Loren Grush reports that this year is filled with important test flights, as private companies like SpaceX get new orbital rockets and vehicles ready for space travel. Space tourism ventures like Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin will continue testing their sub-orbital vehicles too, which could potentially take paying customers into the upper limits of the atmosphere. There are also a couple robotic missions to Jupiter and Mars that will be reported in depth in the coming months.
Blue Origin seems to be far ahead in its flight tests. The company has already demonstrated that it can launch, land, and then re-launch its New Shepard rocket. Virgin Galactic, however, has a lot to prove. The company just unveiled the new version of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, after the previous vehicle crashed in 2014. Virgin Galactic says test flights will begin fairly soon.
The first stage of the ExoMars Mission will be getting underway this year. The mission is a joint partnership between the European Space Agency and the Russian Roscosmos, with the goal of sending three exploratory spacecraft to Mars. The idea is to search for traces of alien life, as well as to test out technologies that could be used to explore the Red Planet in the future, according to the ESA.
This March, a Russian Proton rocket will launch two ExoMars spacecraft, the Trace Gas Orbiter and the Schiaparelli EDM. The orbiter is designed to study the Mars atmosphere. The lander will test out technologies needed to land the third ExoMars spacecraft: a rover that will launch sometime in 2018. The orbiter and lander are slated to reach Mars later this year in October, the ESA says.
SpaceX Falcon Heavy is essentially three Falcon 9 rockets combined into one massive vehicle, with two boosters strapped to either side of the main rocket. The Falcon Heavy will have 4.5 million pounds of thrust during liftoff, making it capable of lifting the equivalent of a 737 jetliner into orbit, SpaceX says.
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