Big Think: here are the space missions and programs waiting for us in 2023In 2023, new rockets will fly into space, OSIRIS-REx will return and a mission to Jupiter will start, which will help us discover life beyond Earth.
The publication Big Think writes about 12 exciting space events that are worth waiting for in the next 12 months.
Kristin Houser
In 2023, new rockets will fly into space, OSIRIS-REx will return and a mission to Jupiter will start, which will help us discover life beyond Earth.
The year 2022 turned out to be truly significant for space flights: a huge NASA rocket finally took off, the James Webb space telescope transmitted the first scientific images, and the world's first planetary defense mission successfully crashed into an asteroid.
It is expected that next year will be no less breakthrough, so let's list 12 exciting space events that are worth waiting for in the next 12 months.
Launch on PsycheDeep under the rocky crust of the Earth and its viscous mantle is a metal core.
Since we can't get to it, we don't know much about it — and therefore have a bad idea of how terrestrial planets are formed in general.
The mission of Psyche ("Psyche") will help fill this gap. The NASA orbiter, whose launch is scheduled for October 2023, will fly almost 300 million kilometers to the metal—rich asteroid Psyche - astronomers suspected an exposed core in it, which will open the veil of mystery about what lurks under the rocky surface of the Earth.
The Return of OSIRIS-RexIf Psyche is just starting in 2023, then another asteroid mission, OSIRIS-REx, on the contrary, should return.
In 2020, she landed on the surface of the asteroid Bennu and collected the first samples of asteroid soil in the United States.
Pieces of space rock are now flying back to Earth, and the valuable cargo is expected to arrive in September 2023. It is hoped that thanks to him, scientists will increase the accuracy of remote observations of asteroids — in case in the future we will be threatened by another rock-an alien from outer space.
The VICTUS NOX MissionIn continuation of the topic of space defense, the VICTUS NOX mission should be mentioned, but it does not protect the entire Earth from asteroids, and the United States — and from enemies in the space war, if they put their eyes on our key satellites.
This mission is a test mission: during 2023, the US Space Safari program ("Space Safari") commands Firefly Aerospace to launch a satellite. The supplier will have only 24 hours to put it into orbit, and this will prove that the United States can quickly replace the downed equipment.
Rocket on a 3D printerHowever, Firefly Aerospace is not the only newcomer to the aerospace industry with big views for 2023.
The Los Angeles-based startup Relativity Space expects to launch Terran 1, the world's first 3D-printed rocket. Its launch window opens on January 31.
The successful flight of Terran 1 will clear the way for the development of a larger Terran R rocket — with its help Relativity expects to deliver the first commercial cargo to Mars in 2024.
Hybrid rocket from AustraliaAnother newcomer to the space arena, the Australian company Gilmour Space Technologies, plans to launch its first Eris rocket in April 2023.
If she is lucky, Australia will become only the twelfth representative of the space club with its own rocket.
In addition, in case of a successful launch, Eris will become the first rocket with a hybrid engine, where the fuel and oxidizer are in different aggregate states. This will help make space flights cheaper and safer.
Starship LaunchMajor aerospace companies have also planned the first launches of their kind for 2023, and perhaps the most the public is waiting for the SpaceX spacecraft, which will take away from NASA's SLS the title of the largest rocket in history.
In November and December 2022, SpaceX conducted a series of static tests of the engines of a massive rocket, and although the date of the first-ever orbital launch of its spaceship has not yet been set by Elon Musk's company, experts predict that this will happen in the first half of 2023.
Bezos Orbital RocketMusk's rival billionaire Jeff Bezos has his own aerospace company Blue Origin, but, unlike SpaceX, its New Shephard rocket ("New Shepard" in honor of astronaut Alan Shepard) is not capable of making a full orbit around the planet.
The company expects to change this at the end of 2023, when its first orbital rocket New Glenn ("New Glenn" in honor of astronaut John Glenn) will go into space.
The development of a heavy-lift rocket began ten years ago, and its first launch has already been postponed three times, but if New Glenn really flies in 2023, Blue Origin will be able to compete with SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) for contracts with NASA.
"Volcano Centaur" by ULASpeaking of ULA: since its inception in 2006, the company — a joint brainchild of aerospace giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing — has launched more than 150 Atlas and Delta rockets for NASA, the US Department of Defense and other customers.
The company expects to launch the next-generation Vulcan Centaur (Vulcan Centaur) rocket in early 2023, and its first flight will deliver a lander from Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technologies to the moon.
ISPACE lunar landerDepending on the launch time of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, the Peregrine lander ("Pilgrim") from Astrobotics may become the first in its class on the Moon.
(Its competitor is the brainchild of the Houston—based Intuitive Machines Nova-C, whose launch is expected in March 2023).
But another private lander, the HAKUTO—R from the Japanese startup ispace, still has an advantage over competitors. It launched aboard a SpaceX rocket on December 11, but it will reach the moon only in April 2023: it moves in a roundabout way, using the gravity of the Earth and the Sun to reduce fuel consumption.
India's second AttemptIf everything goes smoothly with the ispace mission, Japan will join the short list of countries that have made a soft landing on the moon.
India hopes to enroll in it in July after the launch of the Chandrayaan-3 lander ("Chandrayan-3").
This will be India's second attempt to land on the moon — the first, Chandrayan-2, ended in an emergency landing in 2019, but the national space agency hopes that thanks to updated technologies, this mission will be completed successfully.
Worlds beyond JupiterThe European Space Agency (ESA) has also planned a space mission for 2023, but not for one satellite, but for as many as three — the satellites of Jupiter Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, where there are their own oceans.
The launch of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) satellite is scheduled for April 2023. He will fly around the satellites a total of 35 times and use a set of ten instruments. It is hoped that this mission will help to understand where and how life can exist in the universe.
Chinese Orbital TelescopeIf everything goes according to plan, 2023 will end the same way as 2021: with the launch of a new space telescope.
But unlike NASA's James Webb, which is "sharpened" by infrared waves, the Chinese Xuntian orbital telescope ("Xuntian") will observe visible and near ultraviolet light.
Thus, the new telescope will become a kind of successor to the dying Hubble, only with 350 times more coverage. Xuntian will be able to survey 40% of the sky in a decade, while the decrepit Hubble has not mastered 0.8% in as many as 32 years.
