NASA finished a banner year in 2022 with multiple successful missions, including the stunning flight around the moon of the uncrewed Orion spacecraft that splashed into the Pacific in December.
Earlier in the year, the Perseverance rover on Mars began collecting rock samples from the planet’s surface. Later, there was a successful deployment of the James Webb Space telescope and DART’s intentional crash into a distant asteroid, which proved much better than a Hollywood movie.
Perseverance Rover
The Perseverance rover grabbed public attention in 2021 for landing on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021, and then the successful launch of the small Ingenuity copter that arrived on the planet carried underneath Perseverance.
RELATED: Mars Ingenuity copter readies for 22d flight after nearly a year of duty
Throughout 2022, Perseverance has been busy finding ideal locations to dig and then retrieve 14 rock-core samples. In October, NASA and the European Space Agency struck an agreement on creation of a depot for the samples at Three Forks on Mars.
It will be years before the samples are returned to Earth for study, but NASA released a concept illustration showing how multiple robots could work together to begin the process.(Above)
Perseverance took an image of itself and the Three Forks location on Mars as well.
James Webb Space Telescope
After a long trip in space, the James Webb Space Telescope unfolded its shiny parts and began shooting full-color images on July 12.
Appropriately, the Carina Nebula was in that first group, showing off Webb’s cameras and offering insights on how stars form. The image of the nebula, about 7,600 light years away, was shot with a near-infrared camera and a mid-infrared instrument.
RELATED: Webb’s first jaw-dropping images and why they matter
DART
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft intentionally hit an asteroid on Sept. 26 in a planetary defense test. In October, NASA reported the spacecraft's impact with Dimorphos had successfully altered asteroid’s orbit.
Artemis I
The uncrewed Artemis I mission included the successful launch of the massive Space Launch System rocket on Nov. 16, with the successful Orion spacecraft splashdown on Dec. 11.
RELATED: NASA’s Artemis I uncrewed mission, by the number and images
Next steps
NASA in November said it awarded SpaceX a second contract for a second crewed Artemis moon lander under Artemis 4 in 2027 valued at $1.1 billion. Earlier, NASA picked SpaceX for landing American astronauts on the moon under Artemis 3 with a variant of the Starship spacecraft as well as an uncrewed demonstration to the moon prior to Artemis 3.
Artemis 2 is expected to approach the moon with a crew in late 2024 or beyond, with Artemis 3 no earlier than 2025. An astronaut crew for Artemis 2 could be named in early 2023.
To underscore these successful missions, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former astronaut and US Senator, exclaimed, " 2022 was out of this world.”
For more information, NASA listed its multiple 2022 accomplishments on Dec. 13.