2021 in Space: It was all about NASA, Mars, Virgin, SpaceX, China
From the Mars Ingenuity helicopter's first powered flight on another world to the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope that will peer into the earliest epoch of the Universe, 2021 was a huge year for humanity's space endeavors. Beyond the science milestones, billionaires battled to reach the final frontier first, an all-civilian crew went into orbit, and Star Trek's William Shatner waxed profound about what it meant to see the Earth from the cosmos, as space tourism finally came into its own. Here are selected highlights.
a time when the craft relies on its automated systems for descent and landing, to touch down flawlessly on Mars' Jezero Crater in February.
Since then, the car-sized robot has been taking photos and drilling for samples for its mission: determining whether the Red Planet might have hosted ancient microbial life forms.
A rock sample return mission is planned for sometime in the 2030s.
With its state-of-the-art instruments, "Percy," as the helicopter is affectionately known, can also zap Martian rock and chemically analyze the vapor.
Percy has a partner along for the ride: Ingenuity, a four-pound (two kilogram) rotorcraft that in April succeeded in the first powered flight on another celestial body, just over a century after the Wright brothers' achieved the same feat here on Earth, and has performed many more since.
"Perseverance is sort of the flagship mission, it's doing a long-term detailed investigation of this fascinating area of Mars," Jonathan McDowall, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told AFP.
By contrast, "Ingenuity, is one of these cute, small, cheap little technology demos that NASA can do so well," he added.
The insights gained from Ingenuity could help
Read more on tech.hindustantimes.com
