2021 could be a huge year for space. Here’s what’s to come from NASA

From a rover landing on Mars to more human spaceflight missions, big projects are in the works. 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.
NASA hopes it will be successful. The space agency is investing $135 million in Starship as part of its attempt to return astronauts to the moon. Musk, whose timelines are usually wildly ambitious, has said he hopes the spacecraft will be able to achieve orbit in 2021.

SPACEX in 2021

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.
Not since the space shuttle has NASA had routine flights to the space station from U.S. soil. If all goes well, SpaceX will become the shuttle’s successor, filling a major gap in America’s spaceflight program in a coming-of-age moment for what was once a spunky start-up.
Late in the year, SpaceX also is planning to fly a mission for Axiom Space, a Houston-based company that has purchased a trip to the International Space Station for a crew of four. Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who now works for Axiom, would accompany three private citizens for the mission, among them Eytan Stibbe, an Israeli former fighter pilot. Axiom is expected to announce the other two tourists sometime in the future.
Flying humans on its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft is only part of what’s on tap for SpaceX. The company continues to test its Starship spacecraft, a next-generation vehicle that looks like a flying grain silo but, Musk hopes, will one day fly people to Mars.Flying humans on its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft is only part of what’s on tap for SpaceX. The company continues to test its Starship spacecraft, a next-generation vehicle that looks like a flying grain silo but, Musk hopes, will one day fly people to Mars.
The company is also pressing ahead with another outrageously difficult project — a plan to flood Earth orbit with thousands of satellites that would beam Internet signals to ground stations, connecting rural areas to broadband.
In 2020, SpaceX took some major strides toward that goal and has already launched more than 16 batches of the satellites, allowing it to begin a pilot program. More are scheduled to be hoisted in 2021, marking SpaceX’s transformation from a purely rocket company to an Internet service provider after being awarded $886 million from the Federal Communications Commission for the endeavor.

Artemis in 2021

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.

Though Congress has approved $850 million for next year for the spacecraft that would land astronauts on the lunar surface, it’s well short of the $3.3 billion NASA said it needed to meet the 2024 deadline. It’s not clear what the incoming Biden administration will do with the program. Most Democrats in the space community say new officials will keep the program but put it on a more realistic timeline.

The schedule will be driven by engineering and technology as much as politics, though. As of now, NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is supposed to launch the Orion spacecraft without astronauts on board by the end of 2021, in what would be the first flight of the Artemis program. If all goes well, Orion would orbit the moon, testing its systems before coming home.
It’s not clear, though, that the rocket will be ready. For years, it has suffered delay after delay, with billions of dollars in cost overruns. Government watchdogs have criticized Boeing, the prime contractor, for poor performance and NASA for lax oversight.

When it does fly, the SLS is certain to be a sight. The rocket would be the most powerful ever, with four RS-25 engines used by the space shuttle and two side solid rocket motor boosters taller than the Statue of Liberty. NASA and Boeing say they are getting close to flying, but the rocket still needs to pass the final parts of the testing campaign known as the “green run,” which would culminate with the firing of its engines while clamped down to the launchpad. But given the problems, past and present, it’s far from certain that 2021 will be the year it finally takes off.

BLUE ORIGIN

Jeff Bezos and his company’s New Glenn rocket, which hasn’t yet flown, get nod to potentially carry scientific payloads later this decade. The space transportation company run by Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos reached another important steppingstone in its effort to become an established launcher of U.S. civilian and national-security payloads.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Wednesday named Blue Origin Federation LLC’s New Glenn rocket—a 310-foot reusable booster that isn’t expected to make its first flight until 2021—as one of its potential launch providers for scientific missions later in the decade.

The agency said no specific contracts had been awarded to Blue Origin, but the announcement for the first time makes the closely held company eligible for such NASA business. Under the arrangement, the company Mr. Bezos founded nearly two decades ago will be allowed to use New Glenn, roughly six stories taller than rival rockets, to compete for awards. Various NASA centers will be able to design spacecraft to take advantage of New Glenn’s power and other features, including its capability to transport larger payload volumes than other rockets.
In a statement, Blue Origin said: “We are proud to be in NASA’s launch services catalog and look forward to providing reliable launches” for NASA for years to come.