NASA's MOST EXCITING Upcoming Space Missions EVER [Artemis UPDATE]

 

50 years have gone by since Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan wrote his daughter's initials on the moon's surface truly a fairy tale and now it's time to make another giant leap to put humans back on the moon 2022 is going

 to be an incredible year for space

 as thrilling launches and spectacular flights await humanity to explore the universe like never before we're gonna open the eyes of the most amazing telescope ever built crash into an asteroid intentionally and see SpaceX launch a monster new spaceship that's planned to take us to mars welcome to fact nominal in today's article we mark the calendar for what promises to be a magical year for space travel so strap your helmet on and buckle in it's time for liftoff researchers estimate 17 meteors enter earth's atmosphere every day and are large enough to reach the ground this year humanity's going to strike back the double asteroid redirection test or dart is a test project that needs no explanation for anyone who's seen a sci-fi disaster movie in the past few decades well slim the chances of earth taking a direct hit by a cosmic traveler are quite real just ask the dinosaurs so nasa launched dart on November 24th 2021 and is sending it about 15 000 miles per hour on a direct collision course with an asteroid about the size of the great pyramid the question to be answered is simple can we deflect this moonlight named Dimorphos enough to change its path the fraction it would take to avoid a collision with earth if that were coming dart will travel 6.8 million miles before its target practice commences and an Italian satellite will separate from dart before the collision to get pictures and data from the impact and its aftermath we constantly scan the skies for objects that may pose a threat and one day that threat may be imminent we can only hope that the systems we have in place will help redirect the cosmic missile and make it a near miss instead of an extinction event NASA's Artemis 1 is expected to launch no earlier than may and send an Orion spacecraft to circle the moon to make sure both the huge space launch system and Orion are ready for humans the uncrewed craft is planned to orbit the moon for about a week as part of its month-long trip into space and test the onboard systems and rocket for further missions missions that include humans leaving earth orbit for the first time in 50 years following the successful Artemis 1 mission will be Artemis 2 which was scheduled for 2024 but has now been pushed back to at least 2026.

 whenever it launches it's expected to be crewed by three us and one Canadian astronaut these space travelers will reach further from earth than any humans in history as they'll travel around the far side of the moon if all goes well next will be the first crude moon landing since the Apollo program and the next stop is the 140 million mile journey to mars nasa says several years in orbit and on the moon's surface are needed before a multi-year

 mission to mars launches but 2022 will see an enormous first step towards that historic day the historic Christmas 2021 launch

 of the James Webb space telescope

 is about to start paying huge dividends

 everything so far has been a smashing success and every day is a day closer to peering back towards the beginning of space and time the unfolding of nasa's space origami was as nerve-wracking as it was perfect the tennis court size sunshield opened like magic and the trip to Webb's orbital point at L2 was flawless Webb's eye has been tested and is functioning and now the microscopic mirror adjustments are underway those 18 magical gold-plated hexagonal mirrors on Webb should be completely aligned by the end of April and by then the 10 billion dollar spacecraft and its advanced instrumentation must be very cold more patients will be needed as two months of instrument calibration is next but as soon as late June we hope to see what has never before been seen by human eyes from the earliest stars to incredibly detailed studies of our solar system and revealing infrared images of exoplanets Webb should increase our understanding of the universe and our place in it in ways we cannot imagine remember Artemis along with the excitement for the program launch that will put us back on the moon and soon on mars comes nasa's space launch system only the most powerful rocket that mankind has ever sent into space towering 23 stories above the launch pad this behemoth is taller than the statue of liberty humans have gone back and forth from the international space station for 20 years but the moon is a far different target

 getting there means going almost a thousand times further than the ISS and needs the boost of the newest monster to reach the 24,500 miles per hour necessary for the

 trip and SLS is far from a finished product the rocket is specifically designed to evolve into more powerful configurations of what it will launch as this year and over 1100 companies worldwide have a hand in this new and exciting rocket the rocket that will one day soon launch humans on their first journey to mars or is it because here comes Elon Musk and SpaceX's Starship and when it launches SLS will be relegated to second or third depending on criteria but like everything else on earth lately geopolitical issues have put the exact date off a bit musk sent Starlink terminals to Ukraine to assist with restoring the internet after the Russian invasion and as a thanks Moscow has made a sport of trying to jam the terminals so Starlink bypassed the jamming and was able to get field testing done for free but the focus was shifted for a bit and thus the delay either way enter SpaceX's starship the largest rocket with the most payload capacity to ever be sent into space when it actually goes into space starship stands just under 400 feet tall produces 8.8 million pounds of thrust and can transport up to 150 tons of payload into low earth orbit for reference that's a Boeing Dreamliner those aren't the only unique features of starship it can be reused over and over again to take crew and cargo back and forth to the moon and even mars and while SLS carries a two billion dollar price tag for each launch musk says starship can lift off for as little as one million dollars even if that's wishful thinking those two numbers are light years apart so when nasa's inspector general Paul Martin uses phrases like very poor contractor performance core planning poor execution and billions over budget and years behind schedule when announcing the SLS delay our greatest hope for returning to the moon may well be starship while this is not a new mission as nasa's Juno spacecraft began orbiting Jupiter in July 2016 its life has been extended until September 2025 and another 42 orbits added to its itinerary it amounts to a stay of execution as the craft was intended to intentionally crash into Jupiter's atmosphere in August 2021 in June the solar-powered spacecraft will swing down towards Jupiter's moon Ganymede after adding new data and pictures to nasa's scrapbook from Ganymede it'll be off to europa for a series of close passes beginning on September 29th in fact the additional orbits in Juno's mission expose it to far more danger than previously seen especially as it gets closer to Jupiter the radiation hazards are higher so the team wisely saved them for the mission's end and the pictures it has produced are breathtaking from massive swirling storms at the planet's poles to creating a storm map of the world Juno will also take closer looks at lightning that jumps between clouds in the upper atmosphere delays and false starts are part of space missions and we may endure more of them this year already ESA's Jupiter Icy Moon's Explorer launch has moved to April 2023 Artemis 2 is pushed back by two years at least and starship has seen its share of delays as well and the ExoMars project set to deliver Russia and europe's first martian rover is on hold indefinitely because of the war in Ukraine stay tuned so what do you think about this exciting year and its massive agenda of space missions is there one that jumps out at you that you just can't wait to be successful tell us in the comments