Issue #2 - Milestones as we head into 2022

NASA JWST

The JWST Finally launched on Christmas Day (Dec. 25th) at 7:20am from French Guiana. The JWST is on course for an ontime arrival at L2 (Lagrange Point 2) in 16 Days. (As of 1/7/22) During this, the JWST Has also completed many milestones including Sunshield Deployments, Mirror Extensions, and more. JWST Is expected to be operational in 6 months and to start finding more information about our universe.

SpaceX

As the year came to a close, SpaceX Completed their 100th Falcon 9 Booster recovery and 31 Launches, the most launches they have had since 2009. They also had 31 Successful Booster Recoveries this year with only 1 failure, with the most recovered booster this year being B1051. They also completed 4 Starship Tests this year (SN9, SN10, SN11, SN15) and of which, SN15 had a successful landing! SpaceX also completed 3 Commercial Crew missions, 2 of which went to the ISS. SpaceX Launched 19 Starlink Missions this year, with a total of 1,944 Starlink satellites. Overall, this was one of SpaceX’s best years, and with what SpaceX has planned in 2022, we may see more launches and advancements in the Space industry.

Source: https://www.spacexstats.xyz/#launchhistory-per-year

Blue Origin

In 2021, Blue Origin had 5 suborbital spaceflights, 3 Of which were crewed launches with the NS4, and 2 of which were payload missions with NS3. The 3 Crewed launches were all successful and in zero-g for about 3 minutes.

Blue Origin was made with Space Tourism in mind. On a Blue Origin flight, the New Shepard will fly to suborbital altitudes and will hover in Zero-G for about 3 minutes. During this, passengers are released from seats to experience the effects of Zero-G. Right after, the capsule heads back down to Earth, and lands.

All LV’s are recoverable, and Blue Origin has recovered all of their LV’s that have been launched*

* Estimated Data based off 5 launches, all reported successful.

Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic also had some milestones this year! They launched 2 Spaceplanes this year with 1 fully crewed commercial flight. On May 22, 2021, VG made history by being the first spaceflight from New Mexico, and on July 11th, 2021 Had its first fully crewed spaceflight. The spaceplane (named VSS Unity) Successfully landed at VG’s Spaceport America, in New Mexico