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2021 in spaceflight

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This article documents notable spaceflight events during 2021.

2021 in spaceflight
Self-portrait of Mars 2020 containing the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter located near the Van Zyl Overlook (7 April 2021)
Orbital launches
First8 January
Last29 August
Total84
Successes78
Failures6
Catalogued78
National firsts
Satellite
Rockets
Maiden flights
Retirements
Crewed flights
Orbital3
Suborbital3
Total travellers21
EVAs10

Overview

Planetary science

Spacecraft from three Mars exploration programs from the United Arab Emirates, China, and the United States (Hope, Tianwen-1, and Mars 2020) arrived at Mars in February.

The Perseverance rover landed on 18 February. As part of the Mars 2020 mission, the Ingenuity solar-powered drone performed the first powered aircraft flight on another planet in human history. It has a communications-link with the Perseverance rover and used autonomous control during its short scripted flights.

The Tianwen-1 lander and Zhurong rover landed on 14 May, after conducting a geological survey of the landing site from orbit. Zhurong was deployed on the Martian surface on 22 May, making China the second country in history to successfully deploy a rover on Mars. The rover then dropped a remotely controlled camera on the ground, which took a group photo of the lander and rover on 1 June.

Lucy, a NASA space probe, will launch in October and begin a 12-year journey to seven different asteroids, visiting six Jupiter trojans, and one Main Belt asteroid.[1] Trojans are asteroids which share Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, orbiting either ahead of or behind the planet.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is planned to launch in November on a Falcon 9. It is a space probe that will visit the double asteroid Didymos and demonstrate the kinetic effects of crashing an impactor spacecraft into an asteroid moon for planetary defense purposes. The mission is intended to test whether a spacecraft impact could successfully deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

The Juno probe continues its exploration of Jupiter. Originally, its mission was intended to conclude on 31 July by burning up in Jupiter's atmosphere following its 35th perijove. However, on 8 January 2021, NASA announced that the probe was granted a second mission extension through September 2025, which could include future flybys of Europa and Io.[2][3]

Lunar exploration

Artemis 1, the first flight of the Space Launch System and the first lunar mission for Orion, is scheduled to fly in November.

Human spaceflight

China began construction of the Tiangong space station (phase 3 of the Tiangong program) with the launch of the Tianhe core module on 29 April 2021. A Tianzhou cargo delivery mission was launched on 29 May 2021, and the Shenzhou 12 crewed mission on 17 June 2021.[4] Shenzhou 13 is scheduled to launch a second crew in October.[5]

In the United States, Virgin Galactic conducted the first suborbital human spaceflight from New Mexico on 22 May 2021 with SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity.[6] Two astronauts were onboard, Frederick Sturckow and David Mackay. The flight was also the first suborbital human spaceflight from Spaceport America. A second flight, carrying company founder Richard Branson and three other passengers, was conducted on 11 July 2021.[7]

The first fully automated flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital spacecraft successfully sent four civilians, including company founder Jeff Bezos, into space just above the Kármán line on 20 July 2021.[8]

Boeing's CST-100 Starliner will conduct a second uncrewed test flight in late 2021 in advance of a first crewed test flight in 2022.[9]

Space telescopes

The long-delayed James Webb Space Telescope, the largest optical space telescope ever built, is planned to be launched to the Sun–Earth L2 point by a European Ariane 5 rocket in November.[10]

Rocket innovation

The trend towards cost reduction in access to orbit is expected to continue. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries's H3 launch vehicle, scheduled to enter service this year, will cost less than half that of its predecessor H-IIA.[11] After suborbital tests in 2020 and 2021, SpaceX plans to conduct the first orbital flight of the fully reusable Starship launch vehicle.[12][13] Multiple other companies plan to introduce smaller rockets. The maiden flight of Vulcan Centaur, designed to gradually replace Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy at lower costs, was planned for 2021 but shifted to 2022.[14]

Orbital and suborbital launches

Main articles: List of spaceflight launches in January–June 2021 and List of spaceflight launches in July–December 2021
List of orbital launches
Month Num. of successes Num. of failures
January 7 0
February 9 1
March 10 0
April 11 0
May 9 1
June 13 1
July 10 0
August 9 3
September TBD TBD
October TBD TBD
November TBD TBD
December TBD TBD
Total 78 6

Deep-space rendezvous

Date (UTC) Spacecraft Event Remarks
17 January Parker Solar Probe 7th perihelion
9 February Emirates Mars Mission Mars orbit insertion Probe achieved an initial orbit around Mars of 1,000 x 49,380 km. It will spend several months modifying its orbit to 20,000 x 43,000 km.[15]
10 February Tianwen-1 Mars orbit insertion Probe achieved an initial orbit around Mars of 400 x 180,000 km. Its initial reconnaissance orbit will be 265 x 60,000 km.
18 February Perseverance Mars landing Rover successfully landed at target destination, with confirmation on Earth at 20:55 UTC. Landing was at Jezero crater, coordinates 18°26′41″N 77°27′03″E / 18.4447°N 77.4508°E / 18.4447; 77.4508.
20 February Parker Solar Probe Fourth gravity assist at Venus
21 February Juno 32nd perijove of Jupiter
7 April OSIRIS-REx Begin flyby of Bennu[16]
15 April Juno 33rd perijove
29 April Parker Solar Probe 8th perihelion
10 May OSIRIS-REx Completes Bennu flyby and begins journey back to Earth[16]
14 May Zhurong Mars landing Rover successfully landed at Utopia Planitia, coordinates 25°06′N 109°54′E / 25.1°N 109.9°E / 25.1; 109.9.
7 June Juno 34th perijove On the day of perijove, Juno flew by Ganymede, reducing its orbital period around Jupiter to 43 days.[2][3]
20 July Juno 35th perijove Beginning of Juno's second mission extension.[2][3]
8 August Solar Orbiter Second gravity assist at Venus[17]
9 August Parker Solar Probe 9th perihelion
11 August BepiColombo Second gravity assist at Venus
2 October BepiColombo First gravity assist at Mercury
16 October Parker Solar Probe Fifth gravity assist at Venus
21 November Parker Solar Probe 10th perihelion
26 November Solar Orbiter Gravity assist at Earth[17] Gravity assist will set up future fly-bys of Venus that will increase its inclination relative to the Sun.

Extravehicular activities (EVAs)

Start Date/Time Duration End Time Spacecraft Crew Remarks
27 January 11:28 6 hours 56 minutes 18:24 SpaceX Crew 1

ISS Quest

  Michael S. Hopkins

  Victor J. Glover

Installation of the exposed platform Airbus Bartolomeo

1 February 12:57 5 hours 20 minutes 18:17 SpaceX Crew 1

ISS Quest

  Michael S. Hopkins

  Victor J. Glover

Install a new lithium-ion battery on the P-4 truss, where an earlier lithium replacement blew a fuse in April 2019. Upgrade high definition video and camera gear on ISS exterior.

28 February

11:12

7 hours 04 minutes 18:16 SpaceX Crew 1 Expedition 64

ISS Quest

  Kathleen Rubins

  Victor J. Glover

Install modification kit to prepare Station for new solar array installation.

5 March

11:37

6 hours 56 minutes 18:33 SpaceX Crew 1 Expedition 64

ISS Quest

  Kathleen Rubins

  Soichi Noguchi

Additional upgrades and Kibo module platform work

13 March

13:14

6 hours 47 minutes 20:01 SpaceX Crew 1

ISS Quest

  Michael Hopkins

  Victor Glover

P6 fixes and installations

2 June

05:53

7 hours 19 minutes 13:12 Expedition 65

Poisk Airlock

  Oleg Novitsky

  Pyotr Dubrov

Second in a series of spacewalks to decommission the Pirs Airlock which is scheduled to be replaced by Nauka in the summer of 2021. Task involve installing a flow control valve on Zarya, removing docking antennas and their cables on Pirs, removing EVA gap spanners from Pirs, transferring experiments over to Poisk, installing Test containers on the hatches, and relocating a Strela crane over to Poisk. Getahead task involve cleaning the windows on the Russian segment, and doing an inspection of Zvezda and plugging any leaks they find.[18][19]

16 June

12:11

7 hours 15 minutes 19:26 SpaceX Crew-2

ISS Quest

  Shane Kimbrough

  Thomas Pesquet

First in a series of spacewalks to install the iROSA solar arrays on the P6 Truss. While working on releasing the arrays from their launch carrier, Kimbrough's spacesuit experienced issues with its Display and Control Module (DCM), so he was sent back to the airlock to connect to station umbilicals to restart it. The restart was successful, although it delayed the EVA. Additionally, an issue was discovered with his suit's sublimator, which threatened to end the EVA prematurely; this was determined to be a false reading, allowing work to resume. Following this, the astronauts successfully released the solar arrays and installed them on the P6 mounting bracket. A subsequent attempt to unfold the two rolled arrays, which were folded side-by-side during launch, failed due to interference (blockage) from a structure near the mounting area. As the EVA was then past the six-hour mark, ground controllers instructed the astronauts to finish securing the array structure to the station, photograph the work site, and return to the airlock. The next steps of unfolding the array pair, making electrical connections, and unfurling the rolled arrays were postponed to a future EVA pending ground analysis of the interference issue

20 June

11:42

6 hours 28 minutes 18:10 SpaceX Crew-2

ISS Quest

  Shane Kimbrough

  Thomas Pesquet

Second in a series of spacewalks that will install the iROSA solar arrays on the P6 Truss. The spacewalkers managed to connect iROSA with a little elbow grease and at 16:40 hours deployed it and it is receiving power.

25 June

11:52

6 hours 45 minutes 18:37 SpaceX Crew-2

ISS Quest

  Shane Kimbrough

  Thomas Pesquet

Third in a series of spacewalks that will install the ROSA solar arrays on the P6 Truss. If time allows the astronauts will also route cables to the Russian segment and install a WiFi router on the truss.

4 July

00:11

6 hours 46 minutes 06:57 Shenzhou 12

TSS Tianhe

  Liu Boming

  Tang Hongbo

First China spacewalk since Shenzhou 7 in 2008. Installation work was done on the exterior of the Tiangong space station.[20]

20 August

00:38

5 hours 55 minutes 06:33 Shenzhou 12

TSS Tianhe

  Nie Haisheng

  Liu Boming

Second EVA of Shenzhou 12 crew to install foot stops and a workbench on the station’s large robotic arm, a pump set for its thermal control system, and additional work on the panoramic camera.[21]

3 September

14:35

6 hours 50 minutes (Planned) TBD Expedition 65

Poisk Airlock

  Oleg Novitsky

  Pyotr Dubrov

First in a series of spacewalks to outfit Nauka. The cosmonauts will route cables which were recently temp stowed on PMA 1 along Zarya to the Zvezda transfer compartment where they will be mated to Nauka. The spacewalk will conclude with the installation of handrails and the first experiments on the new module. If time allows the cosmonauts will change Biorisk containers and will retrieve and replace two exposure experiments from Poisk and bring them inside.

9 September

15:00

5 hours (Planned) TBD Expedition 65

Poisk Airlock

  Oleg Novitsky

  Pyotr Dubrov

Second in a series of spacewalks to outfit Nauka. The cosmonauts will connect Kurs and TORU telemetry cables and deploy and stow docking targets and antennas. They will also remove and dispose of covers on the Rassvet module and swap grapple fixtures and docking targets to relocate the Nauka science airlock, the primary radiator, and the boom of the European Robotic Arm (ERA) over to Nauka for installation. They will also remove launch locks and covers from Nauka so the European arm can be deployed and the items transferred from Rassvet can be installed.

12 September

12:30

6 hours 30 minutes TBD SpaceX Crew-2

ISS Quest

  Akihiko Hoshide

  Thomas Pesquet

Install the 3B modification kit on the P4 Truss for the arrival of SpaceX CRS-23 with the final portside IROSA solar arrays. Install a wifi router on the truss, and route and mate cables on the US side of PMA 1 to power up the Nauka module. Replace a Floating Point Measuring Unit and a Static Charge Micrometer external component on the S1 Truss to prepare the port side for it long term configuration.

Orbital launch statistics

By country

For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of orbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. For example, Soyuz launches by Arianespace in Kourou are counted under Russia because Soyuz-2 is a Russian rocket.

 China: 31Europe: 3India: 2Iran: 1Israel: 0Japan: 0North Korea: 0Russia: 14South Korea: 0USA: 34
Country Launches Successes Failures Partial
failures 		Remarks
  China 31 29 2 0
  Europe 3 3 0 0
  India 2 1 1 0
  Iran 1 0 1 0
  Russia 13 13 0 0 Includes Soyuz launches from Kourou
  United States 34 32 2 0 Includes Electron launches from Mahia
World 84 78 6 0

By rocket

By family

By type

By configuration

By spaceport

10
20
30
40
China
France
India
Iran
Japan
Kazakhstan
New Zealand
Russia
United States
Site Country Launches Successes Failures Partial failures Remarks
Baikonur   Kazakhstan 7 7 0 0
Cape Canaveral   United States 14 14 0 0
Jiuquan   China 13 11 2 0
Kennedy   United States 8 8 0 0
Kourou   France 3 3 0 0
Mahia   New Zealand 4 3 1 0
MARS   United States 3 3 0 0
Mojave   United States 2 2 0 0
PSCA   United States 1 0 1 0
Plesetsk   Russia 2 2 0 0
Satish Dhawan   India 2 1 1 0
Semnan   Iran 1 0 1 0
Taiyuan   China 7 7 0 0
Vandenberg   United States 2 2 0 0
Vostochny   Russia 4 4 0 0
Wenchang   China 3 3 0 0
Xichang   China 8 8 0 0
Total 84 78 6 0

By orbit

  •   Transatmospheric
  •   Low Earth
  •   Low Earth (ISS)
  •   Low Earth (CSS)
  •   Low Earth (SSO)
  •   Low Earth (retrograde)
  •   Medium Earth
  •   Molniya
  •   Geosynchronous
  •   Inclined GSO
  •   High Earth
  •   Lunar transfer
  •   Heliocentric
  •  
Orbital regime Launches Achieved Not achieved Accidentally
achieved 		Remarks
Transatmospheric 0 0 0 0
Low Earth / Sun-synchronous 70 65 5 0 Including flights to ISS and Tiangong
Geosynchronous / GTO 12 11 1 0
Medium Earth / Molniya 2 2 0 0
High Earth / Lunar transfer 0 0 0 0
Heliocentric orbit / Planetary transfer 0 0 0 0
Total 84 78 6 0

Suborbital launch statistics

By Country

For the purposes of this section, the yearly tally of suborbital launches by country assigns each flight to the country of origin of the rocket, not to the launch services provider or the spaceport. Flights intended to fly below 80 km (50 mi) are omitted.

 Brazil: 1Canada: 6China: 8France: 1India: 2Iran: 20Israel: 0Japan: 3The Netherlands: 0Pakistan: 4Russia: 4South Korea: 1Taiwan: 1Turkey: 1USA: 30Ukraine: 2Yemen: 3
Country Launches Successes Failures Partial
failures 		Remarks
  Brazil 1 1 0 0
  Canada 6 6 0 0
  China 8 8 0 0
  France 1 1 0 0
  India 2 2 0 0
  Iran 20 20 0 0
  Japan 3 3 0 0
  Pakistan 4 4 0 0
  Russia 4 4 0 0
  South Korea 1 1 0 0
  Taiwan 1 1 0 0
  Turkey 1 1 0 0
  United States 30 29 1 0
  Ukraine 2 2 0 0
  Yemen 3 3 0 0
World 87 86 1 0

Expected maiden flights

Heavy/super heavy-lift vehicles

Medium-lift vehicles

Small-lift vehicles

Suborbital vehicles

See also

References

  1. ^ Hille, Karl (21 October 2019). "NASA's Lucy Mission Clears Critical Milestone". NASA. Retrieved 5 December 2020.
  2. ^ a b c Talbert, Tricia (8 January 2021). "NASA Extends Exploration for Two Planetary Science Missions". NASA. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
  3. ^ a b c "NASA's Juno Mission Expands Into the Future". NASA.gov. 13 January 2021. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  4. ^ Garcia, Carlos; Wang, Shubing (18 June 2021). "Chinese astronauts board space station module in historic mission". Reuters. Retrieved 1 July 2021.
  5. ^ Jones, Andrew (13 April 2021). "China preparing Tianzhou-2 cargo mission to follow upcoming space station launch". SpaceNews. Retrieved 19 April 2021.
  6. ^ "Virgin Galactic Completes First Human Spaceflight from Spaceport America, New Mexico". Virgin Galactic. 22 May 2021. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  7. ^ Foust, Jeff (11 July 2021). "Branson flies to edge of space on SpaceShipTwo". SpaceNews. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  8. ^ Wall, Mike (20 July 2021). "Jeff Bezos launches into space on Blue Origin's 1st astronaut flight". Space.com. Retrieved 21 July 2021.
  9. ^ Foust, Jeff (13 August 2021). "Starliner test flight faces months-long delay". SpaceNews. Retrieved 13 August 2021.
  10. ^ "NASA Announces New James Webb Space Telescope Target Launch Date". NASA (Press release). 16 July 2020. Retrieved 16 July 2020.
  11. ^ Tomii, Tetsuo (28 June 2016). "ＪＡＸＡ、新型ロケット「Ｈ３」の基本設計−打ち上げコスト半減の５０億円". Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun (in Japanese). Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  12. ^ Clark, Stephen (1 September 2020). "Elon Musk offers update on SpaceX's Starship mega-rocket". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
  13. ^ "Starship". nextspaceflight.com. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
  14. ^ "ULA's maiden Vulcan flight delayed to 2022 due to payload readiness". 18 June 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2021.
  15. ^ Gebhardt, Chris (9 February 2021). "UAE makes history as Al-Amal arrives at Mars for two-year mission". NASASpaceflight.com.
  16. ^ a b "NASA's OSIRIS-REx to Fly a Farewell Tour of Bennu". 8 February 2021. Retrieved 1 April 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  17. ^ a b "Solar Orbiter: Mission Operations". 26 January 2020.
  18. ^ "События. Выход в открытый космос 2 июня" [Spacewalk June 2]. www.roscosmos.ru. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  19. ^ john.l.stoll@nasa.gov (1 June 2021), jsc2021m000163_Russian_Spacewalk_48_Animation, retrieved 1 June 2021
  20. ^ Corbett, Tobias (4 July 2021). "Taikonauts complete second Chinese spacewalk, first in support of Space Station construction". NASASpaceFlight. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  21. ^ Jones, Andrew (20 August 2021). "Astronauts conduct second Chinese space station spacewalk". SpaceNews. Retrieved 20 August 2021.
  22. ^ Chinese space firm launches and lands small test rocket, SpaceNews, 2 August 2021.
Generic references:

  Spaceflight portal
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