Q&A with Michel Denis, ExoMars flight director

Flight controllers have not heard from NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover since June 10 when an increasingly severe global dust storm blocked out the sun, preventing its solar arrays from recharging the robot’s batteries. But the dust storm is finally abating and engineers are hopeful the long-lived rover will wake up and phone home in the next few weeks.

Christina Koch, veteran of six spacewalks outside the International Space Station — including the first all-female excursion — will join a Russian commander and an Italian flight engineer for a fiery plunge back to Earth early Thursday, setting a new world record for the longest single flight by a female astronaut.

Leading all other nations, U.S. launch providers flew 44 missions in 2020 that aimed to place payloads in Earth orbit or deep space, with 40 successes. China followed with 35 successful orbital missions in 39 launch attempts.