This year will be an important one for space exploration, with several major programmes reaching the launch pad over the next 12 months. The US is going to establish a colony on the moon in a few years. Europe and Russia will attempt to land on Mars, having failed at every previous attempt, while China is expected to complete its space station. India, South Korea, and Japan are all going to put missions into space.
The Rockets.
Four astronauts will be sent to the moon, an asteroid or Mars in the future in a space capsule. Bob Daemmrich/Alamy.
The new space launch system is going to be of particular interest. This is the most powerful rocket it has ever designed and has been built to carry astronauts to the moon and beyond as part of the agency's Artemis deep space exploration programme. The solar system will be reopened to investigate by humans, rather than robot probes, with these missions.
The first launch of the programme will take place in February, when an SLS rocket will carry a capsule into a high altitude elliptical circle around the moon. The spaceship will fly closer to the lunar surface than any other spaceship built for humans has ever flown, taking it further from Earth than any other spaceship built for humans has ever flown.
The European service module will provide the capsule's power and propulsion for maneuvering in space, and will be fitted with a European design. The European Space Agency will be able to become a partner in future Artemis missions. The last crewed moon mission took place in 1972, and if February succeeds, a trip around the moon will take place in 2024, followed by a landing on the moon in 25 years.
This time the crew will include at least one woman and the mission will mark the beginning of a programme aimed at establishing a lunar colony where astronauts would work on months-long missions and develop technologies that could be used by future colonies on Mars. The south pole of the moon is believed to hold ice, which is why it is a prime target for the first lunar outpost. Water can be used as a source of hydrogen and oxygen, which can be used as rocket fuel.
The moon.
Private companies will build lunar landers with the help of Nasa. The photograph is of Nasa.
As part of its preparations to establish a lunar colony, Nasa will also start a massive programme of robot missions. The first missions to the moon will be this year. These probes were built by private companies with the help of Nasa and will attempt to map underground water deposits, study the moon's deep interior and release robot rovers to investigate the lunar surface. The lake of death is a plain of basaltic rock in the north-eastern part of the moon. It will carry 11 different instruments and will be followed by another US company, which is sending a spacecraft carrying six payloads to Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms.
The head of Nasa science, Thomas Zurbuchen, has warned that the privately funded efforts each face a high risk of failure. He said that as many as half could go wrong.
Russia and India are planning to launch their own lunar landers next year, while South Korea is going to place a satellite in the moon to study its mineral composition.
Mars.
The prototype of the ExoMars rover is at the defense space facility in Stevenage. Dan Kitwood is a photographer.
The search for alien life will be intensified this year with the launch of the joint European-Russian ExoMars mission, which will land a robot rover on the Oxia Planum, a 125 mile-wide clay-bearing plain in the planet's northern hemisphere. The rover will be fitted with a drill capable of probing several feet below the Martian surface, where it is hoped primitive lifeforms may survive or at least the remnants of extinct organisms. The 660lb rover was built at the company's UK facility. The launch is scheduled for September and the touchdown is in June.
Russia and Europe have not had any luck landing on Mars. Europe's Schiaparelli lander, which was supposed to be a trial run for the current ExoMars mission, crashed on the planet in 2016 after 19 Russian and Soviet missions failed.
Asteroids.
The double asteroid redirection test will be carried out on the Falcon 9 rocket. The person is Michael Peterson/AP.
The anti-asteroid defence system will be the most spectacular mission to the asteroids. The double asteroid redirection test will crash into the moonlet Dimorphos in September. The 1,340lb probe, the size of a small car, will try to change the course of Dimorphos, a lump of rock the size of a football stadium, around Didymos, its parent asteroid.
Astronomers say that if the mission is successful, the space agencies will be encouraged to develop craft that can prevent an Armageddon-style impact. If an asteroid the size of Dimorphos crashes on Earth, it will cause an explosion that will be equivalent to 600 megatonnes of TNT. Elena Adams, Dart's systems engineer, told the journal Science that a city like Manhattan would be obliterated. This is to show a way to save the world.
The launch of the probe Psyche is one of several asteroid missions planned by Nasa. The asteroid 16 Psyche is thought to be the leftover core of a planet and will be visited by the spacecraft in August. The remains of a violent collision with another object stripped off the planet's outer layers and left its metallic innards exposed. Studying 16 Psyche will allow scientists to look at a planetary core. They will be able to explore a new type of world that is made of metal.
Human spaceflight.
Zhai and Wang Yaping are outside the space station's core module in November. The picture was taken by Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock.
Boeing will attempt to get its Starliner crew capsule into the air so that it can begin ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. A flight that was supposed to reach the station last year was called off at the last minute when fuel valves failed to open. Boeing will launch a crewless Starliner in early 2022, followed by a test flight with astronauts later in the year. The capsule will be used to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.
China is expected to complete its space station after the first of its three main modules is launched in April. This year will see the addition of Modules Wentian and Mengtian. China hopes to keep its space station, which is considerably smaller than the International Space Station, inhabited by three astronauts for at least a decade. The Xuntian space telescope, which will be launched in 2024, will need to be serviced by crewmen. Xuntian will be using a mirror roughly the same size as the Hubble space telescope to investigate dark matter and dark energy.
Space tourism.
The curve of the Earth was observed by Richard Branson during his flight to the edge of space in July. Virgin Galactic.
Both Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic were successful in launching their maiden sub-orbital flights last year and both say they expect to begin regular missions in 2022, offering groups of tourists a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth.
