These are times of change in the space sector. It has been a sector traditionally dominated by national agencies of great powers, especially NASA in the US and Roscosmos in Russia. It is evolving towards a growing role of private companies and an increase in the number of participating countries. This evolution will be consolidated in 2024, with SpaceX as the dominant company in rockets and a benchmark in communications satellites, and with China and India as emerging space powers. The Moon has become the most attractive trophy of this new space race.
NASA has designated 2024 as the year for the return of astronauts to the orbit of the Moon. The Artemis 2 mission, with four astronauts aboard an Orion capsule, is scheduled to launch in November. The crew, who will include the first woman and the first African-American to fly to the Moon, will fly over the satellite during a ten-day mission. Its main objective will be to prepare the future Artemis 3 mission, currently scheduled for December 2025, in which two astronauts are expected to descend to the lunar surface and work there for a week.
There are no guarantees that NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will be ready on the date set to launch the Artemis 2 mission, which could be delayed to 2025. There are also no guarantees that the SpaceX company will be ready by the end of 2025 the Starship spacecraft, with which the Artemis 3 astronauts must descend from the Orion capsule to the surface. This ship must be sent to the Moon with a new SpaceX rocket also called Starship to dock with Orion in lunar orbit. But the rocket’s first two launches have ended in explosions and the Artemis 3 mission is likely to be delayed to at least 2026, and possibly later.
What is at stake is “the space race to reach the Moon before China,” NASA director Bill Nelson acknowledged in an interview with The Washington Post.
China has made public in 2023 that it also has plans to send astronauts to the lunar surface before the end of the decade. For now, it has completed the construction of its own space station, of which it presented the first photos in November, and has a body of several dozen astronauts.
The goal is “to realize China’s first manned moon landing before 2030,” Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the country’s Manned Mission Space Agency, said in May. “Our astronauts will walk on the Moon, collect samples around the landing site and do some in situ research.”
Both NASA and China plan to land in the south polar region of the Moon, where there are deposits of frozen water that could be useful for a future lunar base. According to NASA plans, astronauts will be able to live for months on the Gateway space station that will be built in orbit around the Moon, and from there they will descend to the South Pole base for stays of a few days or weeks.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is collaborating with NASA on the project, which has made it possible to agree that three European astronauts will travel to the Gateway station in the coming years, among whom could be the Spanish Pablo Álvarez.
Looking ahead to 2024, the United States will continue its lunar exploration program with five unmanned missions, the first two in January: Peregrine, which is scheduled to launch on the 8th and will send a probe, an all-terrain vehicle and five robots to the surface from the satellite; and the IM-1 mission, which must take off four days later. Also in January, on the 19th, Japan will attempt to land for the first time on the lunar surface with the SLIM mission.
China, for its part, plans to send the Chang’e 6 robotic mission to the far side of the Moon in May to collect selenic rocks and bring them to Earth.
Other countries that have joined the lunar exploration plans and will send scientific instruments to the satellite throughout the year include Mexico, Finland, Luxembourg, France, Sweden and Pakistan – the latter three as passengers on the Chinese Chang’e 6 mission. -.
Who for now has been left out of the race is Russia after its last mission to the Moon crashed this past August at the south pole of the satellite.
Europe, which is a minority partner in NASA’s lunar exploration program, has other space priorities this year. “The highlight of 2024 will be recovering European autonomous access to space through the highly anticipated maiden flight of Ariane 6 and the return to flight of Vega-C,” ESA reported in a statement.
The Ariane 6 rocket replaces the Ariane 5, which entered service in 1998 and which in its first years led the world satellite launch market. But the entry on the scene of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company that has developed reusable rockets and offers cheaper launches, has turned the European Ariane 5 into luxury products: excellent and very reliable, but expensive. Hence, the European industry began working in 2009 on the development of a new rocket that would be equally reliable, but more versatile and less expensive.
Its first release was initially announced for 2020, but the date has had to be pushed back several times. When it was finally thought that it would be ready, the Arianespace company announced that it was stopping production of the Ariane 5 and scheduled its last launch for July 2023. But new setbacks have forced the first launch of the Ariane 6 to be delayed again, which is now scheduled between mid-June and the end of July 2024.
This has placed the European space industry in the uncomfortable position of running out of rockets to launch its missions and having to hire the services of its rival SpaceX. In addition to not having any Ariane available, which is the most powerful rocket to launch large missions, Europe also does not now have the Vega-C to launch small missions, since this rocket failed in its last launch in December 2022 and is not expected to re-enter service until the last quarter of 2024.
The Ariane 6 and Vega-C will give Europe back the ability to launch its missions without depending on other countries, but they are not expected to regain the lost leadership in the satellite launch market. In the fifteen years it took to develop the Ariane 6, SpaceX has also innovated and developed the Starship, the most powerful rocket in history, which will further reduce the cost of putting satellites into orbit.
Although the first two Starship launches in 2023 have ended with spectacular explosions, SpaceX has presented them as successes that are part of a learning process. The company plans to continue launching the Starship in 2024 and learning from mistakes until it is ready.
Another large rocket that has its first launch scheduled for 2024, in this case for August, is the New Glenn from the Blue Origin company of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the third richest person in the world. Bezos is emerging as Elon Musk’s main competitor in the space sector and has managed to get NASA to contract a Blue Origin capsule to send astronauts to the lunar surface on the Artemis 5 mission, after having awarded the contracts for the two missions. prior to SpaceX’s Starship capsule. Bezos will also promote Amazon’s Project Kuiper in 2024, a satellite internet services initiative similar to SpaceX’s Starlink network, with the perspective of having enough satellites in orbit in the second half of the year to begin communications.
Beyond the Moon, space agencies and some private companies continue exploration of the solar system with a plethora of missions to planets, satellites and asteroids. Most of the launches will be concentrated in the last quarter of the year.
The most ambitious, with a budget of 5 billion dollars (about 4.5 billion euros), is the Europa Clipper mission that NASA will launch in October to Jupiter’s moon Europa. With an ocean of liquid water beneath its ice surface, Europa is one of the stars in the solar system where it is considered most likely that some form of life has emerged and evolved.
Europa Clipper will be placed in orbit around Jupiter, where it will arrive in 2030, and will fly over Europa 44 times to investigate whether it is habitable and to select the landing site for a future mission to the surface of the satellite. Its observations will complement those of ESA’s Juice mission, launched last April and arriving at Jupiter in 2031, which will also study Europa, as well as the moons Callisto and Ganymede.
Closer to Earth, NASA plans to send two satellites called Blue and Gold to Mars to investigate the magnetosphere surrounding the planet, although the mission depends on Blue Origin’s new New Glenn rocket being ready for launch, which It must be carried out between August 6 and 15 to take advantage of the time of closest approach between Mars and Earth.
Mars is also a target for India with the MOM2 mission (Mars Orbital Mission 2), which will study the planet’s surface.
ESA, for its part, will launch the HERA mission to the asteroid Didymos in October to study the feasibility of deflecting a star that threatens to collide with Earth.
And the Rocket Lab company hopes to send the private Venus Life Finder mission in December, although it could be delayed to 2025. It will be a mission promoted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the aim of analyzing organic molecules and looking for clues. of life in the Venusian atmosphere.
