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its spacecraft aboard the Falcon 9 rocket same journeys over time. Since launch- space mission will involve the effort of a
of SpaceX by 2021. Another American ing its first satellite successfully 11 years conglomerate of organisations and gov-
company, known as Intuitive Machines, ago, SpaceX has come a long way and set ernments working together to pool the
has been selected by NASA to send its new benchmarks in the space industry funding and resources, which can accel-
payloads to the Moon, also using SpaceX sector. erate the exploration endeavours.
Falcon 9 rocket in 2021. Spacex, along with Boeing, are work- NASA has realised if it wants to return
Coming to the most successful private ing to develop the Commercial Crew humans to the moon and accelerate the
space company, SpaceX, which has been for NASA, which it wants to use for outer space exploration, which has seen
tremendously successful with its rocket transporting astronauts to ISS and back, a stagnant phase in the last decades,
launches. The Elon Musk-led SpaceX but both companies have been miss- it will have to join hands with private
is already dominating the market with ing deadlines on that. Boeing is helping corporations and foreign governments.
NASA using its launch services to send NASA develop the next-generation Space The agency is outsourcing most of its
crewed mission to the International Launch System, aimed for moon in the functions and hopes to only oversee
Space Station (ISS). SpaceX was the first near future. the mission developments, while pro-
space agency to develop reusable launch NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine viding funding and expertise to smaller

vehicles with its phenomenal Falcon speaking at the recently held Interna- companies. The last decade has shown
rockets. The company’s ultra cheap and tional Astronautical Congress said the that the future of human exploration
reusable launch vehicles gave it a domi- US has plans to land humans on Mars in lies in privatisation, while the govern-
nant position in the market, which NASA the 2030s. He indicated the moon land- ments find such missions cumbersome
itself using much of its services, along ing was closely related to the mars land- and unaffordable. The interest for the
with Boeing, in its space missions. ing and the progress in the former will moon and beyond is reviving, while the
The company’s flamboyant CEO Elon automatically help meet the deadline for space tourism is almost here. We have
Musk revealed his insanely ambitious the the latter. to realise that it’s only through global
design of the the mega spacecraft, called NASA also recently indicated its collaborations that such monumental
the Starship, which will serve as an inter- partnership with Japan Aerospace undertakings can see the light of the day.
planetary transport vehicle for humans. Exploration Agency (JAXA) for its crewed The expertise and resources of individu-
Starship is currently under development lunar missions. Besides, the European als and organisations worldwide when
and Musk aims to test it within as soon as Space Agency is reportedly a partner in pooled together can help the humanity
six months time. The Starship is expect- the Gateway project, which will also see achieve the impossible.
ed to ferry passengers to the moon and the collaboration of many more space-
Mars, then back to earth, repeating the faring nations. To be clear, every major letters@tehelka.com

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