SPR 2021: Important Space Missions in News

Chandrayaan-2

Mission Name:

• Chandrayaan-2

Agency:

• ISRO

Launcher:

• GSLV Mk-III

Objective:

• Aimed to develop and demonstrate the key technologies for end-to-end lunar mission capability, including soft-landing and roving on the lunar surface. 

Launch:

• September 2019

Findings:

• Chandrayaan-2, hovering over the Moon, has found new developments on the hot outermost layer of the bright star known as Corona. These include
• Abundances of magnesium, aluminium and silicon in the solar corona.
• Around 100 microflares were observed, providing new insights about coronal mass heating.

Gaganyaan

• Rocket: ISRO’s GSLV Mk III.

Launch:

• 2022

Objective:

•  The objective of Gaganyaan is to carry a crew of three to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), perform a set of predefined activities in space, and return them safely to a predefined destination on earth.

Perseverance rover

Agency:

• NASA 

Launch:

• 30th July 2020

Landing:

• 18th February 2021

Duration:

• At least one Mars year (about 687 Earth days).

Landing Site:

• Jezero Crater (an ancient river delta that has rocks and minerals that could only form in water).

Objectives:

• Assess ancient habitability.
• Demonstrate technology for future robotic and human exploration

Tianwen-1

Agency: 

• China National Space Administration (CNSA)

Launch:

• July 2020.

Landing Sites:

• Lander from Tianwen-1 has touched down on Utopia Planitia, 

Rover:

• Zhurong.

Objectives:

• To conduct scientific investigations into the planet’s soil, geological structure, environment, atmosphere and water.
• The mission will be the first to place a ground-penetrating radar on the Martian surface, which will be able to study local geology, as well as rock, ice, and dirt distribution.

Aditya-L1 mission

• 1st Indian space-based Solar Coronagraph intended to study the outermost region of the sun called ‘Corona’.

Launch:

• 2022

Launch Vehicle:

• PSLV

Objectives of the Mission:

• The major scientific objectives of Aditya-1 are to achieve a fundamental understanding of the physical processes that:
  • Heat the solar corona
  • Accelerate the Solar Wind
  • Produce Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs)

Parker Solar Probe

Agency:

• NASA

Launch:

• 2018

Duration:

• Mission duration 7 years (planned)

Aim of the mission

• The mission’s central aim is to trace how energy and heat move through the Sun’s corona and to study the source of the solar wind’s acceleration.
• The mission is likely to last for seven years during which it will complete 24 orbits.

Findings:

• Like Earth, Venus sports an electrically charged layer of gas at the upper edge of its atmosphere,
• called the ionosphere. This sea of charged gases, or plasma, naturally emits radio waves.

EnVision Mission

Agency:

• European Space Agency

Launch: 

• It is likely to be launched sometime in the 2030s.

Objective:

• The mission will carry a range of instruments to study the planet’s atmosphere and surface, monitor trace gases in the atmosphere and analyse its surface composition.

Importance of Studying Venus:

• It will help to learn how Earth-like planets evolve and what conditions exist on Earth-sized exoplanets (planets that orbit a star other than our sun).
• It will help in modelling Earth’s climate and serves as a cautionary tale on how dramatically a planet’s climate can change.
• Scientists speculate about the existence of life on Venus in its distant past and the possibility that life may exist in the top layers of its clouds where temperatures are less extreme.
• In 2020, scientists detected the presence of phosphine (a chemical produced only through biological processes) in the atmosphere of Venus.

VIPER

Agency: NASA

• VIPER stands for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover. It is a mobile robot.

Objectives:

• To explore the Moon’s South Pole region.
• Help create lunar resource maps.
• Evaluate the concentration of water as well as other potential resources on its surface.
• To understand if it is possible for human life to sustain there, by using locally available resources.
• It is the first resource mapping mission on any other celestial body.
• NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) will be providing the launch vehicle and lander for what’s going to be a 100-day mission.

CREW 2 Mission

Agency:

• NASA

Objective:

• The main objective of this program is to make access to space easier in terms of its cost, so that cargo and crew can be easily transported to and from the ISS, enabling greater scientific research. 

Chang’e 4 project

Agency: 

• China National Space Administration (CNSA)

Landing Date:

• 3 January 2019

Landing site:

• the far side of moon South Pole-Aitken Basin’

Objective: 

• The program aims to facilitate a crewed lunar landing in the 2030s and possibly the building of an outpost near the south pole.

Hope Probe

Country:

• UAE, the Arab world’s first mission to Mars.

Launch:

• July 2020

Objective: 

• The primary objective of the mission is to study Martian weather dynamics.

OSIRIS-REx Mission

Agency:

• NASA

Launch:

•  8 September 2016

Objective: 

• survey asteroid Bennu, its surface and collects a sample from it.
• Recently, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft departed from asteroid Bennu and started its two-year-long journey back to Earth. OSIRIS-REx is NASA’s first mission to visit a near-Earth asteroid.

Hayabusa

Agency:

• JAXA

Launch: 

• 2014

Objective:

• Collect samples and survey Asteroid Ryugu.

New Shephard

Agency:

• Blue Origin
• Named after astronaut Alan Shephard – the first American to go to space.

Objective:

• It is a rocket system that has been designed to take astronauts and research payloads past the Karman line.
• The idea is to provide easier and more cost-effective access to space meant for purposes such as academic research, corporate technology development and entrepreneurial ventures among others.
• It will also allow space tourists to experience microgravity by taking them 100 km above the Earth.

Inspiration4

Agency: 

• First all-civilian, non-governmental spaceflight of SpaceX.

Objective: 

• It will take a group of four private citizens into space for three days.
• According to the reports, the journey will present an opportunity for collecting large amounts of health data that will aid in planning future crewed space missions.

SpaceX Crew Dragon

Launch: 

• 30 May 2020

Agency:

• Space X

Importance of the mission:

• It was the first time that astronauts used a spaceship built and launched by a private company, and the event is being widely seen as the beginning of a new era in space exploration.
• The rocket, named Falcon 9, which carried the spaceship into orbit, was also built by SpaceX.
• The mission was called Demo-2, in keeping with the fact that it was only a ‘test flight’, which if successful, would lead to more missions in the coming months.

VSS Unity spaceship

Agency:

•  Virgin Galactic

Objective: 

• Virgin Galactic is a private space tourism company that aims to fly well-paying tourists to space
• Sirisha Bandla, an astronaut born in India, was a part of the crew.

GPS Satellite Systems around the World

• United States: Global Post(GPS)
• Japan: Quazi-Zenith Satellite System(QZSS)
• Russia: Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS)
• China: BeiDou Navigation Satellite System
• European Union: Galileo
• India: GAGAN- Geo Augmented Navigation System