Why 2022 could be an even bigger year for space exploration


A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
If you thought 2021 was a big year for space travel and research, prepare to be dazzled by 2022 — which holds "just as much promise, if not more" than 2021 — as "NASA and the growing space industry" continue what "has amounted to a renaissance of exploration," reports The Washington Post.
Two behemoth rockets — each "more powerful than the Saturn V that flew the Apollo astronauts to the moon" — are prepping to take flight in 2022 as part of NASA's Artemis program, which hopes to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2025.
Rocket Lab, which launches from New Zealand, is also scheduled to send a "small satellite to the moon to serve as a precursor for human missions by testing the orbit for the space station" that NASA hopes to send to the same place, writes the Post.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Furthermore, a number of new rockets will step onto the scene in 2022, including "the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket, which would be used by the Pentagon to launch national security satellites," and Relatively Space's 3D-printed Terran 1 vehicle to be launched from Cape Canaveral.
Airline company Boeing is also working to complete a test flight for its Starliner spacecraft, with the intent of carrying NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station, per the Post.
And, of course, among next year's other intergalactic ventures and experiments (which will include more from the James Webb Space Telescope), Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin will fly "six or more suborbital flights in 2022," while Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic will work to begin commercial service "on its suborbital spaceplane for paying space tourists." Read more at The Washington Post.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Brigid is a staff writer at The Week and a graduate of Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Her passions include improv comedy, David Fincher films, and breakfast food. She lives in New York.
-
Russian lunar spacecraft crashes into the moon
Speed Read
By Justin Klawans Published
-
Hurricane Hilary bringing unprecedented storm warnings to Southwest
Speed Read
By Justin Klawans Published
-
NASA fully restores contact with Voyager 2 spacecraft
Speed Read
By Justin Klawans Published
-
The US just banned most incandescent light bulbs, and few people even noticed
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
NASA loses contact with Voyager 2 probe
Speed Read
By Devika Rao Published
-
20 dead and 27 missing after lethal downpour in Beijing
Speed Read
By Theara Coleman Published
-
Will a solar storm wreak havoc on the internet?
Speed Read Tales of a Wi-Fi doomsday have been spreading across social media in recent weeks
By Brigid Kennedy Published
-
Biden keeps U.S. Space Command in Colorado, reversing Trump move to Alabama
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published