1. Red Planet Race

This month, three major Mars-bound space missions are scheduled to lift off, each carrying a nation’s ambitions and mankind’s collective extraplanetary dreams. The UAE was first off the blocks, launching the Arab world’s most ambitious space journey on Sunday. China will follow suit on Thursday, and NASA has set July 30 as the launch date for its Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. A joint European Union-Russia mission, originally planned for the summer, has been postponed until 2022.

2. Alien Chopper

The NASA Perseverance rover will carry an unlikely passenger — a helicopter designed to fly on Mars. It will be the first chopper to fly outside the Earth’s atmosphere, and apart from mapping Mars, could offer vital clues to the future of flight in hostile, low-gravity environments.

3. Drops of Jupiter

The next planetary push will be to the solar system’s biggest boy. The European Space Agency and NASA are independently developing missions to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, which scientists believe is home to basic microbes. The European mission could reach Jupiter by 2029, and NASA’s orbiter by the early 2030s.

4. Bye-Bye, Sun

It’s the most ambitious space mission — ever. The brainchild of Stephen Hawking, Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg, the Breakthrough Starshot project aims to slingshot a spaceship at 20 percent of the speed of light, beyond our solar system to the Alpha Centauri star system. The journey will take a little more than 100 years to complete. And that’s one way.

No spaceship can carry the fuel it needs to travel as far as Alpha Centauri. That’s why scientists are now designing spaceships that can literally live it up, on their own, in outer space. These spacecraft will be able to feed on asteroids on the way, and adapt to their surroundings the way living creatures do, mimicking evolution to survive in unpredictable surroundings.

Why say it with your mouth, when you can let your merch do the talking for you? Sometimes your desire for space and alone time needs better advertising. Get yourself out of those not-so-introvert-friendly situations with our introvert merch at the OZY Store.

There’s another way to travel really long distances in space, and that’s by using the sun’s photons as wind to guide a boxing-ring-sized Mylar sail deployed from a small satellite the size of a bread loaf. This technology could allow us to explore interplanetary space in ways that are impractical, if not impossible, at the moment.

Is it a bird? A plane? It is, in fact, an almost-satellite — one of a growing set that could define the future of low-orbit space travel. These aerial platforms hover at the edge of the stratosphere, just below the start of outer space, benefiting from the visual height of traditional satellites but without needing the energy required to propel them outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Russian, European, Chinese and American aerospace companies are designing these sleek, fuel-efficient substitutes for conventional satellites.

Have you felt guilty and helpless over storing your data? You should. Data centers consume the energy of 50 power plants. But there’s a solution on its way: space. A growing number of startups —  LyteLoop, Cloud Constellation, ConnectX, SpaceChain and Asgardia — are designing satellites that can ceaselessly bounce and reflect data among themselves, serving as data centers in outer space while using minimal energy. And your data will be far more secure from hacking.

4. Watch the Throne

Did you know that Neil Armstrong and his mates left their poop in bags on the moon? Thankfully, if and when humans do land on Mars, they’ll leave behind a less smelly legacy. Space agencies are making sure astronaut feces won’t unintentionally change the course of evolution on another planet or asteroid by developing a new $23 million toilet. It will be tested on the International Space Station later this year.

When Hurricane Dorian hit South Carolina last summer, help came from this southwest European nation, where a startup used satellite imagery to help American counties understand what they could do to prepare better for the future. Expect to hear many more similar stories. Portugal launched its space agency in 2019 and is building a spaceport on the Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. It’s racing to tap into a burgeoning market for small satellite launches.

Max Polyakov is on a mission to preserve what is left of the Soviet-era prowess in aerospace. The 42-year-old Ukrainian native is using his U.S.-based startup Firefly Aerospace to offer reliable and competitively priced delivery systems for satellites. This year it plans to launch a 2,200-pound capacity Alpha rocket that will carry six satellites for a variety of clients, including university research programs and nonprofits.

3. Nigeria

Africa’s most populous nation now spends about $60 million a year on its space program as it plans to send the first astronaut from the continent into space by 2030, with some help from China. But space flight won’t be easy, and an online scam claiming a Nigerian astronaut lost in space needs $3 million to return home hasn’t helped.

4. The Next SpaceX

Not every company will have the resources to do what the Elon Musk-led private space behemoth is attempting. But a growing number of smart space startups could redefine our exploration of the great unknown, each in its own way. Los Angeles-based Relativity Space is using 3D printers to build satellites. Moon Express plans to send unmanned spacecraft to the moon for research. And Accion Systems is developing new postage-stamp-sized thrusters that will use electric propulsion — instead of gas — to shoot rockets. 

Commercial exploitation of outer space, including the moon, was off-limits under international law. But the Trump administration decided earlier this year it would no longer abide by that norm. With SpaceX racing to the moon, expect China and Russia to abandon the global agreement too. The result? A scramble among major space powers to set up commercial mining operations on the moon, asteroids and wherever else science takes us.

Should your country mine the moon? Tweet us your thoughts.

2. Spy vs. Spy

Earlier this year, a Russian satellite slipped into an orbital slot surprisingly close to a U.S. spy satellite, sparking speculation that it might be carrying on surveillance of its own on the American vehicle. It’s the space equivalent of tailing a fellow spy’s car. But will it remain limited to monitoring each other’s activities? 

3. Phasers on Stun

France is designing space pods that will be armed with lasers they can shoot at enemy spy satellites to dazzle and disorient them. They’re part of a strategy to defend France’s space assets. 

4. Hacking Satellites

As more and more satellites take off for space, the absence of any global norms on their cybersecurity leaves them sitting ducks for sophisticated hackers. Experts fear these hackers could, at the very least, disrupt communications with satellites, shut them down and hobble critical infrastructure — such as electricity grids or mobile networks — that depends on them. But they could do worse, turning satellites into weapons that can cause mayhem in space, and potentially set off a war. 

5. Space Jam

The clearest warning signs came more than a decade ago, when two Russian satellites crashed into each other, leaving tons of debris in space. Since then, the problem has only grown. Most unmanned orbital satellites are designed to eventually die out in space, leaving behind a pile of junk that can hit working orbiters at breakneck speeds. Indeed, the International Space Station has already taken blows. Scientists are designing a range of tools to either blow debris out of orbit or to use dragnets to pull it in. Will they work?

I’m sure you loved your Lego building blocks as a child. What if you could build your own satellite in pretty much the same way? Worldwide, DIYers, open-source enthusiasts, hobbyists, and even college and high school teams are now entering the space race — all thanks to new innovations and lowering costs.

2. Ultimate Instagram Brag

How much would you spend to get away from the craziness of Earth? Here’s a holiday package unlike any other: 12 days in space, at $9.5 million per person. In fact, it could even be the perfect honeymoon destination for that wedding you’ve postponed. Orion Span, a Houston-based space tech startup, has announced plans to launch the first-ever luxury space hotel into Earth’s orbit by 2021.

Before the restrictions on movement lift completely and our skies get swamped with air pollution once again, you can help science. More than 7,000 Italians participated in a program earlier this year to help scientists calculate light pollution — by turning off all lights and flashing their phones at the brightest light source around. You can either check out citizen astronomy projects you could join, or just relax and enjoy the nightly show.