Space Highlights From 2016

It’s that time of year again when we reflect on everything that’s happened in space in 2016 and look forward to what’s coming up in 2017.

And what a year it’s been! The ground-breaking discovery of gravitational waves, a British astronaut living and working on the International Space Station, and the bittersweet end to Rosetta’s spectacular mission at a comet, to name just a few.

Here are our favourite space highlights from 2016, in rough chronological order:

British astronaut space walk

Kicking off the year with a bang, in January 2016 British European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Tim Peake stepped outside the International Space Station (ISS) and into the vacuum of space.

At the National Space Centre, we were glued to the live-stream of this spacewalk, cheering as Tim Peake and his NASA colleague Tim Kopra replaced a key power unit on the solar panels and holding our breath as Tim Kopra’s helmet began to leak water from the suit’s cooling system.

Fortunately, everything was fine and the spacewalk a huge success. Tim Peake continued to live and work on the ISS until his fiery descent back to Earth on 18 June 2016.

Gravitational Waves Discovered

On 11 February 2016 astronomers triumphantly announced the first detection of gravitational waves – ripples in space and time caused by the movement of massive objects in the universe.

These ripples were detected by a ground-based detector called LIGO in the United States. This first detection has effectively given us a new sense to explore the universe. Now instead of just using our eyes and light to study the cosmos, we can listen to the universe as well, with all its collisions and explosions and activity.

The next step is to take our ‘ears’ into space, to get rid of all the background noise from Earth. In 2016 Lisa Pathfinder, an ESA mission, successfully demonstrated the technology needed to measure gravitational waves from space. Expect to see many more developments on this front in the near future!

Reusable Rockets Developed

2016 has been a great year for feats of amazing rocketry. Two private companies, SpaceX and Blue Origin, have proved that self-landing, re-useable rockets are not only possible but reliable. Watching the soft landings still feels like something out of science fiction, even one year on.

In 2016 SpaceX has launched and successfully landed five different Falcon 9 rockets, often after first placing satellites into difficult orbits or ferrying cargo to the ISS. Most of these landings were on a drone ship called Of Course I Still Love You, stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. Since rockets are required to launch over unpopulated areas, ideally over sea, in case of accident, then landing on a ship makes sense in order to save on the fuel costs required to fly back to land.

Blue Origin don’t land their rockets on a ship yet but they do have a key bragging right over SpaceX. As well as safely landing a rocket, Blue Origin have also re-launched the same rocket multiple times, proving its reliability. Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket is much smaller than SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and hasn’t launched spacecraft into orbit, but it was the first to demonstrate a soft landing back in November 2015 and has been re-launched four more times in 2016 for a total of five flights.

By recycling the boosters that launch things into space, it’s estimated that about 30% of the launch costs can be saved.

Juno at Jupiter

On 5 July 2016 a new NASA spacecraft called Juno arrived at Jupiter after five years of travelling the Solar System. Juno is in a 53-day orbit around the largest planet in the Solar System, braving the harsh radiation belts to probe the depths of Jupiter and map its gravity and magnetic fields.

Juno also carries a public outreach camera called JunoCam. Members of the public can vote on what Jupiter targets they most want to photograph and JunoCam captures the winning targets on each close flyby.

The next flyby is 2 February 2017, so get voting!

End of the Rosetta Mission

The Rosetta mission captured the world in November 2014 when the plucky lander Philae touched down on a comet. Philae had a rough time on the comet, first nearly bouncing off, then landing in the shadow of a cliff, and eventually falling into a deep sleep. Rosetta continued to orbit comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for another two years, gathering data, capturing stunning images, and searching for Philae. Finally in September 2016, just before the mission ended, Philae was found!

On 30 September 2016, Rosetta dove towards the surface of the comet, sending back some final data before impacting the surface in a bittersweet end to the mission. Rosetta’s mission ended because it was running out of power from the Sun as the spacecraft followed the comet back into the outer Solar System. Scientists decided to end the mission with a bang and get the most amount of science back before they lost contact with Rosetta.

ExoMars Arrives at Mars

On 19 October 2016, ExoMars arrived at Mars. This flagship ESA mission is now searching for signatures of life on the Red Planet by sampling methane in the atmosphere.

In addition to placing a probe in Mars orbit, ExoMars also sent a lander to the surface of Mars, to test out ESA’s landing technologies. Sadly, this lander crashed into the surface after a mishap with the parachute deployment.

Despite this mishap, in early December 2016, ESA gave the green light to fund an ExoMars rover for a 2020 launch. This rover will give Europe the power to drill up to two metres under the Martian surface and search for any organics that might reveal microbial life. Meanwhile keep an eye on the ExoMars orbiter for new insights to Mars’ mysterious methane.

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