An illustration of SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR..SpaceX
- The 2019 calendar is full of major events in spaceflight, planetary science, and astronomy.
- SpaceX and Boeing hope to launch NASA astronauts inside commercial spaceships for the first time next year.
- Elon Musk may also test-launch his rocket company’s “Starship” spacecraft.
- Plus, humanity will make its farthest-ever visit to a planet-like object, and China intends to return its first lunar soil samples to Earth.
- Meteor showers, a total lunar and solar eclipse, and other night-sky events will also grace our planet.
When it comes to events in space, 2019 is going to be an extraordinary year.
That’s not to say 2018 will be an easy act to follow. After all, SpaceX debuted the world’s most powerful operational rocket (called Falcon Heavy), sent a car beyond Mars, and helped launch more orbital rockets than in any year since 1990.
With a few exceptions, NASA also had a momentous 12 months: The US space agency announced its first-ever commercial astronaut crews, began a new hunt for Earth-like planets, sent a probe to “touch” the sun, and landed its InSight robot on Mars.
China, meanwhile, crashed an old space station into the ocean and launched a small fleet of moon satellites.
But 2019 will be a doozy — a sentiment that NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine highlighted after NASA’s recent Mars landing.
“Right now at NASA, there is more underway than in I-don’t-know-how-many years past,” Bridenstine said during a live broadcast. “It’s a drought, and then all of the sudden there’s all of these activities.”
Here are some of the biggest events you can expect from aerospace companies, government space agencies, and the night sky next year.
January 1: NASA’s New Horizons probe will fly by Ultima Thule, the farthest object humanity has ever tried to visit
After NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto in July 2015, the robot kept going. The space agency now plans to use the nuclear-powered probe to visit an icy body called Ultima Thule, or 2014 MU69. The object is in the Kuiper Belt, about 4 billion miles from Earth, and researchers think it’s a peanut-shaped rock.
Overnight on December 31, 2018 — New Year’s Eve — and into January 1, New Horizons will fly by, study, and photograph the mysterious object. Scientists estimate that it’s perhaps 20 miles long and 12 miles wide (roughly the size of a city). New Horizon’s flyby will make Ultima Thule the most distant object ever visited by humanity.
January 3-4: The Quadrantids meteor shower peaks
In 2019, bright moonlight won’t get in the way of obfuscating this annual meteor shower. The event starts to peak around 9 p.m. ET on January 3 and lasts through dawn the next day. The Quadrantids can produce 50 to 100 meteors per hour, according to EarthSky — but you need to find a dark night sky to see more than a meteor per minute.
January 6: Partial solar eclipse
An airplane flies in front of the crescent of a solar eclipse.Shutterstock
The moon will slip in front of the sun, partially blocking it, for those who are in northeast Asia and the north Pacific Ocean.
January 7: SpaceX plans to launch its Crew Dragon spaceship for the first time
An illustration of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, also known as Dragon 2 or Dragon V2, orbiting Earth.Kennedy Space Center/SpaceX via Flickr
SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Elon Musk, plans to test-launch its new Crew Dragon spaceship, sending it into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The vehicle was designed and built for NASA to help replace the agency’s space shuttle fleet, which was retired in 2011. The eventual goal is to get astronauts to and from the International Space Station (and forgo using Russia’s increasingly expensive Soyuz spacecraft).
In this first flight for Crew Dragon, the vehicle will automatically dock and undock with the space station in orbit. But no astronauts will fly on board. Instead, the test aims to show the system is safe for two crewed test flights planned for later in the year.
January 20-21: Total lunar eclipse
The Earth will block the sun during a full moon, casting a ruddy-red shadow on the lunar surface. North and South America will be prime areas to see this astronomical event, since you can see the entire 5-hour 12-minute spectacle from start to finish (depending on the weather, of course). The eclipse starts at 9:36 p.m. ET on January 20, peaks at 12:12 a.m. ET on January 21, and ends around 2:48 a.m. ET.
January (TBD): The first private company plans to launch toward the moon
The “Sparrow” lunar lander designed and built by SpaceIL. If it lands successfully, the robot could make Israel the fourth country ever to touch the moon’s surface.SpaceIL
SpaceIL, a nonprofit backed by a billionaire in Israel, has built a 1,300-lb moon lander.
The organization first formed to compete for the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize, but that competition ended without a winner in 2018. Regardless, SpaceIL kept developing its spacecraft and is now booked to launch on one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets.
The spacecraft will “rideshare” or piggyback into orbit alongside a much larger Indonesian communications satellite, called PSN-6. SpaceIL then hopes to rocket its lander away from Earth and attempt to put it on the moon, arriving on the lunar surface about two months post-launch.
The launch appears to scheduled for sometime in January, which means the lunar landing could happen in March 2019. If successful, the mission would make SpaceIL the first private entity and Israel the fourth country ever to land on the moon.
January 30: India’s launch of Chandrayaan 2, the nation’s second moon mission
The Indian Space Research Organization’s GSLV mark III rocket, a type of launcher that will attempt to send the Chandrayaan-2 mission to the moon.ISRO
Chandrayaan-2 mission will be the second moon mission for India and its space agency, called ISRO. The mission will have an orbiter, lander, and a six-wheeled rover to explore the lunar surface.
The mission follows ISRO’s first lunar mission, called Chandrayaan-1, which began in October 2008. In addition to photographing the moon, the orbiting spacecraft shot a probe that slammed into the surface, kicking up dust to study from afar. ISRO lost contact with the orbiter in August 2009, but NASA found the spacecraft in March 2017.
February 12 (and six more times in 2019): NASA’s Juno spacecraft flies over Jupiter
The $1 billion Juno mission reached Jupiter in July 2016 and has taken many stunning images of the gas giant since then. The spacecraft’s elongated orbit brings it past the planet once every 53.5 days in flybys called perijoves.
The probe has so far explored some of Jupiter’s deepest secrets, including the mystery of why its Great Red Spot is shrinking. NASA officially extended Juno’s mission in the summer of 2018, giving the robot a few more years to continue probing Jupiter.
Perijove 18, the first of 2019, will occur on February 12. Mission managers have also planned six other such maneuvers for the year: April 6, May 29, July 21, September 12, November 3, and December 26.
February (TBD): OneWeb hopes to launch its first 10 satellites, which could compete with SpaceX’s all-Earth internet plans
An illustration of OneWeb satellites covering Earth in high-speed internet service.Airbus
SpaceX hopes to launch nearly 12,000 satellites into orbit — many times more spacecraft than currently orbit Earth — over the next decade. The goal is to cover all of Earth with an internet service that is much faster, cheaper, and more resilient than any current service. The company has received approval from the FCC to build the network.
However, so has a lead competitor of SpaceX’s: OneWeb. OneWeb, a company based in London, plans to launch many satellites as soon as it can to establish service. The first 10 are slated to launch early in the year, and 10 more could follow in August.
March (TBD): Boeing plans to launch its CST-100 Starliner spaceship for the first time
An illustration of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spaceship flying around Earth.Boeing
Like SpaceX, Boeing is working on spacecraft that will help NASA replace its space shuttle and ferry astronauts to and from orbit. Boeing’s spaceship is called the CST-100 Starliner, and the first mission will also be without a crew — the vehicle will autonomously fly to the space station.
Boeing wanted to test-launch its Starliner earlier in the year, but leaky valves discovered during a test led to NASA delaying the attempt by many months.
Early 2019 (TBD): SpaceX is expected to launch its second Falcon Heavy rocket
The first Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off in February 2018.Thom Baur/Reuters
The first mission of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, which is the most powerful operational launcher, blasted Elon Musk’s red Tesla roadster and a spaceman dummy beyond Mars.
The vehicle’s next mission (and its first paid one) is called Space Tes Program-2. The goal is to launch a group of military satellites into orbit. NASA’s experimental Deep Space Atomic Clock will also be hitching a ride. The clock aims to bring unparalleled precision in timing to deep-space missions, which should improve communications and navigation.
April 4 and September 1: NASA’s $1.5 billion solar probe zooms past the sun
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe (PSP) already broke the record for the fastest human-made object. On November 5, 2018, it flew past the sun at more than 212,000 mph — nearly 120 miles per second (and 3.3 times as fast as the Juno spacecraft at Jupiter). That’s fast enough to fly from New York to Tokyo in less than a minute.
But PSP will make two more flybys this year, each closer to the sun and slightly faster than the one before it. The goal is to crack two 60-year-old mysteries: why the sun has a solar wind and dangerous mass ejections of particles, and how the corona — the star’s outer atmosphere — can heat up to millions of degrees (about 100 times as hot as the sun’s surface temperature).
PSP will also zoom by Venus on December 26, 2019. The maneuver will use the planet’s gravity to draw the spacecraft into a tighter orbit around the sun.
May 6-7: The Eta Aquarids meteor shower peaks
According to SeaSky.org, the Eta Aquarids are an “above-average” meteor shower than can produce one meteor per minute under a dark sky. The meteors are caused by bits and pieces of Halley’s Comet that Earth drifts through.
June (TBD): SpaceX may launch a Crew Dragon spaceship with two NASA astronauts
Assuming the first Crew Dragon mission without any people on board is a success, NASA will then launch the next mission with astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. Each is a veteran of spaceflight, and they could be the first to fly SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule.
“The first flight is something you dream about as a test pilot, and you don’t ever think it’s going to happen to you, but it looks like it might,” Hurley said in August.
July 2: Total solar eclipse
The moon will fully block the sun this summer, causing a total solar eclipse. To see it, though, you’ll have to be in the Southern Hemisphere.
The best locations will be central Chile and Argentina. Those willing to take a boat ride off the coast of South America and into the Pacific Ocean can also view it, as can anyone who hops in an airplane and flies through the moon’s umbral shadow. The eclipse will peak at 4:55 p.m. UTC and reveal the sun’s wispy and mysterious corona or atmosphere.
June (TBD): China plans to test-launch a new crewed spacecraft
An illustration of China’s New Generation Manned Spacecraft.CNSA
China is not sitting idly by while private companies and other space agencies send people into orbit. The nation plans to test-launch a vehicle it calls the New Generation Manned Spacecraft sometime in mid-2019. The test won’t send up any people, but eventually China wants to use the vehicle to ferry four to six taikonauts into orbit.
July 16: Partial lunar eclipse
The moon is seen during a lunar eclipse over Cairo, Egypt July 27, 2018.REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Partial lunar eclipses are not as thrilling as total ones, but the events are still fun to watch. The edge of Earth’s red-orange-hued shadow will hit the moon, causing part of it to be briefly darkened. The event will mostly be visible to people in Africa and western Asia.
August 12-13: The Perseids meteor shower peaks
The Perseids is usually one of the best meteor showers of the year. However, a full moon will wash out some of the harder-to-see meteors during the event’s peak in 2019.
Late 2019 (TBD): China intends to launch a mission to the moon that could return a sample to Earth
A rendering of a lunar rover for China’s Chang’e-4 moon mission.China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC)
China is pursuing an aggressive lunar exploration campaign called Chang’e (the name comes from a moon goddess). It started with the moon orbiter Chang’e-1, which launched in October 2007. Two more missions after that included landers, a rover, relay satellites, and microsatellites. Chang’e-4 will attempt to set down a new lander and rover on the far side of the moon in December 2018.
But Chang’e-5 will be China’s most ambitious moon mission yet. A lander will attempt to drill out and scoop up nearly five pounds of lunar soil, then rocket the grit back to Earth. This would give China its first-ever samples of the moon.
Late 2019: SpaceX says it will test-launch Elon Musk’s new ‘Starship’ spaceship in southern Texas
An illustration of the Starship launching into orbit.SpaceX
SpaceX is working on a 387-foot-tall rocket ship called Big Falcon Rocket. The company is building the top half of the vehicle, called Starship, under a giant tent in Los Angeles, California.
Elon Musk, the company’s founder and chief designer, and Gwynne Shotwell, its president and COO, have both said they hope to test-launch the spaceship on short “hops” in South Texas by the end of 2019.
SpaceX has built a similar-looking tent at its facility in Boca Chica, Texas, which is still under construction. The company also recently applied for an FAA experimental launch license. The application requests two years to do launch-and-landing tests that could last up to six minutes and rise about 16,400 feet in altitude.
December 26: Annular solar eclipse
The moon does not orbit Earth in a perfect circle, so sometimes it appears smaller and more distant. If the moon blocks the sun during this minimum lunar size, you get an annular solar eclipse — when the moon’s black circle doesn’t entirely cover the sun’s disk.
The event in 2019 will be visible to parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa, as well as parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
