The list is significant and vast. We had some of the biggest and most exciting launches and lots of incredible science missions that have inspired the scientific community and the masses. International space arena seems to have been absolutely undeterred by the pandemic. We look back and reflect on some of the exciting things that happened in 2022.

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE COMMISSIONED

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a $10 billion NASA project, was launched into orbit on the Christmas of 2021 with an objective to give astronomers a glimpse at the universe in infrared format. The telescope made a long flight to its present position (L1 Lagrangian point, 1.5 million kms from Earth) and carried out some very complicated procedure of deploying the main honeycomb shaped mirror and sun shield.

In July 2022, it started sending some amazing pictures of highest resolution images ever seen of distant galaxies as they were billions of years ago, promising astronomers a glimpse into our beginning of creation. An image of Jupiter taken by JWST, showed the planet’s weather patterns, tiny moons, altitude levels, cloud covers and auroras at the northern and southern poles. In November 2022, JWST found two more galaxies, one that may have been formed just 350 million years after the big bang.

The stunning clear color pictures of the unseen universe were hailed by the NASA Chief, Bill Nelson, as a new era in astronomy, showcasing JWST’s ability to look back 13.5 billion years, close to the big bang.

ARTEMIS-I

The year 2022 ended with a significant event with the success of the most anticipated Artemis-I mission. NASA’s Artemis-I mission is its first big step toward returning astronauts to the moon after a gap of nearly 50 years, since Apollo-17, when two astronauts became the last of only 12 moonwalkers in history.

NASA launched its most powerful rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), taking its unoccupied Orion spacecraft from Florida’s Cape Canaveral on November 16, 2022. The entire mission went flawlessly from the launch of the rocket to the orbit around the moon to the return back to Earth. Orion splashed down after a 1.3 million miles, 26 days flight on December 11, 2022. This was a critical test flight to test the hardware and support systems for sending humans back to the moon and beyond. It provided a foundation for human deep space exploration.

It is exciting to know that we are going back to the Moon, that humans are going to be setting foot on the moon in just a couple of years. Artemis programme seems to be on track for a crewed lunar fly around in 2024 and a moon landing in 2025.

DART: SMASHING THE ASTEROID DIMORPHOS

Asteroids have been bombarding our planet for billions of years. NASA has found about 40 per cent of the large asteroids as wide as 500 feet that could pose a threat to the Earth. NASA keeps an eye out for other hazards through a network of telescopes owned by its international partners, on the ground and in space. It has been working to develop space based systems to protect from approaching asteroids that are likely to adversely impact the Earth.

NASA devised a Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) to undertake few tests. In a path breaking watershed event, on September 26, 2022, the NASA-built DART probe rammed the asteroid ‘Dimorphos’ (Dimorphos is a moon to a huge asteroid system named Didymos). The purpose of the operation was to check the possibility of using kinetic impact to change the orbit of an asteroid or any space body threatening the Earth.

It was literally an astounding success, the collision and its impact were monitored both by a satellite that was deployed from the DART probe itself, in advance and by a number of ground and space observatories. The recorded observations brought out a large emission of matter, resulting in the formation of a double comet-like, 10 thousand kilometers long tail. Also, collision with DART caused Dimorphos’ orbital period around Didymos to change by 32 minutes.

CHINA’S TIANGONG SPACE STATION

2022 was also a year of significant space achievements for Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMSA), tasked with the construction and operations of its Space station named Tiangong, (‘Heavenly Place’). China launched its core module, called Tianhe, (‘Harmony of the Heavens’) on April 28, 2021. Thereafter, the first astronauts arrived in June 2021. In July 2022, the scientific module ‘Wentian’ was docked to it and in November 2022, the scientific module ‘Mengtian’.

Tiangong comprises of a core module (can accommodate a maximum of six taikonauts) and two experiment modules, about one fifth the size of the ISS. Tiangong also has an external robotic arm, which can support activities and experiments outside the station and three docking ports for resupply vehicles and manned spacecraft.

Unlike the International Space Station (ISS), built over a period of 13 years by a coalition involving NASA, European Space Agency (ESA) nations, Russia, Canada and Japan, Tiangong is entirely built and run by China that too built in less than 19 months.

ALL PRIVATE ASTRONAUTS CREW TO IS: AXIOM-1

On April 8, 2022, the first all private crew of astronauts were launched to International Space Station (ISS), onboard the Axiom-1 mission, a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. It safely returned on April 24, 2022.

The three civilians, paid an estimated $55 million for the 17 day mission, during which they joined US and Russian crew aboard the ISS. They jointly conducted more than 25 research projects involving regenerative medicine and space technology. Following the success of their first flight, Axiom now plans to offer crewed flights to the ISS as often as twice per year, similar Axiom-2 mission is planned in May 2023.

RECORD NUMBER OF LAUNCHES BY CHINA AND SPACEX

SpaceX and China have undertaken a record number of launches in 2022. SpaceX has launched astonishing 61 rockets into orbit with 100 per cent success, surpassing its record of 31 launches in 2021. Many of these launches were for Starlink (broadband constellation), other were in support of the ISS, the US military or private customers. Falcon Heavy flew once in November 2022, its first launch since 2019 and the rest were Falcon 9 rockets.

China too had a hugely successful year in space. It had 64 impressive launches in 2022 (both crewed and un-crewed) and 58 of those were successful; in 2021 it had 55 launches, the highest in the world. Some of these 64 were by the government while others were by private companies that are essentially contractors of the government. Many of these were of Earth observation satellites that may also have military purposes, while others were in support of the Tiangong space station.

SUCCESS OF REUSABLE ROCKET

In 2022, the SpaceX was one of first companies to use rocket reusability, Blue Origin followed it. Both have a record of 14 launches for a single booster. Falcon 9 rockets used by SpaceX are designed to land on a drone ship or on a pre-designated tarmac. SpaceX has been consistently undertaking reusable launches and landings. SpaceX has been so very confident about its precision landing capability that it has been live streaming most of those landings using onboard cameras on the rocket or at the landing site.

HIGHLIGHTS OF INDIAN SPACE SECTOR & COMING OF AGE OF INDIAN PRIVATE SPACETECH COMPANIES

2022 has been a truly momentous year for space exploration for various space faring nations. ISRO too has been making several breakthroughs in the field of space exploration.

Launch of ISRO’s PSLV-C54

ISRO’s Achievements in 2022
2022 is a year when the Indian space sector recovered from the pandemic related setbacks of previous two years and witnessed five launch missions, as opposed to just two each in 2020 and 2021.

The first mission of 2022 was PSLVC52 Earth Observation satellite 4 (EOS-04) on February 14, 2022. EOS-04 is a Radar Imaging Satellite designed to provide high quality images under all weather conditions for applications in the field of agriculture, forestry, plantations, soil moisture, hydrology and flood mapping etc. The satellite has a mission life of 10 years.

PSLV-C53, recorded ISRO’s second mission of the year on June 30, 2022, deploying three satellites from Singapore. It is noteworthy that generally, the fourth stage of the rocket ends up as space debris, it was for the first time that the final stage of this rocket was used as an orbiting experimental platform, termed as PSLV Orbital Experimental Module (POEM). This method demonstrated better utilisation of an in-space resource for conducting on board experiments.

ISRO attempted to launch its under development Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), a three stage solid fuel rocket, its fourth launch for SSLV series. However, an anomaly for two seconds in one of the accelerometers in the launch vehicle led to the mission’s underperformance and the ejected satellites were lost rendering the mission unsuccessful.

On October 23, 2022, ISRO launched its heaviest rocket GSLV Mk3, carrying its heaviest ever payload. It was the first ever commercial flight of this rocket. 36 Internet communication satellites of OneWeb were launched successfully in Low Earth orbit. This marked a significant milestone for the rocket, having been successful in all five of its launches thus far. This mission and its follow-up launch is likely to bring in close to 1000 crore in revenue to New Space India Limited (NSIL), ISRO’s commercial arm.

ISRO’s final launch of the year 2022 was the PSLV-C54, which carried Indian EOS-06 along with eight Nano satellites including the India-BhutanSat.

Besides the launches, ISRO has been actively involved in whole lot of other related activities. In June 2022, NSIL made its debut in the commercial space sector with the launch of GSAT-24 communication satellite, the first demand driven mission being launched from Kourou, French Guiana. 2022 also witnessed signing of 19 Technology Transfer Agreements and has successfully transferred eight ISRO developed technology to Indian industry.

India’s Private Space Sector in 2022
The opening of Indian Space sector in 2020 to private players has afforded unprecedented opportunities to Indian Spacetech startups. Setting up of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) and enhancing the role of NSIL have been few other steps of reforms unveiled by the Government that has unleashed the innovative spirit of Spacetech startups. They are willing to adapt to new developments.

As of December 2022, there are 111 startups registered with the Government run Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe). Indian startups have raised more than $245.35 million in funding.

One of the major highlights has been the award of a contract to build five PSLV rockets to a consortium of Government run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and privately run Larsen & Toubro (L&T). This clears the way for the industry to carry out an end-to-end production of a rocket that has been the mainstay of India’s space launch activity. The contract was awarded by NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) at a price of 860 crore.

On November 18, 2022, Vikram-S, a sub-orbital rocket built by Indian startup Skyroot Aerospace took the skies from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh. This maiden launch of a private rocket from Indian soil was a success and helped validate the company’s technology and capability. This was an experimental launch to the Upper atmosphere and the company hopes to launch satellites by the end of 2023.

In another first, on November 26, 2022, PSLV-C54 for the first time placed nanosatellites built by Indian private Spacetech startups Pixxel and Dhruva Space in space. It was third hyperspectral satellite for ‘Pixxel’ and ‘Dhruva Space’ successfully validated its Satellite Orbital Deployer.

On November 28, 2022 Agnikul Cosmos announced the inauguration of India’s first private rocket launch pad and mission control centre, set up at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota. Nation will soon witness the maiden launch of Agnikul’s rocket. Digantara, a Spacetech startup dealing in Space Situational Awareness, built the world’s first commercial space weather sensor.

Many space missions by ISRO are planned for 2023 including Chandrayaan-3 (on GSLV Mk III), maiden flight of Gaganyaan to Aditya-L1 as India’s first solar observation mission in March 2023, Mangalyaan-2 to Mars, may be Shukrayaan-1 as Venus orbiter mission and more such missions.