Five space exploration missions to look forward to in 2023

It’s been an eventful year for space exploration.

Achievements include the completion of NASA’s Artemis 1 mission (finally), the inauguration of the James Webb Space Telescope, and the completion of China’s Tiangong Space Station.

2023 promises to be another busy year.

Here are five of the most exciting missions to watch out for.

1. Discoverer of Jupiter’s icy moons

In April, the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice), Europe’s first dedicated robotic mission to Jupiter. Juice will reach the planet in July 2031 after an incredible trajectory through the solar system. The mission will orbit Jupiter and fly past its large icy moons: Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

After four years of lunar flights, Juice will next orbit Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet’s moon. Jupiter’s icy moons are interesting because they are believed to harbor all of the oceans of liquid water beneath their frozen surfaces. Europe in particular is considered one of the most likely locations in the solar system for extraterrestrial life.

Juice will be equipped with ten scientific instruments, including an ice-penetrating radar to study the inner oceans. This use of radar is a practical first step in mapping the subsurface oceans and paving the way for more exotic future underwater vehicle missions, some of which have already been proposed. The launch window runs from April 5 to April 25.

2. SpaceX spacecraft

While aerospace company SpaceX has not yet announced a date at the time of writing, the first orbital test flight of the Starship superheavy spacecraft is expected in early 2023. Starship will be the largest spacecraft capable of transporting humans from Earth to destinations in space (the International Space Station is bigger, but it was assembled in space). It will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever flown, capable of delivering 100 tons of cargo into low Earth orbit.

Starship is the collective name for a two-component system consisting of the Starship spacecraft (with crew and payload) and the superheavy rocket. The rocket component will elevate Starship to an altitude of about 40 miles (65 km) before separating and returning to Earth in a controlled landing. The top Starship component will then use its own thrusters to propel itself the rest of the way into orbit.

Several short test flights of the Starship portion of the system were conducted with varying degrees of success. But the upcoming flight will be the first time the entire system will be used to reach space as a single entity. This first orbital flight was originally scheduled for September 2022, but has been delayed several times.

3. Dear Moon

The highly anticipated project dearMoon, which will take the public on a six-day journey around the moon and back, is slated to launch on Starship and was originally slated for 2023. The exact date depends on Starship’s successful test, but has been in place since 2018. the books. It will be the first true space tourism launch.

Funded by entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, a competition was held to select eight members of the public (and an unknown number of crew members) to accompany Maezawa on the journey – all paid in full. The winners and criteria used were not disclosed, although the guests are believed to be established or emerging artists.

This mission will be a major shift in the way we think about space, as previously only astronauts selected based on incredibly strict criteria could fly into space (note: short trips of 10 minutes count up to 100 km, that we don’t). An entire journey of several days entails both health and technical risks.

The success or failure of the DearMoon mission could affect whether space tourism becomes the next big thing or becomes another utopia.

4. The asteroid explorer returns to Earth

The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security – Regolith Explorer, better known thankfully as OSIRIS-REx, is a NASA mission to the nearby asteroid Bennu. A primary goal of this robotic mission was to collect samples from Bennu and return them to Earth for analysis.

OSIRIS-REx is now rapidly returning to Earth with up to a kilogram of valuable asteroid samples on board. If all goes well, the capsule will detach from the spacecraft, enter Earth’s atmosphere and eject for a soft landing in the Utah desert on Sept. 24. An asteroid sample has only returned once, from the Japan Space Agency’s Hayabusa-2 mission in 2020.

Bennu is a roughly diamond-shaped world only half a kilometer across, but it has many interesting features. It is believed to have broken off from a much larger asteroid in the solar system’s first 10 million years. Some of the minerals found therein have been altered by water, suggesting that Bennu’s ancient parental body possessed liquid water.

It also has an abundance of precious metals, including gold and platinum. Finally, Bennu is classified as a potentially dangerous object with a (very) low probability that it will hit Earth in the next century.

5. Launch of private space in India

While SpaceX is the best-known private space launch company, many others around the world are developing their own series of launch vehicles. Skyroot Aerospace, which successfully launched its Vikram-S rocket in November 2022, will soon become the first private Indian company to launch a satellite.

The rocket itself reached an altitude of 90 km, a distance that would have to be improved to launch a constellation of satellites into orbit. Skyroot’s first satellite launch is scheduled for 2023 and aims to beat the launch costs of competitors in private space by producing its 3D-printed rockets in days. If successful, it could also provide a path for cheaper science mission launches and enable a faster pace of research.

It is clear that interest in the space sector remains high. With many bold advances and launches in 2023, we are entering a new phase similar to the “Golden Age” of space launches in the 1960s and 1970s.

By Gareth Dorrian, Postdoctoral Researcher in Space Science, University of Birmingham and Ian Whittaker, Senior Lecturer in Physics, Nottingham Trent University.