This year in space

    The last year in space has been very interesting. From more private companies launching men to the edge of space to new rovers on Mars and the moon, there is plenty to be excited about beyond the confines of our planet.

    Launching on November 23, landing on the moon on December 1, and returning a sample to Earth on December 16, China’s Chang’e 5 spacecraft made a mission to the moon to collect and return rock from the moon back to earth. This is the first time since the 1970’s that this type of mission has been done and provided new material for scientists to study. The vehicle is completely solar-powered and marks a continued increase in the Chinese space program.

    The Perseverance rover and its companion helicopter, Ingenuity, landed on Mars using the same sky crane method as was used for the Curiosity Rover many years ago. This car-sized rover is being used to investigate the surface of Mars and cache samples to be returned by future missions. Ingenuity was the first vehicle to take a powered flight on another planet and is providing a lot of valuable data about flying in an atmosphere that is only 1% of the thickness of earth’s as well as scouting ahead of the Perseverance rover.

    There has also been a lot of progress made by SpaceX over the past year. Starship, their large rocket designed to bring people to other planets has made several test flights with the most recent one, SN15, being very successful with a successful launch and landing on May 5. They also sent their second crewed mission to the ISS carrying NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken to their home for the next couple of months. Finally, they have been launching the Falcon 9 rocket quite regularly to put satellites in orbit including their Starlink network.

    Multiple companies have also started to get involved in the private space launch industry. Notably, both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin launched their founders, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos respectively, along with other paying customers to the edge of space. One of the people that got to fly on this flight was Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot that has more flight time than nearly every astronaut. This is making space tourism finally possible for the first time in many years and hopefully, it will get more accessible over the coming years.