There were big changes in the space world.
Russia was one of the top contributors to spaceflight since the dawn of the space age. A human-rated spaceship was brought to the moon. Records were being set via flights on Mars and via a NASA moon mission.
With news flowing from multiple worlds across the solar system, we picked out 12 of the top stories in spaceflight.
There are some views of Earth from space.
RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU...
There were a number of issues that made it difficult for NASA's Artemis 1 mission to get off the ground. Everything went perfectly after the rocket took off.
It was far from the moon and flew opposite to the direction of the moon's rotation when the rocket lofted the spaceship. The mission ended with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean in front of the recovery ship, the Portland.
NASA plans to send a crew of astronauts to the moon no earlier than 2024 if Artemis 1 is a success. With future Artemis missions landing and/or building out the Gateway space station to support surface operations, Artemis 3 will bring astronauts down to the moon's surface in a few years.
You can relive the Artemis 1 moon mission in this video.
The uncrewed spaceship opened the door for more Artemis missions and set a key record. The human-rated vehicle flew past the record set by the Apollo 13 crew of three astronauts.
The crew of Apollo 13 accidentally set the record. They were going to land two astronauts on the lunar surface in the Fra Mauro highlands, but a spacecraft emergency forced the mission to divert to a flight around the moon and return home again for a safe splashdown.
NASA officials wrote in a statement that the spaceship flew over 270,000 miles from Earth in November. The Apollo 13 crew flew over two million miles from Earth to the moon.
The Artemis 1 moon mission had some great images.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022. The invasion caused a domino effect in support of the Ukrainian people. The International Space Station was the only space partnership that was still going on. Russia is threatening to bring down U.S. satellites.
The European Space Agency turned away from Russia's supplied rocket and landers because of the invasion, which forced the cancellation of the planned launch. In November, member states of the European Space Agency voted in a 17 billion euro budget over the next three years to save the mission and give it new hardware.
There was a last-minute mission change when a set of 36 satellites were taken off the launch pad along with the Russian rocket. OneWeb didn't get the satellites back. OneWeb is building out its constellation through other suppliers.
Satellites show Russia's invasion of Ukrainian.
The European Space Agency opened a TikTok account in May of this year and started posting from space. In the 88-second TikTok video (opens in new tab), Cristoforetti introduced viewers to a plush turtle named Zippy and a stuffed monkey that served as indicators on the mission.
Cristoforetti used her limited spare time to connect with the public frequently, wearing numerous cosplay costumes, doing yoga and taking frequent photos that she posted on her social media accounts. This was the first European female commander of the space station.
She recreated a famous scene from the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" in her cosplay. "I have watched that multiple times, and I really enjoy and appreciate it deeply as a work of art, and something that has really influenced our visual imagination when it comes to space," Cristoforetti said shortly after landing in October. It doesn't feel old despite being decades old. It feels current and useful.
The space station astronauts cosplay began with thrift store duds.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test was a huge success. There is no imminent trouble we know of despite decades of searching, as a result of the test of a "kinetic impactor" technique for altering the trajectory of small bodies in space.
The Didymos asteroid system has a moonlet called Dimorphos. DART's goal was to shorten Dimorphos' path around a larger asteroid by at least 73 seconds, but DART far exceeded that goal and changed it by 32 minutes.
About 40% of the large asteroids as wide as 500 feet are found by NASA and they keep an eye out for other dangers through a network of telescopes on the ground and in space.
How many threats are there? It is complex.
The Super Heavy rocket was unstacked and performed engine testing on several occasions. The duo is more than 30 feet taller than the moon rocket. When the system is put together, it makes the rocket the tallest of its kind.
This year was supposed to be the year that Starship would be in the air, but it hasn't been done yet. The company did not take into account the FAA's need to conduct a programmatic environmental assessment of its facilities in south Texas. The FAA completed its delayed review in the middle of the year, but gave an action list of items to fix ahead of the launch of the first spaceship.
A commitment to supply landing systems for NASA's Artemis 4 moon mission, as well as agreeing to fly billionaire Dennis Tito around the moon, are some of the lucrative contracts that Starship has still received. The dearMoon crew, assembled by billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, was announced in late 2022.
Ahead of a test flight, a prototype for a spaceship is being rolled.
The world was stunned by the science-quality images of planets, galaxies, and other objects that came from the James Webb Space Telescope over the course of a year. Hundreds of steps were needed to get the telescope ready.
The largest and most capable space telescope was launched in December of 2011. To use a minimum of fuel, it traveled to a stable location in space. After deployment of the honeycomb mirror, it performed a series of tests on its instruments and mirrors.
The telescope has four different instruments that can collect data in different ways. The first stars and galaxies of our universe will be looked back at by Webb. The biggest issue has been tweaking observations to get around impacts, but the telescope is expected to last 20 years.
The James Webb Space Telescope has its first photos in the gallery.
Due to a U.S. ban on bilateral work with NASA, the China National Space Administration has decided to build its own space station. A core module and two laboratories have been added to the station. It is less than half the size of the International Space Station.
The T-shaped station's base shape was completed with the launch of Mengtian on October 31. The country plans to keep the space station running for at least a few years and hopes to use it as a base for commercial flights.
The Chinese taikonauts spent more than six months in space before returning to Earth. The crew members conducted three spacewalks after the second and third modules arrived.
China plans to build a space station.
There is a price to the launches. The Long March 5B rocket was needed to carry the big modules to the space station, and China has no contingency plans to bring the core stage back to earth. The world waited for the rocket piece to fall twice.
A stage fell into the south-central Pacific Ocean and a stage fell over the Indian Ocean. In April 2021, another core stage fell into the Indian Ocean, and in May 2020, chunks of rocket reportedly fell across theIvory Coast.
There are no international agreements in place to prevent such a thing from happening again, according to the executive director of the center.
Photos and history of China's Long March rocket family.
The American company and Asian country each set records as of publication date, which may be surpassed by the end of the year.
The company has launched 56 rockets into the air with no failures. Many of these launches were for Starlink, a bright broadband constellation that is causing worries among astronomer and other populations for its effects on the night sky. The U.S. military or private customers were supported by other launches. In November, Falcon Heavy flew for the first time in over a year.
In the next four years, China has launched 60 times and 58 of those were successes. Private companies that are contractors of the government had some of them. Many of China's launches were of Earth observation satellites that could be used for military purposes.
A private Chinese rocket has been in the air for two years.
It was one of the first companies to use rocket reusability, and it had a record of 14 launches for a single booster. After most missions atop a drone ship or a tarmac nearby the launch site, the rockets are designed to land. Most of the landings have been streamed using live cameras on the rocket.
The 14th mission took place on October 8th. The first stage of the Falcon 9 used on that mission came back to Earth after sending the IntelsatGalaxy 33 andGalaxy 34 satellites to space. The stage touched down in the Atlantic Ocean around eight minutes after liftoff.
The Transporter-2 mission and 10 Starlink internet satellite batches were launched prior to this mission. In September, the 14th booster mission sent the BlueWalker 3 communications satellite and 34 Starlinks into space, setting a new record.
The first 20 years of the company's existence were marked by 20 unforgettable missions.
One of the highlights of the Perseverance rover mission was the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars. Ingenuity flew on Mars and only lasted for five flights. As a scout for Perseverance, it is shooting for 40 flights and still going strong, helping the rover collect promising samples that may host life on Earth.
Ingenuity set altitude and distance records On the 25th flight, it flew a distance of 2,310 feet and a speed of 12 mph, setting a new record. The flight took 161.3 seconds to complete. During its 35th flight on December 3, the helicopter soared to 46 feet (14 meters) above the ground, more than three stories high.
NASA wants to send two sample pickup choppers to Mars to bring the cache of rocks Perseverance set aside to a surface landers. The landers would relay the data to another craft.
The Perseverance rover has pictures from its first year on Mars.
The co-author of Why Am I Taller is Elizabeth Howell. A book about space medicine is in the works. Follow us on social media, like us on Facebook (opens in new tab)
All Rights Reserved © 2024
