2021 was an exciting year for space exploration.
I can't cover all of the important space missions that happened this year, so I will just briefly explain some of the highlights. 2021 was a year of increased commercial activity and increased exploration in space. I hope that 2022 is just as exciting as 2021 and that we continue to enhance our capabilities.
James Webb Space Telescope
I think the most important space mission that launched in 2021 was the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The telescope cost about $10 billion and has been delayed for decades. The telescope is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. JWST has a mirror three times bigger than Hubble.
The telescope launched on December 25th and began its sophisticated deployment sequence soon after that.
I have written multiple blog articles about JWST. You can read them here.
Space Tourism
2021 was a big year for space tourism. There have been a few space tourist trips in previous years, but they became quite common this year with 5 spaceflights carrying paying astronauts.
Both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin launched manned suborbital flights. During the summer there was a race between the companies to see which one could send their billionaire founder to space first. The flights by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin were suborbital. They went up into space for a few minutes, then came back down.
In addition there were two orbital space tourism missions (three if you count the Russian film crew flight).
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic, an aerospace company that wants to provide suborbital tourist opportunities, flew the Unity 22 mission on July 11th. It was the first fully crewed flight of the VSS Unity. The crew consisted of Richard Branson, billionaire founder of Virgin Galactic, two pilots and three Virgin Galactic employees. They spent a few minutes at the edge of space and got to experience weightlessness. The flight took place on July 11th and sent the space plane 86 km (53.5 miles) above the Earth. Virgin Galactic will fly three scientists from the Italian Air Force on a research mission this year and will begin tourist flights soon after that.
Blue Origin
On July 20th, Blue Origin launched their billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, and three other people to space on their New Shepard rocket. The other passengers included a paying customer, 18-year-old Oliver Daemen. Since then they have flown two other manned suborbital spaceflights.
Another flight of the reusable New Shepard rocket in August was unmanned, but performed a few NASA experiments during its brief time in space. In October, New Shepard flew one Blue Origin employee and three space tourists. One of the tourists was William Shatner, a Star Trek actor. Blue Origin finished off the year by flying 6 more people to space. Including the daughter of Alan Shepard, the namesake of the New Shepard rocket, Laura Churchley. Michael Strahan, co-host of "Good Morning America," was also on the flight.
Blue Origin will continue flying people to space and will use the money gained from the flights to finish development of their New Glenn rocket and develop their Orbital Reef space station.
Inspiration 4
Another important manned spaceflight that occured in 2021 was Inspiration4. Inspiration4 sent 4 space tourists to space on a Crew Dragon. The mission launched on September 15th and lasted for 3 days. SInce the spacecraft did not dock with a space station the docking port was replaced with a large glass dome that allowed for some amazing views of Earth.
The mission was payed for by Jared Isaacman, who was the commander on the mission. The mission raised awareness and money for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. The other crew members were Chris Sembroski, Dr. Sian Proctor, and Hailey Arceneaux. The mission was the first all-civilian space mission.
Tourists on Soyuz
2021 also saw the return of tourists to the International Space Station (ISS). MS-20 launched on December 8th, 2021. The 12-day mission sent two paying passengers, Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire, and his personal assistant, Yozo Hirano, to the ISS in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. They were accompanied by a professional cosmonaut, Alexander Misurkin. While they were in space Yusaku and Yozo spent their time filming short videos that were posted on social media and participating in a scientific study about the circulatory system. This mission flew the first space tourists to the ISS since 2009.
Earlier in the year a Soyuz-MS spacecraft also flew a small film crew to the International Space Station. The Russian team filmed part of a full-length movie about a surgeon who is launched into space to perform an emergency surgery on a cosmonaut.
Conclusion
In 2021, more details were released about future space tourism ventures. Axiom Space will send 3 tourists and a pilot to the ISS in February of next year. Multiple companies, including Blue Origin and Nanoracks were given money to develop commercial space stations, which will likely become major destinations for space tourists.
2021 was the year where space tourism became a reality. In total 15 paying customers went to space, including both orbital and suborbital flights. That is about twice as many space tourists as flew before 2021! 7 people visited the ISS on brief trips between 2001-2009
Space will soon become a major destination, and within a few decades, could become accessible to a large amount of people. 2021 will be remembered as a turning point in space tourism.
China's Space Station
In 2021, China began construction of their Tiangong space station. They launched the core of the station, the Tianhe module, in April of this year. So far two 3-person crews have visited the space station and two Tianzhou resupply spacecraft have docked with Tiangong. Chinese space officials anticipate that the station will be completed next year. Two large laboratory modules will dock with Tianhe next year to form a T-shaped complex.
Mars landings
2021 was a very exciting year for Mars exploration, because three new missions arrived at the red planet. About every two years Mars and Earth align in the optimal position to send spacecraft between the planets. One of these launch windows opened up in the summer of 2020 and three space agencies launched missions to Mars. I was surprised that all of these missions made it to Mars, it is very difficult to send a space probe to Mars and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China succeeded on their first try!
The UAE's first Mars mission, Hope, arrived at Mars successfully on February 9th. The mission will photograph Mars and study its athmosphere for the next 2 years.
China successfully entered orbit, landed, and deployed a rover on Mars all in one mission. China's Tianwen-1 mission entered orbit around Mars a day after the Hope orbiter. After a few months of preparations, it deployed its lander and rover. The lander successfully touched down on the Martian surface on the 14th of May and deployed the Zhurong rover soon after that.
NASA's $2 billion Mars 2020 mission landed the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter onto the surface of Mars on February 18th. The Ingenuity helicopter, a technology demonstrator, successfully flew multiple times. The helicopter has assisted the Perseverance rover in its scientific mission by scouting out the area around it. The helicopter has flown a total of 18 times and has far exceeded NASA's expectations.
There were many other exciting events in 2021. Astra successfully launched their first mission to space, and Firefly Aerospace tested their Alpha rocket but failed to reach orbit. Two NASA missions, Lucy and DART launched on missions toward asteroids. Juno continued exploring Jupiter and a fleet of Mars orbiters continued studying Mars.
Sources:
James Webb Space Telescope: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/25/science/james-webb-telescope-launch.html
Space Tourism: https://www.forbes.com/sites/valeriestimac/2021/12/31/space-tourism-took-of-in-2021-heres-how-it-happened/?sh=3641e0284011
Tiangong:
Mars Missions: https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/uae-hope, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25233652-300-2021-in-review-three-different-missions-land-on-mars/