March 21 in Universe History: Space Missions, Satellites and Exploration
2019
On 21 March 2019 local time in French Guiana, Arianespace launched Vega from Europe’s Spaceport, delivering ASI’s PRISMA satellite to a sun-synchronous orbit. The AVUM stage performed two burns for injection and then executed a disposal burn for reentry, enabling hyperspectral imaging for environmental monitoring, agriculture, and pollution tracking.
2020
On 21 March 2020, Arianespace and Starsem successfully delivered 34 OneWeb satellites to low Earth orbit on Soyuz Flight ST28, advancing deployment of the broadband constellation. The launch increased the number of spacecraft available for global connectivity services and continued the program’s early launch cadence.
2021
On 21 March 2021, the Perseverance rover released its debris shield, a protective cover on the rover’s underside that had safeguarded the Ingenuity helicopter during landing. Dropping it allowed Ingenuity to rotate down from the rover’s belly and prepared the deployment steps that enabled the helicopter’s later first powered flight on another planet.