough on parts of the East Coast and wear their safety glasses may see a partial eclipse around sunrise that morning.
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