Space

• [New] With thousands more satellites needed to meet global coverage and bandwidth demands, SpaceX is expected to fly dozens of Starlink missions in the coming years.
• [New] NASA's renewed efforts to return humans to the moon by 2024 has led to advances in new space technologies to improve processes, and reduce costs and development time.
• [New] NASA has in the past decade relied on private companies to build and operate spacecraft that could ferry cargo, and now people, to the International Space Station.
• [New] With only days left in the year, climate scientists are poring over global temperature data, trying to determine if 2020 will surpass 2016 as the planet's warmest year on record.
• [New] Starting in 2022, SpaceX will launch a number of satellites for the Pentagon's space agency, known as the Space Development Agency.
• [New] SpaceX will send three Crew Dragon missions to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2021, including the first fully private mission for Axiom Space aboard Resilience in October.
• [New] In early 2021, Rocket Lab will launch another recovery mission, opening up a new era of possibility for satellites in orbit.
• [New] Several small-satellite launch companies hope to reach orbit in the coming year, including Firefly Aerospace, Relativity Space and Virgin Orbit.
• [New] In the coming 15 years, Kuwait is expected to gradually drift down the World Economic League Table, from 60th position in 2020 to 61st place in 2035.
• [New] The National Space Plan for 2020-2025 represents the Czech Republic's strategy to further develop space related technologies in industry and academia and to play a more active and visible role within the international community in space and related areas.
• [New] While SN8 was simply a prototype never intended to fly to space, the core stage at Stennis is flight hardware that NASA will use for the Artemis 1 mission in late 2021.
• [New] The Space Development Agency set a goal to launch Tranche 0 satellites in late 2022.
• [New] We will likely see Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations beginning to offer residential and business broadband to UK consumers, at the earliest during 2021.
• China will begin construction of its new space station in 2021, with the Tianhe module planned to enter Earth orbit in the first half of the year.
• After several successful moon missions, 2021 will be the year when China starts building its own space station, dubbed Tiangong, or Sky Palace.
• Reliance-BP is investing USD 5 billion in bringing to production three deepwater gas projects in block KG-D6 R-Cluster, Satellites Cluster, and MJ which together are expected to meet about 15% of India's gas demand by 2023.
• In the coming 15 years, Botswana is expected to gradually drift down the World Economic League Table, from 119th position in 2020 to 123rd place in 2035.
• Between 2020 and 2035, Azerbaijan is forecast to move from 89th place to 96th place in the World Economic League Table.
• The current plan to send astronauts to the lunar surface in 2024 could be disrupted if the SLS program fails to deliver on time.
• RIL and BP are developing three deepwater gas projects in block KG D6 - R Cluster, Satellites Cluster and MJ - which together are expected to meet ~15% of India's gas demand by 2023.
• SpaceX could send its first uncrewed spacecraft to Mars by 2022, with astronauts flying to the red planet within the next four to six years.
• By 2050-the year when a growing list of nations aim to have zeroed out their contributions to climate change - the UN projects the global population will be 9.7 billion, on its way to topping out at 11 billion in 2100.
• Over the next 50 years the earth will most likely heat up to levels that will make whole parts of the planet uninhabitable.

Last updated: 10 January 2021