2020 was an enthusiastic year for the space industry. Countries like the USA, Russia, India, China, UAE did significant things in space. We looked back at 5 space milestones in 2020 on space done by companies and space agencies.

Solar Orbiter Launch

This was an associated mission of both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). Solar Orbiter or simply SolO is a satellite manufactured by Airbus Defense and Space to observe Sun’s polar regions so closely. SolO will help to measure the inner heliosphere and to get details of solar winds. Observing Sun’s polar regions are vital to the existence of humanity. “Solar Orbiter is going to do amazing things. Combined with the other recently launched NASA missions to study the Sun, we are gaining unprecedented new knowledge about our star,” NASA’s Associate Administrator for Science, Thomas Zurbuchen explained the importance of SolO.

SolO was launched on 10 February 2020 by Atlas V 411 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It will take about 2 years to reach the satellite’s primary orbit. SolO will get as close as 0.28 astronomical units to the sun after reaching the primary orbit. The mission will have lasted 7 years.

Successful Commercial Crew Program

SpaceX was able to launch NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken with Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission. They flew in a Crew Dragon spacecraft, named “Endeavour” on Falcon 9 on 30 May 2020. Two astronauts successfully reached International Space Station (ISS) and in return landed on Earth on 2 August 2020. Yeah, it’s the first time after 2011, the USA has sent their astronauts from home soil. 

The Demo-2 mission was followed by another successful Crew-1 mission launch. This time SpaceX launched four astronauts. They launched astronauts on Crew Dragon named “Resilience” on Falcon 9 on 16 November 2020. They planned to stay in ISS for nearly six months as they planned to return to Earth in May 2021.

Mars 2020

Mars 2020 mission has been done by NASA as a part of its Mars Exploration program. NASA launched the Perseverance rover and the Ingenuity helicopter drone from Atlas V 541. The rocket was launched on 30 July 2020 from Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rover and helicopter drone will land in the Jezero crater on Mars surface on 18 February 2021. Perseverance rover will explore the chances of having ancient life on Mars and collect samples of rock and regolith for deep investigation in the future. Ingenuity helicopter will fly on Mars surface and test on interesting targets to study by the rover and help it to reach by planning the best route.

Now you can track, how far the spacecraft of the rover has gone up to now. Go through this official NASA link.

Chang’e 5 lunar mission

Chang’e 5 was a mission done by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The name of Chang’e 5 came from the Chinese Moon goddess, Chang’e. This was China’s fifth lunar mission in a series of launches, which will be lasted by a manned mission in 2030. Chang’e 5 mission aimed to land on the moon and return to Earth with soil and rock samples to further investigation. 

The Chang’e 5 probe was launched on 23 November 2020 by Long March 5 rocket from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site. And the probe successfully landed on Moon’s Mons Rümker on 1st December, then return to Earth with lunar samples on 16 December 2020.

This was the first mission to bring back samples from the Moon after the 1972 Apollo mission, and China became the third country to successfully do that after the Soviet Union and the United States. 

 Starlink

Starlink is the satellite internet constellation project of SpaceX which started with the purpose of providing satellite internet access whole over the world. The mission started in 2019, now launched 901 satellites into Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). Only in 2019, SpaceX has orbited 828 satellites. We brought you a detailed article on Starlink. Please read it if you intend to know more about Starlink’s mission.

We hope 2021 will be a more exciting year than last year because of the SpaceX Starship program, Crewed missions, and competition between countries and space companies to succeed in space. As Inventho, we will give you the latest updates on the 2021 space missions as we did last year.

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