There are an insane amount of cool space things happening in 2021

Enlarge / In this illustration of its descent to Mars, the spacecraft containing the Perseverance rover slows down using the drag generated by plunging through the Martian atmosphere. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Writing about the space industry kept me sane during the tumultuous and trying times of 2020. While the pandemic swept around the world and America dealt with extremely divisive social and political issues, the space industry more or less plugged along.

Three missions launched to Mars. NASA got back into the human spaceflight game, thanks to SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft touched an asteroid, while a Japanese vehicle returned with several grams of asteroid regolith, and China brought some Moon rocks back to Earth. In South Texas, some Starships lived, and some Starships died. All of it was glorious to watch.

As we look ahead to a new year, there is as much, if not more, space goodness to come. I asked readers for suggestions on Twitter about what they're anticipating in the coming year and received more than 400 responses. This list is a distillation of those ideas, plus some of my own, to compile the space goodness we most have to look forward to in 2021. Spoiler alert: There's a lot.

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