In amongst all theElon Musk fervor , you ’d be forgiven for forgetting there was some other stuff occur in place , too .
At the International Astronautical Congress ( IAC ) in Guadalajara , Mexico , the same plaza Musk revealed his dream to colonise Mars , the United Nations denote it would launch its first - ever space delegacy in 2021 . They even pick the same day for the announcement too , September 27 . Talk about being overshadowed .
The goal of the initiative is to give developing countries a chance to get at space that they might not otherwise get . The project , from the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs ( UNOOSA ) , will take place on a new unmanned blank space plane being train by a private party call the Sierra Nevada Corporation ( SNC ) .
" One of UNOOSA ’s core responsibility is to promote outside cooperation in the peaceable use of outer outer space , " say Simonetta Di Pippo , director of UNOOSA , in astatement . " I am proud to say that one of the way UNOOSA will achieve this … is by devote an entire microgravity mission to United Nations Member States , many of which do not have the base or fiscal funding to have a standalone blank programme . "
SNC ’s space planing machine is call Dream Chaser . It ’s currently undergoing examination and has n’t actually fly to space yet , but was give financial support at thestart of this yearby NASA for development . Its first flight is not expected before 2019 .
Dream Chaser will plunge atop an Atlas V rocket into Earth celestial orbit , where it will either bob with the ISS ( as per the NASA contract ) or conduct missions for secret company . It may one day carry up to seven the great unwashed to orbit , too . Being a distance plane , about eight times smaller than the Space Shuttle , it is then capable to bring down on a track when it comes back to Earth .
This particular flight for the UN will see Dream Chaser remain in low Earth eye socket for 14 day . The unique microgravity of Earth celestial orbit will let countries perform experiment not potential on Earth . The UN will select which payloads it will vanish in 2018 , with preference given to countries who do not have their own consecrate space program . And those countries that miss the expertness in doing distance missions will be give bread and butter , too .
No launch and landing site has been pluck yet , but as it ’s a UN missionary post there is theoretically a horde of countries that could be used . It ’s certainly a undecomposed mode to give more people a probability to access space , but return that we ’re supposed to start live on Marsthree year later on , maybe it will get overshadowed yet again .
