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The mirror of NASA’s James Webb telescope undergoes a cooling test. Paul Aerospace / Flickr, CC BY-SA
However, space exploration has made several notable achievements in 2020 COVID-19 Epidemic, including commercial manned spaceflight and return of asteroid samples to Earth.
Next year is shaping up to be interesting. Here are some things to keep in mind.
Artemis 1
Artemis 1 is the maiden flight POTRun by the international Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon by 2024. It will consist of an unmanned Orion spacecraft that will be sent on a three-week journey around the moon. Information technology will reach a maximum distance of 450,000 kilometers from Earth, the farthest distance in space than any spacecraft capable of carrying humans.
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 to the Moon by the missile’s temporary cooled propulsion stage. The Orion capsule will then travel to the moon with energy provided by the service module provided by the European Space Agency (ESA).
The mission will provide returning engineers to Earth an opportunity to evaluate the spacecraft’s performance in deep space and serve as an introduction to the crew on subsequent lunar missions. Artemis 1 is currently scheduled to launch in late 2021.
Missions to Mars
In February, Mars A fleet of guests will receive ground robots from various countries. The UAE’s Al-Amal (Hope) rover is the first interplanetary mission in the Arab world. It is scheduled to reach the orbit of Mars on February 9, when it will spend two years observing the Martian climate and the disappearance of the atmosphere.
Tianwen 1 of the China National Space Administration will arrive two weeks after Project Hope, which consists of an orbiter and a surface craft. The spacecraft will enter the orbit of Mars for several months before deploying the spacecraft to the surface. If successful, China will become the third country to land on Mars. The mission has several objectives, including mapping the mineralogical composition of the surface and searching for underground water deposits.
NASA’s Perseverance spacecraft, shown in this technical rendering, will land in the Jezero crater on Mars in February 2021 and begin collecting soil samples shortly thereafter. Scientists are now concerned that acidic fluids, once they reach Mars, may have destroyed evidence of life in the mud. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Tenacity vehicle will land at Jezero crater on February 18 and search for any signs of ancient life that may have been preserved in the mud deposits there. Importantly, it will also store a Mars sample cache on board as the first part of a very ambitious international program to bring Mars samples back 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. The mission consisted of a probe and a penetrating surface probe, and was one of the first missions to confirm the evidence for the existence of lunar water.
Unfortunately, it lost contact with the satellite in less than a year. Unfortunately, there has been a similar incident with its successor, Chandrayaan-2, consisting of an orbiter and a lander (Vikram) and a lunar module (Prajian).
Artistic photograph of the Chandrayaan-2 mission to the moon from India. Credit: Raymond Castle
Chandrayaan-3 was announced a few months later. It will consist of a lander and a rover only, as the old orbiter is still operational and provides data.
If all goes well, the Chandrayaan-3 rover will land in the Aitken Basin of the South Pole of the Moon. It is of particular interest as it is believed to host numerous deposits of groundwater ice, a vital component of any future sustainable lunar habitat.
James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, but it had a rocky path to launch. Initially planned to launch the Webb Telescope in 2007, it was delayed about 14 years and cost almost US $ 10 billion (£ 7.4 billion) after an apparent underestimation and cost overruns similar to those experienced by Hubble.
While Hubble provided some impressive views of the universe in the visible light and ultraviolet region, Webb plans to focus the observations in the infrared wavelength range. The reason for this is that when truly distant objects are observed, there are likely clouds of gas in the way.
NGC 2775 as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ESA / Hubble & NASA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST team. Thanks: Judy Schmidt (Gikzela)
Gas clouds block these very small wavelengths of light, such as X-rays and ultraviolet rays, while longer wavelengths such as infrared, microwave, and radio can pass through more easily. So by looking at these longer wavelengths, we should see more of the universe.
Webb also has a much larger 6.5-meter mirror compared to Hubble’s 2.4-meter mirror, essential for improving image resolution and seeing fine details.
Webb’s main mission is to observe the light from galaxies at the edge of the universe that can tell us how stars, galaxies, and the first planetary systems formed. This will likely include information on the origin of life as well, as Webb plans to film Exoplanet Environment with great detail, in search of the pillars of life. Are they on other planets, and if so, how did they get there?
We are also likely to come across some amazing images similar to those produced by Hubble. Webb is currently scheduled to launch an Ariane 5 missile on October 31.
Written by Ian Whitaker, Senior Lecturer in Physics, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorian, Postdoctoral Researcher in Space Sciences, University of Birmingham.
Originally posted on Conversation.
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