2021 could be a huge year for space. Here’s what’s to come from NASA, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos.
The Washington Post By Christian Davenport 12/30/2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/30/2021-space-events-plan/We all know that 2020 was a no-good, horrible, fearful, tumultuous year that will be remembered for the coronavirus pandemic and the polarizing election. But for space enthusiasts, it was actually quite a good year, providing bits of promising news amid the bleak headlines of disease, economic hardship and protests.
SpaceX launched astronauts to the International Space Station twice. NASA launched a rover to Mars and snagged a sample from an asteroid 200 million miles away.
2021 has potential for even more good news. Here’s just some of what could happen in the new year.
SPACEX
After two successful flights carrying astronauts to the International Space Station, SpaceX is set to do it again this year. Crew-2, its second fully operational mission, is scheduled to launch a quartet of astronauts from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the spring. Then, in the fall, the company is set to launch Crew-3.
BOEING
Boeing spent much of 2020 working to fix the software on its Starliner spacecraft, which ran into trouble as soon as it reached space during an uncrewed test flight at the end of 2019.
It’s now working to redo the test mission — no astronauts on board — at the end of March.
ARTEMIS
The hallmark of the Trump administration’s space policy has been a return to the moon for the first time since the astronauts of Apollo 17 landed there in 1972. The White House directed NASA to speed up the timeline for a lunar landing to 2024, from 2028, and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, a former member of Congress, lobbied his former colleagues hard for funding for the program, which has been dubbed Artemis.
RICHARD BRANSON
He’s crossed the Atlantic and the Pacific in hot-air balloons, once almost dying off the coast of Ireland, another time crashing in the Canadian Arctic instead of Southern California, the intended destination. He broke the record for the fastest time crossing the Atlantic in a boat and once got stranded in Algeria during an attempt to circle the globe in a balloon.
JEFF BEZOS
Bezos was 5 years old when he watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon in what he has said was a “seminal moment†for him, touching off a lifelong passion for space. He has said Blue Origin, his space company, is “the most important work I’m doing.†2021 could be a breakout year for the company, which was founded 20 years ago.
MARS AND BEYOND
On Feb. 18, NASA once again will try to pull off the daring feat of landing a spacecraft on Mars, when the Perseverance rover is set to touch down.
The rover would explore the Jezero crater near the Mars equator where a lake once existed. That is the ideal place to search for signs of ancient microbial life, scientists say. The rover will collect rocks and soil samples that would one day be returned to Earth.
