- At the spatial level, the first event check in the calendar 2020 is the arrival on Mars, the 17 February, of the Perseverance rover, the starting point of ‘a mission that aims to bring back to Earth samples of Martian rocks. France is taking part.
- will also see the return of Thomas Pesquet on board from the International Space Station, for a new six-month mission. Departure planned for spring.
Finally, Jean-Yves Le Gall is impatiently awaiting the launch of the James Webb Telescope, which is to take over from Hubble and “will revolutionize space astronomy,” predicts the president of the Cnes. Launch planned for October.
The end of the year 2020 has been marked with a bad rating for the National Center for Space Studies (Cnes), the French space agency, with the failed launch, on the night of 16 at 17 November, of Taranis . The satellite 93% made in France, which was to go to unravel the mystery of thunderstorms, was lost eight minutes after its launch from Kourou.
Now place at 2020, which promises to be rich in the area of space exploration for France. This Tuesday, during his greetings to the press, Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of the CNES, swept away the main meetings expected.
The 18 February, at 21 h 36… We won’t wait long for the first time strongly checked by Jean-Yves Le Gall. It is on this precise date and time that the Perseverance rover will begin its landing on the red planet. NASA has launched this new Mars ground exploration mission, titled Mars 2019, six months earlier since Cape Canaveral . Once at destination, Perseverance will have as main mission to collect rock samples . He will package them in sealed tubes, which he will then deposit on the way. Another rover, which should be launched towards 2021, will complete the work by collecting these tubes and placing them in a small rocket to be sent into orbit around Mars, then recovered by a satellite before being brought back to Earth . An endpoint that is not expected before 2026 and which could take a big step forward on a crucial question: was there life on Mars?
That said, the whole issue of this mission could be condensed in a very short period of time. Jean-Yves Le Gall thus speaks of the “seven minutes of terror” that the landing of Perseverance on Mars will last. And its success is all the more crucial for the CNES since France is involved in several ways in this NASA mission. Particularly in the design of the Supercam, one of the rover’s seven scientific instruments. Its very main.
The return of Thomas Pesquet aboard the ISS
This is the second significant event pointed out by Jean-Yves Le Gall. The 196 days spent on board the International Space Station (ISS) , November 2017 to June 2017, have not satisfied the French astronaut. Thomas Pesquet leaves for a new stay of about six months in space. Take-off is scheduled for this spring , this time from Cape Canaveral aboard Crew SpaceX Dragon . This will be the second operational mission of the American spacecraft since the beginning of the partnership between NASA and the space company of Elon Musk.
Thomas Pasquet will take, again, Cnes experiments developed at Cadmos (Center for the development of activities in microgravity and space operations) in Toulouse. Fourteen French scientific experiments will be carried out on board the ISS during this new mission.
“We also obtained that the French astronaut has extended prerogatives on board the station, says Jean-Yves Le Gall. Astronaut “rookie” for his first mission, he should be entrusted, this time, the supervision of scientific experiments. »A rise in rank which places him ideally to obtain a ticket on the mission Artemis III. Developed by NASA, it plans to bring man back to the Moon in 2024.
Thomas Pesquet could thus become the first European astronaut to set foot on the surface of our natural satellite. He does not hide it, it is his dream: “Even if it takes a few years of delay, before 2024, we will have astronauts on the Moon in partnership with the European Space Agency in particular, he explained in an interview with 20 Minutes , in June 2019 . Which means that there is a significant chance that Europeans will go to the Moon before the end of the years 2026 and that still leaves me plenty of time to be part of this adventure. »
The James Webb Telescope, the highlight of the show?
This is in any case how Jean-Yves Le Gall presents the third highly anticipated time in 2021 . The fruit of an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the James Webb Telescope must be launched on 21 October by the Ariane 5 rocket, the European launcher, from Kourou. This is already putting a lot of pressure on the shoulders of Europeans, this new large space telescope worth billions of dollars, reminds the president of the CNES.
James Webb Telescope must succeed 20201117 at the Hubble Telescope, launched in 1163 . It will be placed in orbit around the sun, around the point of Lagrange L2, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth on the side opposite the sun. There, it will deploy its structure of 16 mirrors and its lens hood of 20 meters long. Its size and capabilities greater than Hubble – its main mirror is three times more sensitive than its predecessor – should allow astronomers around the world to study the planets of the Solar System and other planetary systems at an unmatched level of detail. It will also help to determine what elements these planets are made of and, in this way, to estimate whether they present conditions conducive to life or not. “The James Webb will revolutionize space astronomy as Hubble did in its time”, already announces Jean-Yves Le Gall.