Artemis I, a massive weather satellite, and the first private cruise to the International Space Station are among the major milestones for 2022, which has been a boom year for space launches.
So what can we expect from 2023?
Well, after the hype of the James Webb Telescope, the asteroid-destroying DART mission, and the launch of the most powerful rocket in history in November 2022. The spacecraft Cornwall will host the nation’s first-ever orbital space launch from the United Kingdom as soon as next month.
Image credit: Unsplash
Virgin Orbit’s operations at Newquay Airport have been delayed repeatedly, but they will start in the New Year.
Let’s take a look at the top space launches of 2023;
Spaceport Cornwall – Virgin Orbit
Image credits: Wikimedia
The first space launch from the UK is finally slated to take place in January 2023 at Spaceport Cornwall after numerous delays. On December 14, 2022, it was anticipated that Virgin Orbit’s modified Boeing 747, Cosmic Girl, would take off, soar to a height of 35,000 feet, and then blast off the rocket.
However, due to difficulties with the launch’s technical and legal preparations, this has been postponed until after Christmas.
Cosmic Girl will launch a 70-foot rocket dubbed LauncherOne into low Earth orbit to place little cube-shaped satellites (sometimes known as “CubeSats”) once Virgin Orbit and its passenger satellites have received Civil Aviation Authority approval.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will be capable of monitoring Earth and its seas after the satellites are launched since they will deliver cutting-edge image sensors.
Newquay-area Spaceport Cornwall is a new spaceport in the UK that has been operating since September 2022. It may be found at Cornwall Airport Newquay, a busy commercial airport that serves passenger planes to destinations around the UK and Europe.
The first launch of Starship
In September 2022, Elon Musk predicted that his $216 million ultra-super-heavy rocket would finally launch into space the following month. However, this prediction did not come true, and the launch date has since been postponed to 2023.
The Boca Chica launch pad in Texas underwent an environmental evaluation after SpaceX first intended to send Starship into orbit in January of this year. It has a strong possibility of going live in the first quarter of the next year, according to experts.
Nasa crew-6 mission of SpaceX
Image credits: unsplash
Image credits: unsplash
In the middle of February 2023, SpaceX will launch its sixth NASA personnel mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Crew-6 will notice Elon Musk’s company launched two NASA scientists, an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates and a Russian astronaut in space from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, strengthening its connections with the US space agency.At SpaceX’s Dragonland facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the Dragon spacecraft that will transport them there is now undergoing renovations, but it should be ready shortly. This is already the 6th mission of a commercial program that successfully launched astronauts to the ISS for the first time in May 2020. SpaceX has opened up a new route for NASA to reach the ISS via a US company.
It inaugurated a new era for the US space agency, which would now acquire its future needs for human transportation just above the Earth from private corporations like SpaceX. The mission’s commander will be NASA employee Stephen Bowen, and its pilot will be Woody Hoburg.
New Glenn Rocket of Blue Origin
The New Glenn launch vehicle is Blue Origin’s successor to the existing New Shepard, which has sent passengers into space and was built to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. The single heavy-lift launch vehicle known as New Glenn, which was named after John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, can transport passengers and satellites to Earth orbit and beyond.
It is a two-stage rocket with a 23-foot (7-meter) diameter that has a reusable first stage designed for 25 missions. In the past, there had been a lot of talk about Jeff Bezos, the man who founded Amazon, launching it for the first time in 2020, 2021, and finally delaying it until the end of 2022.
Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO)
Image credits: Wikimedia
The pollution above North America will be measured by the TEMPO satellite or Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution. It will be the first space-based equipment to continuously monitor air pollution from Mexico City to the Canadian oil sands and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
TEMPO will eventually be a component of a constellation of devices monitoring the quality of the air over the Northern Hemisphere, along with Sentinel-4, a satellite being developed by the European Space Agency.
dearMoon
Eight artists will go with Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa on a SpaceX spacecraft next year for an ambitious civilian flyby of the moon. South Korean K-Pop artist T.O.P, US music producer Steve Aoki, Indian TV personality Dev Joshi, and British photographer Rhiannon Adam are among the mostly male crew members of the “dearMoon” tourist flight.
QueSST
Image credits: Wikimedia
The QueSST silent supersonic aircraft’s inaugural flight will leave from Lockheed’s Palmdale, California, flight facility.
This operation has two objectives. The X-59 Quiet Supersonic Transport or QueSST primary’s objective is to eliminate the noise produced by supersonic flight. The X-59 will be flown over a few US cities to collect information on how people react to the noise produced by supersonic flight, which will then be given to US and foreign regulators.
One day, the X-59 might be able to travel in under three hours from London to New York.
Boeing crew flight test of NASA
Image credits: Wikimedia
After replying to a request for commercial enterprises to take up the responsibility for low-Earth orbit crew transportation, Boeing is hoping to join Musk’s company in transporting NASA missions to and from the orbital observatory. This came after the space shuttle program was discontinued in 2011.
But even after more than ten years have passed since Boeing unveiled its CST-100 Starliner design at the Farnborough Air Show in the UK, the aircraft is still not prepared for a trip to the space station. That’s because technological difficulties caused delays to the program after Boeing’s maiden “Orbital Flight Test” without a pilot in December 2019 went wrong.
The Crew Flight Test, which will take place in the spring of 2014, will show how well Starliner and the United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket can safely transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. If the test is a success, NASA will start the formal certification process for the Starliner spacecraft and systems for routine crew rotation missions to the space station.
Gangayaan
Image credits: Wikimedia
India’s space agency recently announced a robot that will launch on an unmanned journey to space in 2020. It will also travel into space with Indian astronauts in the future, notably on the manned Gaganyaan mission. Originally scheduled for December 2021, this is now anticipated to happen as early as 2024.
The humanoid, called Vyom Mitra (which translates to “friend in space”), is intended to carry out a variety of tasks, such as replying to questions from astronauts and carrying out life support procedures. Next year, it might use a rocket launch.
First flight of the X-57
Image credits: NASA (.gov)
The NASA X-57, a small electric-powered prototype aircraft, is scheduled to make its first flight in 2019. It is advertised as being up to 500% more efficient and quieter than traditional airplanes.
The X-57 Maxwell aircraft, which will be NASA’s first human X-plane in 20 years, is intended to aid in the development of standards for upcoming all-electric aircraft. It was originally a four-seater Tecnam P2006T conventional light aircraft that had 12 electric motors installed in place of the aircraft’s original piston engines.
According to NASA, “the craft includes custom-made thin wings that will increase efficiency by decreasing drag during flight and rechargeable lithium-ion batteries to supply electricity.”
The NASA Armstrong Mission Research Center in California will host the flight.
EUCLID
When it is launched the following year, the Euclid telescope from the European Space Agency will play a significant role. It is scheduled to investigate the enigmatic dark energy driving the universe’s accelerating expansion.
By studying the morphologies of galaxies at various ranges from Earth and the correlation between range and wavelength, the telescope will be able to quantify the universe’s speed.
ASTHROS
Image credits: unsplash
NASA announced its plans to deploy a massive balloon with a telescope attached two years ago to study stars and cosmic gasses.
A football field-sized balloon will be used in the ASTHROS project, which stands for “Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations” at Submillimeter-wavelengths, to lift a telescope 130,000 feet into the stratosphere.
Jupiter Icy moons Explorer (JUICE)
Image credits: Wikimedia
This is an ESA mission, and it will transport the most potent scientific mission ever launched into the outer solar system. The goal of the mission is to better understand how planetary systems might form around gas giant planets by studying Jupiter and its moons.
JUICE is slated to launch from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on an Ariane 5. JUICE will enter orbit around Jupiter in 2031 after a seven to eight-year voyage there using Venus and Earth’s gravitational assistance.
To ‘science-up’ your social media feed, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!
Follow us on Medium
