2020 News

NASA's mission to asteroid Psyche, which is supposed to be worth quadrillions of dollars, is scheduled to launch in Aug 2022.

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has detected signature of water molecules on the sunlit surface of the Moon!

NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission touched down on asteroid Bennu to capture a sample for bringing back to Earth! 

Astronomers detect Phosphine in the clouds of Venus. This gas is usually only produced by anaerobic living organisms.

SpaceX raised a whopping $1.6 billion from investors for its massive Starlink satellite constellation to provide global broadband.

NASA launched the Perseverance rover destined for Mars, it's expected to land in the Jezero crater on Mars in February 2021. It is one of 3 missions to Mars sent recently by UAE, China and NASA. 

The rover will prospect for water in the form of ice near the lunar south pole in the permanently shadowed regions.

SpaceX becomes the first private launch company to take astronauts to space.

NASA announced that Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX will provide the human landers for the Artemis mission.

Johns Hopkins and NASA are planning to send a mission to Titan in 2026, which will reach in 2034. Titan is the only other body in the solar system with standing liquid on its surface. 

Japan's Hayabusa2 released its last rover Minerva-II2 on the asteroid. The mission is expected to return to Earth in Dec 2020.

SpaceX catches the Falcon Heavy fairing for reuse for the first time. Each fairing costs $6 million, so this is big cost saver.

NASA picked 3 companies to build robotic landers for landing on the Moon, in preparation for the Artemis program.

Jeff Bezos announced that Blue Origin is developing a lander capable of landing on the Moon by 2024.

Hayabusa2 shoots copper bomb at asteroid Ryugu to see the impact of flying debris to figure out its origins. 

OSIRIS-Rex mission discovered Oxygen and Hydrogen atoms in the form of "hydroxyls" locked inside the clay minerals making up the asteroid.

Rocket Lab's Electron platform is the 2nd commercial launcher. They are focused on  smaller payloads. 

Japan's Hayabusa2 mission reached Asteroid Ryugu and will retrieve small amounts of rock from the asteroid.  

The country of Luxembourg has just passed a law encouraging the mining of space bodies. Space mining is very real, and Luxembourg is ahead of the race at the moment.  

Accion Systems  is a new company in the space industry. They create ion engines for use in space. Ion engines are another way to travel through space along side rockets. 

Benchmark Space Systems is a space company that specializes in propulsion methods. They have superior propulsion methods and devices that can be used to go somewhere.