In 2019, a large number of events related to space exploration took place. Roscosmos has extended the accident-free series of launches to 14 months. The last year without accidents for the state corporation was 2009. In 2019, China issued several "Stakhanov" series of space launches. Private American companies are not yet able to perfect their manned versions of reusable spacecraft, and India failed the lunar mission of its Chandrayan-2 probe, failing to enter the elite club of countries whose devices successfully operated on the lunar surface. Let's consider all the main events of the space 2019 in more detail. Let's start with Russia. Your shirt is closer to your body.
Results of 2019 for Roscosmos
2019 ended very successfully for the state corporation Roscosmos. For the first time in 10 years, there was not a single emergency launch, and the duration of a series of trouble-free launches reached 14 months. In total, according to the results of the outgoing year, Russia conducted 25 launches of various missiles, in 2018 there were 19 successful missile launches. In 2019, 13 Russian rockets went into space from the Baikonur cosmodrome, eight launches took place at the Plesetsk cosmodrome, three more were carried out from Kura and one from the cosmodrome. Oriental. In total, at the end of 2019, 73 spacecraft were launched into various orbits, including two Glonass-M navigation satellites. According to Roskosmos, at the end of 2019, the domestic orbital constellation of scientific, navigation and socio-economic spacecraft is 92 units.
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In terms of the number of space launches at the end of 2019, our country took third place in the world, behind China, which made 34 launches, of which 32 were successful, as well as the United States - 27 space launches. The first Russian space launch in the outgoing year was the EgyptSat-A Earth remote sensing satellite launched in February. The satellite was launched into orbit by a Soyuz-2.1b rocket with a Fregat upper stage. The last Russian space launch took place on Friday, December 27th. On this day, from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, the Rokot light launch vehicle with the Briz-KM upper stage successfully launched military satellites and the Gonets-M communications apparatus into orbit. The launch is notable for the fact that it was the last for this modification of the Rokot launch vehicle; in total, since 2000, 31 launches have been carried out with the participation of this rocket within the framework of federal and commercial programs. Currently at the enterprise GKNPTs them. M. V. Khrunichev are working on a modification of this light-class rocket with a complete replacement of the imported element base with the domestic one.
Space will be "x-rayed"
One of the most important events of the year for world cosmonautics was the successful launch of the Russian-German orbital astrophysical observatory Spektr-RG. The main purpose of this sophisticated scientific apparatus is to build a complete map of our Universe in the X-ray range. The launch of the scientific observatory was successfully carried out on July 13, 2019 by the Proton-M launch vehicle from the Baikonur cosmodrome. The active work of the apparatus will be 6, 5 years. All this time, the observatory will conduct astrophysical research, of which 4 years - in the mode of scanning the starry sky, and another 2.5 years - in the mode of point observation of selected objects in the Universe at the request of scientists.
The Orbital Astrophysical Observatory carries on board two unique X-ray mirror telescopes: eROSITA (Germany) and ART-XC (Russia), operating on the principle of oblique incidence X-ray optics. Both telescopes complement each other's capabilities and are mounted on the Russian space platform Navigator, which has been specially adapted for the tasks of the scientific project. On October 21, 2019, a unique spacecraft reached the specified vicinity of the Lagrange point, where it began work on the study of the starry sky. The apparatus solves the problems of fundamental science. He should help scientists draw up the most detailed map of the Universe and survey the entire starry sky in the X-ray range. The compiled map will be the most accurate at a given time, and the international scientific community will use the results obtained for at least 15-20 years. It is expected that the work of the observatory will help scientists better understand the evolution and life of galaxies, black holes, individual celestial objects, as well as study the interaction of the atmospheres of all planets, starting with Mars, with the solar wind.
"Stakhanov" space launches of China
In 2019, China deservedly took first place in the world in terms of the number of space launches, and the Chinese astronautics itself has been demonstrating success for several years. At the same time, some of the launches in 2019 were carried out at a truly Stakhanov pace, in the spirit of the socialist competitions of the Soviet era. Such launches, of course, pursued a propaganda effect and were supposed to demonstrate to the whole world the space ambitions of the country, which is not accidentally called the Celestial Empire.
For the first time, Chinese engineers managed to launch three rockets in two hours in 2019 from three different spaceports in China. The second record is the launch of two launch vehicles from one cosmodrome within 6 hours. At the same time, China had its own setbacks. Two launches in 2019 ended in accidents. The first occurred back in March, when OneSpace failed to become the first private company from China to launch its own satellite into orbit. The rocket lost stability after the separation of the first stage; launch problems were later explained by a gyroscope malfunction. The second accident occurred in May 2019, when the third stage of the Great March 4C launch vehicle failed.
Elon Musk and Boeing are in trouble
Currently, the United States is implementing several large-scale projects to create modern reusable spacecraft, which are replacing decommissioned shuttles. Elon Musk's private space company SpaceX has made notable strides in this area. The company's unmanned transport vehicle, known as Dragon, has been in regular flights to the ISS since 2012 and is currently the only cargo spacecraft that allows cargo to be returned from the ISS back to Earth. However, with the creation of a manned version of this device, Elon Musk had certain problems. The manned version of the ship was named Dragon 2 or Crew Dragon. In March, the spacecraft made a successful flight to the ISS, but in an unmanned version. And already in April, an unexpected and unpleasant incident for a private space company happened. The device that flew into space was lost during ground tests. Crew Dragon exploded and burned during testing of an emergency rescue system.
Boeing, which is working on a competitor to SpaceX, the reusable spacecraft CST-100 Starliner, also had problems. At the same time, 2019 is a rather difficult year for a large American aerospace corporation, which was seriously affected by two disasters of the newest Boeing 737 MAX passenger liner. Implementing its project of a reusable transport manned spacecraft, the company several times disrupted the scheduled dates for test flights. Finally, on December 20, the CST-100 Starliner was successfully launched into space, but the flight itself was only partially successful. Due to a malfunction after separation from the Atlas V launch vehicle, the spacecraft spent a lot of fuel and was unable to complete its main task - to dock with the ISS. Despite this, two days later, the spacecraft was able to successfully return to Earth, landing in the normal mode. Boeing experts expect to prepare this ship for reuse as early as 2020.
India was unable to enter the "moon club"
India in recent years, like China, has actively joined the space race with a clear desire to squeeze the existing players. In 2019, the country could become part of the elite "lunar club", which so far includes only three states - Russia, the United States and China, whose spacecraft have successfully operated on the lunar surface. Official Delhi hopes were associated with the implementation of the ambitious Chandrayan-2 program, but the lunar mission failed, unfortunately for the millions of Indian viewers who watched the Vikram module landing on the surface of the only natural satellite of the Earth.
One of the goals of the mission "Chandrayan-2" (in Sanskrit "Lunar ship") was a soft landing on the lunar surface of the scientific lander and the operation of the lunar rover. The landing was scheduled for September 7, 2019. The mission developed successfully almost to the very end. On September 2, the lander "Vikram" with a lunar rover on board separated from the orbital module "Chandrayan-2" and went to the lunar surface. At midnight on September 7, during the final stage of braking at an altitude of just over two kilometers, communication with the device was lost. As it turned out later, the module made a hard landing and completely collapsed on impact on the lunar surface.
First image of a black hole
One of the most important astronomical events of 2019 was, without a doubt, the first image of a black hole. Astronomers all over our planet have been waiting for such an image for more than a dozen years. An important event for science took place on April 10, 2019. It was on this day that an international group of astrophysicists unveiled the first image of one of the most mysterious, mysterious and attractive space objects in the history of mankind. The resulting image is not a snapshot in the traditional sense, but is the result of processing data obtained by radio telescopes from all over the planet. In order to obtain an image of a black hole from the center of the galaxy M87, located in the constellation Virgo, scientists had to process data from 13 radio telescopes over two years.
The resulting image is only the first step in a long journey to study exactly how black holes work. So far, the results obtained have only confirmed the theoretical ideas of scientists. This is a clear demonstration of the ability of mankind to engage in complex types of space research. Russian astrophysicist Sergei Popov compared the acquisition of this image with the discovery of America by Columbus. When the famous navigator returned from his voyage, he could not answer a huge number of questions, did not know the size of open territories and the resources available on them, but he knew for sure that there was land across the ocean where you could sail.
2019 has once again clearly shown that astronautics is the most difficult and science-intensive point of application of the efforts of all mankind. And even with the current level of technical and scientific development, these efforts do not always lead to the expected results, they are accompanied by emergency launches and failures. In this regard, one of the achievements of 2019 is the absence of human deaths during space launches. The last time such a tragedy happened was in 2003, when seven American astronauts were killed on board the space shuttle Columbia. Since then, not a single person has died in space launches for 16 years. Let's hope that this space series will not be interrupted in 2020.
