On February 18, 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover landed in the Jezero crater on Mars, an occasion that was marked with photos of the surface and a video of the landing. In the coming weeks and months, it will join its sister mission Curiosity in the ongoing search for evidence of past (and maybe even present!) life on the Red Planet.
In October of 2021, NASA's next-generation infrared observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will be launched. As the most advanced and complex space telescope ever built, the James Webb will characterize exoplanets, explore our Solar System, and address the deepest cosmological mysteries of all.
By 2024, NASA will return astronauts to the Moon for the first time in fifty years. Using the most-powerful launch vehicle ever built - the Space Launch System (SLS) - and the Orion spacecraft, the Artemis III mission will bring the "first woman and next man to the Moon."
Beyond that, NASA, the ESA, and other international and commercial partners plan to set up shop on the Moon. This will entail the creation of the Lunar Gateway (an orbital habitat) and the Artemis Base Camp (a surface habitat) that will allow for a program of "sustained lunar exploration and development."
In the commercial sector, companies like SpaceX are pushing the boundaries to create the world's first entirely-reusable and super-heavy launch system. Known as the Starship, this brainchild of Elon Musk will be making regular trips to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) and perhaps ferrying people to the Moon and Mars in just a few years' time.
There's simply no denying it, a new age of space exploration is upon us! But whereas the previous space age was all about getting to space, the current age is concerned with staying there. That means developing the technologies for long-duration stays - in other words, space stations.
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