Best Achievements In Space Industry In 2014

Its been a great year for the space community. Astronomers around the world made fascinating new discoveries and ventured into new territories. They have also laid many concrete foundations for future space programs.

The biggest achievement in the field of space has to be the European Space Agency’s [ESA] Rosetta mission. The decade long mission finally saw the spacecraft landing the Philae lander on the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. Even though the landing of the Philae lander wasn’t perfect and the lander ended up going into hibernation [the
lander is expected to wake-up in early February next year], the Rosetta spacecraft that is orbiting the comet has sent back important data about the 67P comet.

The second most talked about event was the successful test launch  of the Orion spacecraft by NASA. Using Orion, NASA hopes to send manned mission to Mars in 2030. But before that, it was important for them to test the spacecraft. In its test launch, Orion successfully orbited Earth two times, carrying the modules 3,600 miles above Earth, or about 16 times higher than the average altitude of the International Space Station, before plunging back in the atmosphere at speeds of 20,000 miles per hour and landing in the Pacific Ocean.

NASA’s Curiosity Rover, which is presently conducting operations on Mars, had a great year too. First it discovered the evidence of water on the Gale crater. The rover found that the crater had sedimentary rocks. This means that the crater had large lakes and rivers flowing over it – millions of years ago.

Few weeks later Curiosity also discovered methane plumes on the planet and the presence of organic compound, which adds to the proof that life existed on Mars in the past.

Elsewhere, NASA’s other spacecraft New Horizons woke up from its hibernation and is now expected to meet its target, Pluto, in early 2015. The spacecraft will study Pluto, its biggest moon Charon and the planet’s other moons. It will also measure Pluto’s geological data, its atmospheric temperatures and map the planet’s surface. The probe will also try to find out if the tiny planet has any more moons or rings.

Elsewhere, both the space agencies discovered new protoplanets, suns and even galaxies. Hubble even discovered a dwarf galaxy, KKs3, which is near our Milky Way. Swiss scientists found evidence of the elusive dark matter, by analyzing data collected by the ESA’s XMM-Newton spacecraft. They found the dark matter in the X-rays emitted by two celestial objects –the Perseus galaxy cluster and the Andromeda galaxy.

NASA tied up with four commercial space companies, which will see it develop new space machines and programs. While ESA finally got the backing to build the world’s largest telescope, which will be called European Extremely Large Telescope [E-ELT].

The next year is expected to be equally exciting for space agencies and space enthusiasts. The Philae lander is expected to wake-up in early February, while the New Horizons spacecraft will rendezvous with Pluto. Plus astronomers are expected to make many new discoveries.