NASA, Europe The Space Agency and other agencies have been forced to reschedule many of their missions while Covid-19 cause technical delays. In 2022, the rush to get space research back on track will see a rover headed for the Red Planet, a satellite sent to study Jupiter and its moons, and a telescopes launched into space to look for evidence of dark matter and dark energy. Meanwhile, back on Earth, four human volunteers will spend 12 months living in a Mars simulation.
Alpha Mars Sand Dunes
A 3D-printed habitat in which life on Mars will be simulated will sprout from the Texan desert in 2022. Developed by architects Bjarke Ingels Group and construction technology experts Advanced ICON in collaboration with NASA, it is intended to be “preparation for humans to live on Mars.” Four crew members will live and work in the 158-square-foot station, facing a series of challenges such as equipment failure and environmental problems, the data collected will inform NASA’s real plans.
ExoMars . Quest
The ExoMars program’s 2022 mission (delayed from 2020) will bring the UK-built Rosalind Franklin rover and Russia’s Kazachok surface platform to the Red Planet. The European Space Agency (ESA) will use the Proton rocket to launch the lander and submersible in late September 2022, to Mars in June 2023, after a nine-month journey. The ExoMars rover will probe the Martian surface in search of evidence of past life, collecting subsurface samples with a drill and depositing them in the Analysis Laboratory Drawer. Its “Pasteur” toolkit then analyzes the soil to create biological textures. ExoMars will be the first Mars mission to combine surface mobility with studies of deep subsurface soil.
JUICE
Shown here is the Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE), which will launch in 2022 as part of ESA’s Cosmic Vision program. Its mission is to study Jupiter’s three moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – to better understand whether they are potential habitats for life. These three moons are thought to have liquid water on them, but we won’t know until JUICE enters Jupiter’s orbit in 2031. In 2032, it will become the first spacecraft to orbit a single face The moon was different from Earth when it entered Ganymede’s orbit.
Euclid
The Euclid Infrared Space Telescope will help scientists deepen their knowledge of dark matter and dark energy by accurately measuring the shapes of galaxies at various distances from Earth. . In doing so, it will help us understand why the expansion of the universe appears to be accelerating and what might be causing it. Launched from the Guiana Space Center in
a Soyuz ST-B rocket in the second half of 2022, Euclid will enter orbit at Lagrange Point L2, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
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