Space 2021: What will we see

[alko]

What all is scheduled for year 2021.

More details here.

January 3: Quadrantids meteor shower
Mid-January: LauncherOne's first orbital launch
Early 2021: India launches its Chandrayaan-3 rover to the moon
Early 2021: Rocket Lab launches its first mission from the US
February: The UAE's Hope orbiter reaches Mars
February: China's Tianwen-1 mission arrives at Mars
February 18: NASA's Perseverance rover lands on Mars
February 20: Parker Solar Probe flies past Venus
March: OSIRIS-REx starts its 2-year journey home
March 29: Boeing tries to fly its Starliner spaceship to the ISS again
March 30: SpaceX launches its Crew-2 astronaut mission for NASA
April 18: NASA launches a mini-satellite to follow the moon
April 22: Lyrid meteor shower
May 26: Total lunar eclipse
June or later: Boeing launches its first NASA astronauts
June 10: Annular solar eclipse
July 22: NASA launches an asteroid-bashing spacecraft
August 8: The Solar Orbiter zips around Venus
August 12: Perseids meteor shower
October 16: Lucy the Trojan asteroid-hunter launches
October 21: Orionids meteor shower
October 31: NASA launches the James Webb Space Telescope
October: Tom Cruise may launch to the space station
November 5 and 12: Southern Taurids and Northern Taurids meteor showers
November 17: Leonids meteor shower
November 19: Partial lunar eclipse
November: NASA launches the first Orion test flight
December 14: Geminids meteor shower
December 22: Ursids meteor shower
December or later: Boeing launches its first operational astronaut mission for NASA
Late 2021: Japan launches a mini moon lander
Late 2021: SpaceX flies its first Starship to orbit
Late 2021: The world's heftiest drone launches a rocket to orbit
Sometime in 2021: China begins constructing its own space station

Click to read more...

 

[Canadiens Ghost]

What all is scheduled for year 2021.


October 31: NASA launches the James Webb Space Telescope

I sure hope so. Can't wait to see the images this telescope will take and the knowledge we'll acquire.

 

[John Price]

some mars rover about to land in an hour

 

[HockeyAddict]

some mars rover about to land in an hour

Watch Online: Mars Landing - NASA Mars

Not sure what to expect... really incredible no matter what.

 

[NyQuil]

Woo! Successful landing.

 

[Kairi Zaide]

That's so great. I can't imagine the stress these people were going through - and then the whole relief. Amazing accomplishment.

 

[JMCx4]

Another noteworthy NASA accomplishment as 2021 wraps up ...

Dec 14, 2021

NASA Enters the Solar Atmosphere for the First Time, Bringing New Discoveries

A major milestone and new results from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe were announced on Dec. 14 in a press conference at the 2021 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in New Orleans. The results have been published in Physical Review Letters and accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.
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For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona – and sampled particles and magnetic fields there.

The new milestone marks one major step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science. Just as landing on the Moon allowed scientists to understand how it was formed, touching the very stuff the Sun is made of will help scientists uncover critical information about our closest star and its influence on the solar system. ...

As it circles closer to the solar surface, Parker is making new discoveries that other spacecraft were too far away to see, including from within the solar wind – the flow of particles from the Sun that can influence us at Earth. In 2019, Parker discovered that magnetic zig-zag structures in the solar wind, called switchbacks, are plentiful close to the Sun. But how and where they form remained a mystery. Halving the distance to the Sun since then, Parker Solar Probe has now passed close enough to identify one place where they originate: the solar surface.

The first passage through the corona – and the promise of more flybys to come – will continue to provide data on phenomena that are impossible to study from afar. ...

Read more at: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddar...e-for-the-first-time-bringing-new-discoveries