Six space missions we expect in 2021

Space exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and the return of samples from an asteroid to Earth.

Next year is shaping up to be equally interesting. These are some of the missions to watch out for.

Artemis 1

Artemis 1 is the first NASA-led international Artemis program flight to return astronauts to the Moon by 2024. It will consist of an unmanned Orion spacecraft that will be sent on a three-week flight around the Moon. Information technology will reach a maximum distance from Earth of 450,000 kilometers, the farthest into space that any spacecraft capable of carrying humans has ever flown.

Artemis 1 will launch into Earth orbit in NASA’s first Space Launch System, which will be the most powerful rocket in operation. From Earth’s orbit, Orion will be propelled a different path toward the Moon by the rocket’s provisional cryogenic propulsion stage. The Orion capsule will then travel to the Moon with energy provided by a service module supplied by the European Space Agency (Esa).

The mission will provide engineers on Earth with the opportunity to assess how the spacecraft performs in deep space and will serve as a prelude to subsequent manned lunar missions. The launch of Artemis 1 is currently scheduled for the end of 2021.

Missions to Mars

In February, Mars will host a flotilla of ground robotic guests from various countries. The United Arab Emirates Al Amal (Hope) spacecraft is the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission. It is scheduled to reach the orbit of Mars on February 9, where it will spend two years monitoring the Martian climate and the disappearing atmosphere.

A couple of weeks after Al Amal will arrive the Tianwen-1 of the National Space Administration of China, consisting of an orbiter and a surface rover. The spacecraft will enter Martian orbit for several months before deploying the rover to the surface. If successful, China will become the third country to land something on Mars. The mission has several objectives, including mapping the mineral composition of the surface and searching for water deposits below the surface.

NASA’s Perseverance rover will land at Jezero crater on February 18 and look for any signs of ancient life that may have been preserved in the clay deposits there. Crucially, it will also store a cache of Martian surface samples on board as the first part of a very ambitious international program to return samples from Mars to Earth.

Chandrayaan-3

In March 2021, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) plans to launch its third lunar mission: Chandrayaan-3. Chandrayaan-1 was launched in 2008 and was one of the first major missions of the Indian space program. Comprised of an orbiter and a surface penetrating probe, the mission was one of the first to confirm evidence of lunar water.

Unfortunately, contact with the satellite was lost less than a year later. Sadly, there was a similar mishap with its successor, Chandrayaan-2, which consisted of an orbiter, a lander (Vikram), and a lunar rover (Pragyan).

Chandrayaan-3 was announced a few months later. It will consist of just a lander and a rover, as the orbiter from the previous mission is still working and providing data.

If all goes well, the Chandrayaan-3 rover will land in the Aitken basin of the lunar south pole. It is of particular interest, as it is believed to host numerous deposits of groundwater ice, a vital component for any future sustainable lunar habitat.

James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, but it has had a difficult road to launch. Initially planned for a launch in 2007, the Webb telescope is nearly 14 years late and has cost roughly US $ 10bn (£ 7.4bn) after apparent underestimations and cost overruns similar to those experienced by Hubble.

While Hubble has provided some amazing views of the universe in the ultraviolet and visible light region, Webb plans to focus the observations in the infrared wavelength band. The reason for this is that when looking at really distant objects there will likely be gas clouds along the way.

These gas clouds block really small wavelengths of light, like X-rays and ultraviolet light, while longer wavelengths like infrared, microwave, and radio can pass through more easily. So when looking at these longer wavelengths, we should see more of the universe.

Webb also has a much larger 6.5 meter diameter mirror compared to Hubble’s 2.4 meter diameter mirror, essential for improving image resolution and seeing finer details.

Webb’s main mission is to observe the light from galaxies at the edge of the universe, which can tell us how the first stars, galaxies, and planetary systems formed. This could potentially include information on the origin of life as well, as Webb is planning to image exoplanet atmospheres in great detail, looking for the building blocks of life. Do they exist on other planets? If so, how did they get there?

We are also likely to see some impressive images similar to those produced by Hubble. Webb is currently scheduled to launch on an Ariane 5 rocket on October 31.