Beyond: Key Events in 2022 That Shaped Space Exploration | Space

Tthe year has been a great explosion in space exploration, since noseThe big step back from missions to the moon, to see the origins of the universe and hope that humanity can survive the doomsday scenario of an asteroid hurtling towards Earth.

Here are the events that shaped 2022 in space advancements:

back to the moon

NASA hadn’t sent a crew-capable spacecraft to the Moon in half a century Artemis 1 exploded from Florida’s Cape Canaveral in November. Aboard the mighty Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket ever, the unoccupied next-generation Orion capsule flew 1.3 million miles in a 25-day flight to test hardware and support systems for sending humans back to the lunar surface and beyond.

Orion splashed into the Pacific Ocean on December 11, 50 years to the day since two Apollo 17 astronauts became the last of history’s 12 moonwalkers. Mission managers are still evaluating data from the Artemis mission, but the program is on track for a manned lunar flyby in 2024 and a scheduled lunar landing the following year.

A vision of creation

In July, the 10 billion dollars James Webb Space Telescope sent the highest resolution images ever seen distant galaxies as they were billions of years agopromising astronomers a glimpse of the dawn of creation.

The stunning clear color images of the invisible universe were hailed by NASA chief Bill Nelson as a new era of astronomy, showing Webb’s ability to look back 13.5 billion years, close to the big bang. “We’re almost back to square one,” he said.

In November, Webb found two more galaxiesone that may have formed only 350 million years later the big bang.

A moving occasion

in a “watershed moment for planetary defenseIn September, NASA crashed a multibillion-dollar spacecraft the size of a car into an asteroid the size of a football stadium, demonstrating for the first time that it could alter the orbit of a celestial body.

The darts mission (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) was an unprecedented test of the space agency’s ability to defend Earth from a doomsday scenario of a huge asteroid on a collision course.

The impact shortened Dimorphos’ orbit around the larger asteroid Didymos by about 32 minutes, to 11 hours and 23 minutes.

Private investigators

The first fully private astronaut crew returned from the International Space Station (ISS) in Aprilthe three wealthy guests who join a former space shuttle commander aboard the Axiom 1 flight on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched at Cape Canaveral.

The civilian astronauts, Larry Connor, Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy, were paid about $55 million for the 17-day mission, during which they joined American and Russian crews aboard the ISS and took carry out more than 25 research projects, incorporating regenerative medicine and space technology. .

ancient nose Chief Astronaut Peggy Whitson is scheduled to command Axiom 2 in May 2023.

Breath of fresh air

The potential for humans to one day live on the Red Planet moved a step closer in August when researchers announced that a lunchbox-sized instrument called Moxie (Mars Oxygen In Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) had been generating breathable oxygen.

Moxie, part of NASA Perseverance astrobiology project on Mars, it was successful in producing oxygen during seven experimental tests, in a variety of atmospheric conditions, day and night, across different Martian stations. Each race produced at least 6 g of oxygen per hour, similar to the rate of a modest tree on Earth.

Expanded versions of Moxie could be part of NASA’s Artemis program that aims to land humans. March in the 2030s.

Chinese space debris

China’s space program sparked global outrage in November when a piece of a rocket used to deliver a module to its new Tiangong Space Station fell to Earth uncontrollablycausing the closure of European airspace and hundreds of flight delays.

It was the second time in 2022 that parts of China’s Long March rockets had threatened populated areas, prompting space experts to call for the “irresponsible” country to clean up its act. Chinese space debris has fallen before in the Maldives and India.

China completed construction of Tiangong for a crew of three in 2022 and is already considering expansion.

Russia does it alone

The Russian space agency Roscosmos announced in July that it was to end its two-decade partnership with the United States in the international Space Station, and planned to focus on building his own outpost in orbit.

Analysts linked the move to the invasion of Russia of Ukraine, as tensions between the US and Russia rose over the conflict. The announcement came barely three months after a crew of Russian cosmonauts boarded the ISS in the yellow and blue colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded “fine” when he was told by Yuri Borisov, the new head of Roscosmos, that Russia was out after fulfilling its ISS obligations until 2024.

Business travelers

Boeing joined Elon Musk’s SpaceX in May as the only commercial companies they had they docked their space vehicles to the International Space Stationa big step forward in their plans to transport humans aboard their Starliner crew capsule.

SpaceX continues to dominate the commercial space market with two manned missions to the ISS in 2022, among the 61 total launches it plans this year.

Longtime NASA partner Boeing has followed SpaceX in developing a crew capsule. Its first manned Starliner test flight has been delayed until April 2023.