It will be an exciting second half of the year for space travel. Not only will SpaceX finally launch its Starship rocket, NASA will also really start its lunar program and a probe will collide with an asteroid.
Starship almost ready for launch
Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX will launch Starship in July. The rocket is 118 meters high and is to make its first orbit around Earth. It will be an important launch, because Starship is SpaceX’s rocket that will take people to the moon and Mars.
The launch has already been delayed several times. Initially, Starship was supposed to take to the air in early 2022, but the company is still waiting for approval from the aviation authority FAA. Musk expects Starship to make its first orbit flight in July. “We have a second Starship ready for August, after that we can launch one every month.”
SpaceX’s Starship.
SpaceX’s Starship. Photo: SpaceX
Artemis I starts
NASA also has an important launch on the roll. The US space agency is launching its Artemis lunar program. The first mission, Artemis I, involves launching an unmanned Orion pod into orbit around the moon.
This is happening with the nearly 100-meter-high Space Launch System (SLS), NASA’s largest and most powerful rocket to date, which will fly for the first time. The mission is to last three weeks and the goal is to test the safety of the flight. The launch is likely to take place in August.
The Artemis program aims to ensure that humans will land on the moon again in a few years’ time, for the first time since the 1960s and 1970s.
NASA probe hits an asteroid
At the end of September, the space probe DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) will arrive at the asteroid Dimorphos. The probe was launched at the end of last year with the aim of crashing into the ground.
If the probe hits the asteroid, the orbit of that boulder must be changed. This is the first time NASA has attempted such a thing. The test is a first step in the development of a new defense system for the earth. Should a large boulder ever come straight to Earth, DART must make sure it bounces off so it can’t do any damage.
Blue Origin is working on the launch of New Glenn
Whether it will be successful this year remains to be seen. But Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, is working on a new rocket that can be reused. His name is New Glenn, and he will be SpaceX’s major competitor to Starship.
New Glenn is named after astronaut John Glenn. The rocket will become part of NASA’s commercial space fleet. The rocket can eventually deliver supplies to space, but also launch probes and put satellites into orbit around the earth, for example.