A great year for space

2021 was a great year for him Space, Especially for studies in the solar system and for space exploration by robots (rovers). Earlier this year, NASA’s Persuasion Rover (filmed spectacularly and unprecedentedly) and the Chinese rover Jurang landed on Mars, making China the second country to land a rover on Mars after the United States. . Diligence has already begun to explore the planet and collect samples, which NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) hope will one day bring to Earth for analysis.

In addition to entering the solar atmosphere, it became an object built by mankind that came very close to the Sun. The Juno spacecraft is in a long orbit around Jupiter, constantly monitoring the largest planet in the solar system and its largest lunar canyon, which may be hiding an ocean under its dense ice.

In addition to thinking about Mars, China has brought the first part of its new orbit station Tiangong into orbit, in which some astronauts already live, confirming the larger Chinese space ambitions. At the International Space Station (ISS), the largest thing ever built in orbit, dozens of astronauts and astronauts alternately carried out important experiments and provided us with highly recommended photographs of the Earth.

But 2021 is the year of so-called “space travel”, with Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX launching their first manned missiles, launching short cruises beyond the atmosphere with millions of dollars worth of tickets. SpaceX, meanwhile, continued to deliver ISS and transport astronauts to the station, as well as test its largest starship spacecraft, which it hopes will one day reach Mars.

This year ended with another great success: the eagerly anticipated launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built. This will allow us to see our cosmic past as we build our future in space.