Producer: Popular Science China
Crafted: Space Craft Brew
Producer: Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences
2021 is an extraordinary year in the history of human spaceflight: countries around the world have achieved a total of 145 rocket launches, the largest number of launches in history.
In 2022, global space is not only expected to reach a new high in the number of launches, but also usher in a series of difficult major tasks. Today, let's take a look at what aerospace events are worth looking forward to in 2022!
1. China's Tiangong Space Station completed: opening a new era of manned spaceflight
For more than 20 years, the International Space Station has been the only space station for mankind and the only platform for long-term orbital international manned spaceflight. However, on April 29, 2021, the successful launch of the Core Module of the Chinese space station Tianhe means that China officially opened the construction of the space station.
Schematic map of the Chinese space station (Source: China's manned spaceflight)
China plans to send three main modules, four manned spacecraft and four cargo spacecraft into space and establish the Tiangong space station through eleven launch missions, which is expected to be completed in 2022. This means that human manned spaceflight will achieve a situation in which two major space stations are in orbit at the same time, and both are expected to work until after 2030.
At the same time, the international manned space industry will also usher in a series of achievements: China, the United States and Russia have successively launched a new generation of manned spacecraft and rockets; the "lunar gateway" space station in artemis lunar plan will begin construction; the commercial space station has entered a substantive development stage, and various space tourism programs have flourished... All this means that from 2022, all kinds of human manned space records will be gradually refreshed, and even usher in an era of explosive development.
2. The first space images will be transmitted back: James Webb opens the "Eye of Deep Space"
On December 25, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope, the most expensive spacecraft in history, invested by 20 countries for 25 years and the cooperation of tens of thousands of scientists, was successfully launched, with a total budget of more than $10 billion. Considering that its mass is only 6.5 tons, this means that its unit price is more than 10,000 yuan per gram, which is more than 20 times the unit price of gold. Its top technology will focus on searching for the first infrared rays produced after the Big Bang, revealing the secrets of the universe more than 13 billion years ago and finding the roots of the world.
Although Webb is expensive, there is a reason for its expensive: Weber's lens area (25.4 square meters) is far more than its predecessor Hubble Space Telescope (4.5 square meters), so that it must first fold 18 mirrors, enter space and then unfold. At the same time, it also carries five layers of huge heat shields (sun umbrellas) less than the thickness of the hair to block out the heat, hiding at 2 o'clock in the Day-Tiragrange, 1.5 million kilometers away from the earth, a series of operations that must be successful at one time, because it cannot return to earth for repairs.
The James Webb Space Telescope has been successfully launched (Source: NASA)
After more than ten days of travel, Weber's most important sun umbrella and 18 lenses have been successfully opened. After orbit-entry maneuvers and on-orbit commissioning, it will release the first imaging images in about 6 months. Without a doubt, it is the most powerful pair of "deep space eyes" for human beings. Weber's journey went very smoothly, not only saving a lot of propellant, but even having the potential to work for about 20 years, and it is foreseeable that it will greatly promote human cognition of the universe.
3. Reopening the Age of Moon Landing: The space launch system and the first flight of the Orion spacecraft
From the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 to the first human landing on the moon, to the present 50 years later, human space science and technology has developed by leaps and bounds. At present, several major space powers plan to return to the moon in the next decade and achieve manned landings on the moon. Among them, artemis plans and the sino-Russian joint construction of the International Lunar Research Station will be two important forces.
In addition, countries have also set up projects such as heavy lunar rockets, a new generation of manned spacecraft and lunar landers, and human, financial and technical resources have been rapidly pooled.
It is worth noting that the space launch system (SLS) and The Orion spacecraft combination, which are temporarily in the lead position, will make its debut in 2022, achieving the first test mission of "one arrow and multiple stars" unmanned lunar exploration around the moon.
Space launch system and Orion spacecraft (Source: NASA)
The supergroup, which has spent a fortune of $40 billion over the past decade or so, is set to make its debut an important milestone in humanity's journey back to the moon, as well as a clarion call for major space forces to sprint to the moon.
4. Starship First Flight: Can Commercial Rockets Disrupt the Future of Manned Spaceflight?
SpaceX is known for its rocket engines and various rocket recovery technologies, and the most important project it is brewing is a combination of starships and super Falcon rockets, which aims to achieve difficult technologies such as full arrow recovery, 100-person manned spaceflight, deep space exploration, planetary landing and return. For the past three years, SpaceX has been developing a "test until explosion" technology that completely subverts the traditional idea of space development. By continuously blowing up more than ten prototype prototypes, the rapid iterative development of starship technology has been realized.
In 2021, the first combination of starship and Super Falcon rocket was assembled and tested, but due to technical details and regulatory agency environmental impact assessment delays, the launch could not be successfully launched, and the first flight test is expected in March 2022. If the test goes well, the starship will take its customers on a journey around the moon.
A starship assembly tested (Source: SpaceX)
From the book data, the starship can carry hundreds of passengers, and the propulsion and transportation capabilities even exceed the new generation of lunar rockets currently developed by countries around the world. It also has lunar (NASA contracted) and Mars (future planning) landing exploration capabilities, and the prospects are limitless.
If the starship can achieve the expected low cost and ultra-large passenger capacity, humanity is really close to the low-cost commercial space era.
5. Impact dangerous asteroid: Will achieve the first space defense in human history
The dinosaur extinction meteorite theory and the Tunguska big bang meteorite theory have always worried about the "visit" of extraterrestrial objects. If a kilometer-sized asteroid that seems to be "small" in space hits the earth, it is enough to cause the complete collapse of the earth's climate rhythm, destroy a large number of species, and directly threaten the future of mankind. If hit by a larger asteroid, the consequences would be unimaginable. Therefore, the prevention of dangerous celestial bodies that have a potential threat to the earth is undoubtedly a challenge that human spaceflight must face.
On November 24, 2021, the first asteroid impact diversion experimenter "DART" successfully set off, which will hit dimorphos, a small man in a double asteroid system, Didymos, and then assess the impact of the impact on the orbit of the asteroid.
DART will achieve the first space defense in human history (Source: NASA)
As early as the departure, the track has been carefully designed, and the collision time is expected to be September 26, 2022. At that time, not only the small satellite it carries will record the whole process, but also the major telescopes on the earth will also aim at them and watch this spectacular "space firework".
Although the target asteroid is only 170 meters in diameter, it is already a giant compared to DART, even if THE DART hits accurately and completely explodes, it can only change its speed by 0.4 mm/s, which can be described as a real "grasshopper shaking the tree". However, in the space environment, any point of orbital influence will accumulate, that is, "lost in a thousand miles" But rest assured, scientists have studied it carefully, and no matter how the asteroid is diverted, this collision will not threaten Earth.
6. Reveal more secrets, and announce the latest results of the strongest Mars exploration lineup in history
In 2020, mankind sent an unprecedented mars exploration lineup, and China, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates all launched Mars probes, and successfully arrived on Mars in 2021. Among them, China's "Tianwen-1" is the first successful probe for mankind to achieve "orbit, landing and inspection" in a single mission; NASA's "Perseverance" is the most advanced probe in history, carrying the first Human Mars helicopter "Witty".
At present, if the orbiter is also included, the number of probes that humans are working on Mars and Mars has increased to 11, and they come from China, the United States, Europe/Russia, India and the United Arab Emirates.
China's Zhurong and USS Perseverance/Wit represent the latest altitude of human exploration of Mars (Source: CNSA/NASA)
In 2021, after the landing of the two major Mars rovers in China and the United States, a lot of time was spent on engineering verification, testing and collecting scientific data. For example, Tianwen-1 as a whole carries 13 scientific payloads, 7 of which are on orbiters over Mars and 6 are on the Zhurong rover that lands on the surface of Mars. They have a total of five major scientific research objectives, mainly involving the study of the Martian space environment, surface morphological characteristics, soil surface structure, etc., which will bring first-hand information on Mars to the Chinese scientific research community.
At present, the measured data of the Martian ion and neutral particle analyzer carried by Tianwen-1 have contributed to the first batch of research results on the radial evolution of the interplanetary solar wind in China, and the results have been published in the Journal of Earth and Planetary Physics.
In 2022, more data will be interpreted by scientists one by one, which will be one of the most important scientific achievements in the history of human exploration of Mars, which will greatly enhance human cognition of Mars.
7. Target the space gold mine, Reiko set off for the solar system super treasure
The survival and development of mankind are inseparable from all kinds of precious resources on the earth, especially non-renewable resources, whose value is self-evident, and there are many conflicts that have broken out over this in history. But beyond Earth, the number of these resources is unimaginable, and one of them is metal resources.
If the goal is set to obtain metal resources, 16 Psyche within the asteroid belt would be a perfect choice. It is almost made of iron, nickel, gold and other elements, like the core of a rocky planet, and most likely contains more rare metals. Its weight is 270 million tons, far more than the weight of 2 billion tons of iron ore that humans use every year, enough for human use for tens of millions of years, which can be said to be an "unlimited" resource to some extent.
The Psychic probe will reveal a world full of treasures (Source: NASA)
It is expected that on August 1, 2022, NASA will use the Falcon Heavy rocket to launch the Spirit Star probe and set off for the mysterious asteroid to unveil it. Although this mission is not really "space mining", it is already a standard "space prospecting". In the future, perhaps human beings will no longer be troubled by scarce resources, because almost all resources in the universe are "infinite", as long as human spaceflight has the ability to take them back.
8. Mars "Ace Pigeon" sprint, europe and Russia once again missed the Mars exploration window?
The Mars exploration window period is only once every 26 months, which is not easy. In July 2020, China, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates all seized valuable opportunities, but the second task of ExoMars, which had been brewing for a long time in Europe and Russia, once again missed the opportunity.
The mission's rover (rover) was named rosalind Franklin as early as 2019 when it was ambitiously preparing for launch in honor of the female scientist who made great contributions to DNA and virus research. This also shows that one of the core missions of the rover is to find Martian water, organic matter and potential life, which is effectively complementary to other rover exploration missions.
Rosalind Franklin is finally about to launch (Source: ESA)
Previously, the "Rosalind Franklin" was postponed twice in the middle due to factors such as funding sources and changes in program design, and in 2020, it was postponed again due to the epidemic and test schedule. In September 2022, Earth once again ushered in the best window for exploring Mars, and rosalind Franklin will launch another attempt in conjunction with ESA deep space cruise technology and Russian lander technology. Whether we can seize the opportunity to launch as scheduled this time still needs to wait and see.
9. First flight of multi-type rockets: China, the United States, Russia, Europe and Japan ushered in a major expansion of carrier rockets at the same time
Launch vehicles are the cornerstone of space development, and as space launch needs become increasingly complex, major rocket families are also expanding rapidly.
For the rocket industry in several countries, it is expected that there will be the following new developments in 2022: China's Long March series has ushered in new members such as The Long March 5/5B/6/7/7A/8/11 in recent years, and some key new models under development (Long March 6A/8R/9, new manned rockets) will also usher in major progress in 2022; Russia is developing the Angara series. It is expected to test fly the main Angara A5 and A1.2 rockets again in 2022; the United States will undergo a major blood change, the Cosmic God and Delta targets will be directly retired, and gradually replaced by the Vulcan rocket that will fly for the first time in 2022, and the heavy rocket space launch system will also fly to the moon for the first time; Japan will usher in the first flight of a new generation of H3 rockets in 2022; and the new generation of Ariane 6 rockets developed by ESA with an investment of nearly 4 billion euros will also challenge the first flight.
ESA Arian 6 rocket art renderings (Source: ESA)
In addition to the major space national teams, commercial rocket companies have also mushroomed. In addition to the unlimited SpaceX Falcon series rockets, 2022 will also usher in the first flight of multi-type commercial rockets. For example, Blue Origin's long-awaited New Glen Heavy rocket will directly benchmark the capabilities of the Falcon Heavy rocket. In addition, a number of commercial rocket companies in the United States have announced that they will fly their own rockets for the first time in 2022.
In another commercial space battlefield, China's private rocket companies will also usher in the competition for the first launch of all-liquid propellant rockets.
10. The hidden worries of the golden age of spaceflight: space junk may become the biggest issue
Today is the golden age of commercial spaceflight, but while it is rapidly promoting and applying aerospace technology, it is also causing no small problem. For example, starlink has organized a large-scale network of nearly 2,000 satellites in just two years, which not only caused trouble for astronomical observations on Earth, but also forced multiple satellites to change orbits several times to avoid collisions, and even led to two avoidances of the Tiangong space station. The long-term plan of StarLink is tens of thousands of satellites, far beyond the current initial stage.
Space traffic is getting busier and more dangerous (Source: ESA)
The Low-orbit satellite Internet, the Red Sea market with unlimited "money", is attracting a large number of hardcore players to join, and Amazon, Samsung, Airbus, One Net, Star Net, etc. will have a huge networking plan. If all become a reality, it means that we will welcome up to 100,000 satellites in the future. In addition, a large number of commercial rockets are also constantly launching various payloads into space, but many of the payloads have extremely limited scientific significance and will soon become space junk.
In the future, we will face more and more frequent manned space missions, and we will also face more and more space junk. How to negotiate a reasonable set of space development rules and strictly implement them may be one of the biggest issues in the future development of human spaceflight.
Write at the end
In 2021, human spaceflight has achieved historic rapid development, and this glory will continue in 2022. We are gradually opening the door to the great space age and striving for humanity to become a "cross-planetary survival species". But we also need to realize that the rapid development of the space industry and the peaceful and orderly use of space is a topic that requires proper cooperation between many countries, and the increasingly busy space requires more wisdom and cooperation from mankind.
Space is the best platform for mankind to practice the concept of "community of destiny".
Key References:
[1] "The core module of "Tianhe" was successfully launched, why should China build its own space station? , http://www.xinhuanet.com/sikepro/20210429/28d65fc260914ac8a63e5ab4d9552d8d/c.html, Xinhua Net.
【2】《2022 in spaceflight》，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_in_spaceflight#Expected_maiden_flights，Wikipedia.
【3】《JWST (James Webb Space Telescope)》， https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/j/jwst。
【4】《Starship》，https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/.
【5】《Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission》，https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart.
【6】《Psyche》，https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/psyche.
【7】《Exomars 2022 rover》,https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Exploration/ExoMars/ExoMars_2022_rover.
【8】Zhang, A. B., Kong, L. G., Li, W. Y., Li, L., Tang, B. B., Rong, Z. J., Wei, Y., Ma, J. J., Zhang, Y. T., ... and Wang, Chi. (2022). Tianwen-1 MINPA observations in the solar wind. Earth Planet. Phys., 6(1), 1–9. http://doi.org/10.26464/epp2022014.