Space

• [New] Launching by the end of 2021, Artemis 1 will be the first in a series of missions that will culminate in NASA's first crewed lunar landing since the Apollo era.
• [New] At least 50 countries, including Germany, have now committed to protecting at least 30% of the planet by 2030, pledging to halt the extinction of species and address climate change issues under the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People.
• [New] SpaceX is expected to continue to launch batches of Starlink internet satellites on a regular basis over the coming year.
• [New] France and the UK are spearheading efforts to protect at least 30% of the planet by 2030.
• [New] With rising sea levels from global warming, the total water surface area of planet Earth is expected to increase dramatically in the coming years.
• [New] 50 countries had joined the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, which was launched in 2019 by Costa Rica, France and Britain to set a target of protecting at least 30% of the planet by 2030.
• [New] The California-based company expects to perform the first suborbital tests of a prototype of its centrifugal system for launching small satellites later in 2021 from New Mexico.
• [New] The Chinese Space Station, sometimes referred to as Tiangong, is expected to be completed and enter normal operations in 2022 orbiting between 340-420 kilometers above the Earth.
• [New] Orbital launch service provider Orbex will be the first company to launch its rocket into orbit at the recently approved Space Hub on Scotland's northern coast, as early as 2022.
• [New] In 2020 three missions to Mars were launched: NASA's Mars 2020, China National Space Administration's Tianwen-1, and UAE's Emirates Mars Mission, while Elon Musk's SpaceX aims to send a Starship to Mars in 2024.
• [New] The value of the space-based services and applications is very quickly increasing to a point that a Morgan Stanley study speaks of a trillion USD value of space-based services by 2040 (against USD 350 billion in 2019).
• With thousands more satellites needed to meet global coverage and bandwidth demands, SpaceX is expected to fly dozens of Starlink missions in the coming years.
• NASA's renewed efforts to return humans to the moon by 2024 has led to advances in new space technologies to improve processes, and reduce costs and development time.
• NASA has in the past decade relied on private companies to build and operate spacecraft that could ferry cargo, and now people, to the International Space Station.
• With only days left in the year, climate scientists are poring over global temperature data, trying to determine if 2020 will surpass 2016 as the planet's warmest year on record.
• Starting in 2022, SpaceX will launch a number of satellites for the Pentagon's space agency, known as the Space Development Agency.
• SpaceX will send three Crew Dragon missions to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2021, including the first fully private mission for Axiom Space aboard Resilience in October.
• In early 2021, Rocket Lab will launch another recovery mission, opening up a new era of possibility for satellites in orbit.
• Several small-satellite launch companies hope to reach orbit in the coming year, including Firefly Aerospace, Relativity Space and Virgin Orbit.
• In the coming 15 years, Kuwait is expected to gradually drift down the World Economic League Table, from 60th position in 2020 to 61st place in 2035.
• The National Space Plan for 2020-2025 represents the Czech Republic's strategy to further develop space related technologies in industry and academia and to play a more active and visible role within the international community in space and related areas.

Last updated: 17 January 2021