During 2022, space science will experience stellar moments.
We present to you the major events planned for exploring the solar system, space flights, and observing the universe from space.
1. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
After its historic launch last Christmas, Hubble's successor is currently displaying its huge solar screen. It is expected to begin making routine scientific observations by mid-2022. It is the most powerful, most complex and costly space telescope of all those built to date.
2. Europe on Mars.
After a year pending the experiments of the Perseverance SUV and the Ingenuity helicopter (NASA) on the Martian surface, Mars again reaches its opposition on December 8, 2022. This year, therefore, an optimal window opens to launch new missions to the red planet.
The ESA ExoMars mission (delayed from 2020) is expected to take off from Baikonur in September this year.
This mission, in which Roscosmos also participates, must deliver the European off-road vehicle Rosalind Franklin to the Martian surface as early as 2023.
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3. Preparing the return to the Moon.
Artemis-1 is the test flight to the Moon (without crew) that is planned not before March in order to certify the new Orion space shuttles.
This will be the first mission of the Space Launch System
(SLS), NASA's new heavy-lift mega-rocket, which will put the Orion spacecraft in a retrograde lunar orbit for 6 days.
Artemis's next mission, CAPSTONE, also scheduled for this year, is designed to demonstrate the stability of quasi-rectilinear halo orbits around the Moon.
They are the first phases of NASA's Artemis program, whose ultimate goal is to carry out a manned mission to the Moon that will include at least one woman who will walk on our satellite in 2025.
But it's not just NASA pointing to the Moon.
Japan's JAXA will launch the Smart Lander, India's ISRO the Chandrayaan 3, an orbiter and all-terrain vehicle assembly, and Russia's Roscosmos plans to launch Luna-25 in July to the lunar south pole, a continuing mission to the Moon. -24 which was launched by the Soviet Union in 1976. Finally, the United Arab Emirates plan to send a micro SUV and South Korea the KPLO orbiter.
4. Trade lunar missions.
2022 will see the first commercial-type moon landings.
Intuitive Machines 1 (IM1), with the Nova-C robot, is scheduled to launch next October, and IM2 will head towards the lunar south pole in December to drill the surface and take samples from the subsurface.
The Astrobotic company has built the Peregrine robot, which will be launched with the United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket, carrying more than a dozen payloads that will be deposited in the Lacus Mortis for tests by various commercial partners and NASA.
This ship is also expected to deposit the ashes of the visionary writer Arthur C. Clarke on the lunar surface.
5. Looking at the Sun.
The Solar Orbiter (ESA) will perform a major maneuver around Venus on September 3 to change its tilt and offer a more polar view of the sun king.
China will launch its first Sun-directed mission in January: the Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S).
India also plans to launch a solar space telescope, the Aditya-L1, albeit later in the year.
6. Orbiting the Earth.
Continuing the great competition between the bosses of Tesla and Amazon, the commercial missions to access Earth orbit will multiply this year. Elon Musk's company, Space X, has announced that it will conduct a test launch of its Starship rocket towards the beginning of March, this flight could be followed by a series of test launches during the year. The Starship is a reusable spacecraft designed to carry up to 100 tons to low orbit. Space X will also carry out a first tourist flight at the end of February (the Axioma 1, AX1 mission, of the Crew Dragon) bound for the International Space Station, a mission in which former Spanish astronaut Michael López-Alegría will participate.
Blue Origin, the company of magnate Jeff Bezos, will send its first New Glenn orbital rocket also this year.
It will be capable of transporting up to 50 tons to low Earth orbit and 14 to geostationary orbit.
For its part, Boeing will resume Starliner test flights, which were suspended after a failure in 2019, around May.
If the unmanned flights work well, Boeing will then send three astronauts to the International Space Station aboard the Starliner.
Here in Spain, the company PLD Space plans for the second half of 2022 to launch the Miura 1, a prototype of the first European reusable rocket dedicated to launching small satellites.
Recreation of the Psyche.NASA mission
7. PSYQUE.
This NASA spacecraft, which aims to explore the metallic asteroid Psyque, will be launched in August with a rocket from the private company Space X. It is scheduled to reach its destination until 2026. The same spacecraft will transport Janus, as a payload. secondary, which carries the mission to explore two binary asteroids.
8. More deep space.
Deep space missions span several years and in 2022 we will witness several important milestones for some of them.
The European spacecraft BepiColombo is scheduled for its second Mercury flyby on June 23.
September 26 is the scheduled date for NASA's DART mission to crash onto the surface of Dimorfos, the small moon of the asteroid Didymus, in order to modify its orbital period. Three days later, the Juno spacecraft (which has been around Jupiter for five years) will fly over Europa, one of Jupiter's most interesting moons, at just 350 kilometers above sea level.
9. China Space Station (CSS).
Following the launch of the Tianhe core module in April 2021, China is expected to complete the construction of the CSS (also called Tiangong), with the addition of the Wentian and Mengtian modules, by the end of 2022. Its intention is to maintain a crew there. permanent for at least ten years. Since the future of the International Space Station (ISS) is not assured beyond 2024, the CSS could become the only stable space destination for a long period of time.
10. More to come.
The outlook for 2023 is also excellent.
The European mission JUICE, which aims to explore the moons of Jupiter, the landing of the Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars, the arrival of the samples taken by the Osiris-Rex spacecraft on the asteroid Bennu on Mars, tourism to the Moon planned by Space X and the first manned flight launched by India, are some of the events that will continue to fill this era with great adventures and space emotions.
Rafael Bachiller
is director of the National Astronomical Observatory (National Geographic Institute) and academic of the Royal Academy of Doctors of Spain.
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