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Journalism of Courage
2022 was no doubt a momentous year for humanity’s achievements in space exploration. The most significant was Nasa’s Artemis 1, which marks the first steps on a long road to take humans back to the moon almost 50 years after Apollo 17, the last crewed mission. This year also saw the state-of-the-art James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) open for business, offering scientists unprecedented views into the distant universe. While NASA added more feathers to its cap, Chinese space agency CNSA (China National Space Administration) deployed and completed its Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace”) space station, becoming only the third nation to build its own space station after the United States and the Soviet Union.
The year also saw private space technology companies take on roles previously reserved for well-funded government space agencies. NASA signed a $1.4 billion contract with Elon Musk-owned SpaceX to ensure a steady run of spaceflights to the International Space Station, while small launch firm Rocket Lab almost succeeded in catching a falling rocket with a helicopter in a key rocket reusability test. As the year closes, we look at the key spacefaring milestones from 2022.
NASA’s Artemis 1 mission tested the Space Launch System (SLS)— the biggest rocket ever launched–and the Orion capsule, which will eventually carry human astronauts into space during future Artemis missions. But Artemis 1 had a rocky start, and the mission was delayed due to several glitches.
After multiple launch aborts and postponements, the Artemis 1 mission took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12.17 PM IST on November 16, heralding in a new era of space exploration. After a 25-day journey around the Moon and back, the Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 11 PM IST on December 11. Apart from testing the SLS rocket, Orion spacecraft and associated systems with the Artemis 1 mission, NASA also completed key Artemis milestones that will help pave the way for a return to the Moon and set the stage for long-term exploration missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
The space agency selected a list of potential sites near the Moon’s south pole to land the Artemis 3 mission. It also awarded a $228.5 million contract to Houston-based Axiom Space to develop next-generation space suits and support equipment for the Artemis 3 mission.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope was launched last year in hopes of letting humanity get a glimpse of deep space, and that’s what it achieved. On July 12, the world was treated to the first images from the telescope, offering a glimpse of unprecedented views into deep space. The first ever image from JWST “produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe”. Since then, several other images from JWST have been made public, from the rings of Neptune to the cosmic cliffs in Carina Nebula to Stephan’s Quintet. The images show the universe in new details that were not captured by previous space telescopes.
The first set of images from the telescope offered scientists vast amounts of information about star formation, the evolution of galaxies and black holes, star death, and even the composition of a distant exoplanet.
JWST’s four main scientific instruments include the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), the Mind Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS). The telescope’s unprecedented infrared observation abilities allow it to peer deeper into the universe while looking through obstructions like gas clouds.
One of the biggest challenges faced by the telescope after deployment was micrometeoroid strikes. Since launch, Webb has been bombarded by dust-sized micrometeoroids of various sizes. Thankfully, it was built to withstand these collisions and was able to brush off all but one. But the telescope’s optical performance continued to perform, despite the strike. However, future observations will be planned to avoid what is known as the “micrometeoroid avoidance zone”.
The International Space Station is a massive collaboration operated by 15 nations. But two major spacefaring superpowers are conspicuous by their absence from this list—India and China. ISRO chief K Sivan said India will not join the International Space Station, since the agency plans to put its own 20-ton space station in low-earth-orbit in the future.
China, on the other hand, had expressed interest in joining ISS in the past, only to be denied by the United States. But that did not stop the country. On October 31, China launched the third and final component of its Tiangong space station. Weighing in at around 66 tons, Tiangong is quite small compared to the International Space Station, but it represents the growing strength of a nation that has all but replaced Russia in the space race with the United States.
Tiangong has three modules—the Tianhe (“heavenly river”) crew module, and the laboratory modules Wentian (“quest for heavens”) and Mengtian (“dreaming of heaven”).
Tianhe, the first module, was launched into orbit on April 29. The core module consists of living quarters for three crew members and provides many key functions of the space station, including power, propulsion, guidance, navigation and life support systems. The Wentian science module also provides additional navigation, propulsion and orientation controls to backup for Tianhe, but its primary function is to serve as a pressurized environment for researchers to conduct zero-gravity experiments.
Mengtian, the third and final component of Tiangong, is designed mainly for science experiments. At launch, it carried many cutting-edge scientific experiments on board, including a facility that created the coldest matter in the universe. In the future, Tiangong might get a partner in orbit with the launch of the planned Xuntian space telescope. Xuntian will co-orbit the Earth with Tiangong, but will have a slightly different orbital phase.
How will humanity respond when a planet-killer comet is on a direct collision course with Earth? We got the answer in 2022 when NASA conducted the DART Mission, where it crashed a spacecraft into a distant asteroid in humanity’s first planetary defence test. On September 27, the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft intentionally crashed into the asteroid Didymos.
The mission was a demonstration of the “kinetic impactor” method of asteroid mitigation, where a spacecraft is deliberately crashed into an asteroid to slightly nudge its position. In the event of an actual asteroid threat, this small nudge will have to happen five, ten or even twenty years before the expected date of collision. Over the years, this small nudge will add up to a significant change in trajectory for the asteroid.
NASA put down the minimum definition of success as an orbital period change of 73 seconds or more. DART surpassed this benchmark by over 25 times by shortening Didymos’ orbit around the larger asteroid Dimorphos by 32 minutes.
Over the last few years, private space companies have taken over larger roles in space exploration. Companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and others regularly conduct space launches, taking satellites and even astronauts to Earth’s orbit.
On Monday, Tokyo-based space tech firm ispace set its eyes on a much farther target with the Hakuto mission, which carries the first privately-built lunar lander to the Moon. The spacecraft is designed to use fuel sparingly, so it is taking a slow low-energy path to the Moon. The Hakuto mission will fly around 1.6 million kilometres from Earth, before looping back and intersecting with the Moon by the end of April. To put that into perspective, the Artemis 1 mission took just 25 days to go to the lunar orbit and return.
Interestingly, while Hakuto will be the first privately-built lunar lander to launch, it won’t necessarily be the first to land. Two missions, from Houston-based Intuitive Machines and Pittsburgh-based Astrobiotic Technology, are scheduled to launch next year. Intuitive Machines’ lander could beat ispace to the Moon by using a quick six-day trajectory to reach the Moon as early as March 2022.
So far, only three countries have managed a soft landing on the Moon—the United States, Russia and China. An Israeli spacecraft attempted to land on the Moon in 2019, only to crash into its surface and scatter into pieces at the landing site.
