Exploration successes established The space Last year, a high standard for 2022, 3 countries unprecedentedly reached and landed on Mars simultaneously, and NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter made the first flight in the sky of another planet, which changed the future of Mars exploration, and the topic of asteroids was present, as The Lucy probe set out to study Trojan asteroids around Jupiter and the DART spacecraft, which aims to alter the course of an asteroid as part of the Planetary Defense Program.
The number of visitors has also increased The space The newest who experienced microgravity, saw our blue planet, and the most prominent event was at the end of 2021 where the long-awaited successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which is set to revolutionize almost every branch of astrophysics, will 2022 be up to the challenge ?
The next 12 months to explore The space We will witness several programs, but without the presence of Arab space missions, whether to the moon or between planets, with the exception of future programs for the United Arab Emirates represented in the project of landing a probe called “Rashid” on the moon’s surface in 2024 and a project to send a probe to Venus and the asteroid belt, which is expected to be launched in 2028.
And regarding global lunar exploration, humans are finally preparing to return to the moon as part of the NASA “Artemis” program, although this will not happen until at least three years later until new footprints imprint the moon’s surface, but it will take place in the spring of 2022 (March / April). ) Artemis 1 is tested in an unmanned flight of the Orion capsule and the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), reminiscent of the Apollo 8 flight, where all launch, life support and return systems will be selected in preparation for “Artemis 2”, which is a mission Manned scheduled for 2024.
After the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s, returning humans to the Moon may seem like a rather futile task. Arguably, collecting fresh samples for our more advanced analysis equipment is motivation enough, but the real reason is far more exciting than preparing for manned missions to Mars.
The Artemis program will see intense lunar exploration missions lasting for weeks or months, testing technologies such as suits The space And habitable environments this time humans will return to the moon to stay there. Several robotic missions will run alongside Artemis 1, including ten miniature satellites (cubesats) in an 18-month mission that will use the CubeSat Biosynthetics to study the effect of deep space radiation on DNA repair, which are key considerations. human exploration of Mars.
As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, Intuitive Machines will send two Nova-C landers to the Moon. The first, to be launched in the spring, contains several technological devices, including the UK’s first roving probe.
The second, scheduled for launch in December, will be sent to the South Pole. Part of the payload is a device to extract ice from polar resources called the PRIME-1, which is designed to extract water ice and is a key piece of technology to send humans to Mars.
In July, Russia will send the Luna-25 probe to explore the composition of the polar regolith (dusty surface) and the exosphere (the very thin lunar “atmosphere”).
Japan will also make its first mission to the moon’s surface with a lander described as “intelligent” that contains landing techniques 200 times more accurate than those of the Apollo era.
Finally, India will re-attempt a lunar rover using Chandrayaan-3 (a software glitch that saw Chandrayaan-2 crashing into the lunar surface in September 2019).
Mid-September 2022 will also witness the launch of the second and final part of the Mars mission (Exo Mars), a joint project between the European Space Agency and the Russian Space Agency. In 2020, parachute fears aborted the planned launch, but all systems are now “ready” for the Russian “Kozachuk” lander and the European rover Rosalind Franklin.
As with any spacecraft on Mars, the Rosalind Franklin rover carries countless cameras, spectrometers and sensors, but the most exciting is undoubtedly the one designed to sample soil from two meters below the surface, far regarding ultraviolet rays hitting the surface of Mars.
The Rosalind Franklin rover has one goal in its 7-month mission – to find evidence of life on the Red Planet, past or present.
Late summer will also see the launch of the SpaceX “Falcon Heavy” rocket, carrying the “Psyke” orbiter that will enhance our knowledge of the origin of planetary cores by examining the metallic asteroid (with the same name) 16 Psyche, which is believed to be the remaining core of a primitive planet. .
In addition, Janus will be launched with Psyche, a dual space probe exploring a binary asteroid. At the beginning of October, the DART spacecraft will fly near the asteroid Didymos and collide with its small moon Demorphos, completing NASA’s first full planetary defense test. .
Looking at other bodies in the solar system, in May the European Space Agency’s (JOS) mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moons will launch, reaching the gas giant in 2029, when it will spend at least three years exploring the Jupiter system.
Towards the end of June 2022, BepiColombo will make its second close flyby of Mercury; And at the end of September, the Juno probe will pass near Europa, from a distance of 355 kilometers above the surface of this interesting icy moon, we can expect high-resolution images of the surfaces of both objects.
And if the James Webb Telescope continues to be successfully configured and tuned, we can expect to see the first scientific images of it around June. In addition, there is a mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and NASA’s XRISM X-ray Telescope (dubbed “CRISM”).
Like the James Webb Telescope, it is a next-generation telescope that will revolutionize our understanding of the structure of the universe and provide insight into galactic nuclei and dark matter.
Expected to be better than the Chandra X-ray Observatory and XMM-Newton Space Telescope, it will prove invaluable to X-ray astronomers, as the Athena X-ray Observatory and the alternative Lynx X-ray Observatory will not be launched until the end of the decade.
By the end of 2022, China is supposed to have finished building the Tiangong space station, adding two test units to the existing structure.
Two manned missions are planned to help complete the station, one in May and one in November, and there will be frequent trips to the station. The space International.
Aside from the missions for the SpaceX and Soyuz crews, Axiom Space plans two missions, each one taking a professional astronaut and three astronauts. space Commercial crew on stays of 8 and 10 days, respectively.
Most of the passengers on private space flights fall into the super-rich, as well as the winner of Discovery Channel’s reality TV show Who Wants to Be an Astronaut? He will take off on the Axiom Mission 2.
This year will see many firsts on tours The spaceIn the first half of 2022, Boeing plans to conduct a second unmanned test flight of its Star Liner capsule (its first attempt to dock with the International Space Station failed in December 2019). If successful, they will conduct a crewed test flight later in 2022.
The first flights are expected to be the Ariane 6 rocket of Arianespace, the New Glenn rocket of Blue Origin (the first orbital-class rocket), the Starship rocket of SpaceX, and the Vulcan Centaur rocket of the United Launch Alliance. Designed to replace the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 Heavy.
However, the most interesting adventure in spaceflight comes from India, which will launch a small satellite launch rocket for the first time and plans to conduct two uncrewed tests for the Gagania space mission.
If the manned mission succeeds in 2023, it will be a research organization The space Only the fourth Indian in the world to send humans into space.
All this indicates that 2022 is shaping up to be one of the most explored years The space Thrilling so far as many nations make their first lunar exploration missions, sights set on Mars and asteroids, and with the first flights of several new orbital rockets, new telescopes, new space stations and new satellites – it’s a mind-boggling list of ambitious plans and we’re excited to see the results.
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