On a recent YouTube video(embedded below), NASA provided major projects they aim to accomplish this year. Last year was a great year for astronomy: it was a year where the first image of a black hole, the supermassive M87 was captured and SpaceX had a blast, too.
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NASA’s main projected aimed for this year included ” Launching Americans from U.S. soil, sending a new rover to Mars and continuing to prepare for human missions to the Moon are just a few of the things NASA has planned for 2020.“
In this new year, some of the things that we can expect from NASA are testing firing their powerful rocket imaged below:
Credits: NASA
Other projected missions include planning commercial space missions to the moon and prepping a rover to search water on the moon. It is known that the presence of ice has been confirmed on the moon’s poles in 2018. This mission makes a step a heard in determining whether the confirmations are true or not and if water – liquid water – exists on the moon. The other projects for the moon include developing an outpost in the lunar orbits. A report from Space.com in 2018 stated that ” NASA is developing plans for a new Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway in orbit near the moon for future astronaut missions. DENVER — NASA is pressing forward on plans to build a Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, an outpost for astronauts positioned in the space near Earth’s moon.”
Another “cool” projects include trying out the new spacesuits designed by NASA in missions such as sending astronauts to the International Space Station. Boeing and SpaceX are also expected to launch from Florida, fulfilling NASA’s aim of ” Launching Americans from U.S. soil “, the “US soil” being Florida, apparently. By doing so, they are also aiming to prepare astronauts for longer stays in space during missions. Although this might seem a challenge knowing that a lengthy stay in space has a proven hurt for one’s health, the studies NASA is doing are promising and ways in which the hurt can be minimized are expected to be disclosed.
Space missions are very expensive – a no-brainer. For just a heads up, let us discuss the space industry’s worth. A report by the Australian government stated that ” The global space economy was worth an estimated $345 billion USD1 in 2016, one quarter government budgets and three-quarters commercial revenue. Close to 50 nations have government space budgets, nine over $1 billion, and nearly 20 under $100 million.”
The most fun part to wait for is the Mars 2020! A great way to start a new decade! There have been famous Mars rovers so far, Spirit, Opportunity, Sojourner and Curiosity -with only Curiosity being active right now. There is an unnamed rover that is aimed at determining whether life existed on Mars, Characterize the climate and geology of Mars, and after all, preparing it for human exploration. A new report stated that life may have been discovered on Mars in the 1970s on Mars during the Labeled Release experiment.
NASA is also reportedly going to have a satellite land on an asteroid as Japan did on its Hayabusa projects. The space race seems to be tightening and we can expect a lot this year.
The bottom-line: One can expect the discovery of aliens, a space boom, or something very extraordinary at the start of this decade.
