It hasn't been extraordinary but lately I've been noticing a significant increase in the amount of space missions both announced and carried out by countries with space programs around the world. Most considerably the Rosetta comet landing mission from the European Space Agency (ESA). Additionally NASA has announced more ambitious projects such as the Solar Probe Plus, the James Webb Telescope, OSIRIS-Rex, and eventually manned missions to Mars. Furthermore the private company SpaceX led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has been increasingly developing new Space Age tech for future missions. In fact, just yesterday SpaceX attempted the first ever offshore rocket landing with it's CRS-5 Falcon rocket. Japan will not be left behind in this Space Age resurgence, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has developed a ten year plan to increase its "fleet" of GPS satellites to allow Japan for more independence from other countries for the uses of GPS technology used for commercial, military and scientific purposes. As we see more countries and organizations increase their plans for space travel in the not so distant future, it will be interesting to see how countries' exploration agencies form alliances and rivalries for decades to come.
Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson
No comments:
Post a Comment