Nobody can deny that 2021 was all about Mars –with three brand new missions heading to the Red Planet and delivering new science and remarkable achievements. And not just Mars: China sent its home-built space station into orbit and began populating it with astronauts. The year ended with the long-awaited launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), from which so much is expected in terms of discovery about the origin of the universe (and not only).
Now, it looks like 2022 is going to deliver as much in terms of space hype. This time, it is the Moon that is going to get prime time.
“Most of those missions revolve around Artemis, NASA’s multibillion-dollar effort to return astronauts to the moon later in the decade and conduct routine science missions on its surface in preparation for farther treks to Mars (a far more ambitious endeavor that will likely not happen in this decade). But before astronauts make the moonshot, a series of rocket tests and science missions without humans will need to be completed. 2022 is the year for those initial steps toward the moon. Two new rockets central to NASA’s lunar plans will launch to space for the first time, each with more power than the Saturn 5 rocket from the Apollo program. And other countries are expected to join the march to the moon as well.” (Read the entire article here).
While it is still too early for a precise timeline, we can have some preliminary information. According to the plans, the Artemis program is designed to land the first woman and next man on the moon by 2024. NASA intends to send astronauts to the lunar South Pole, an area of key scientific interest because of the availability of water ice tucked in the region’s permanently shadowed craters, which has also attracted the attention of other countries (China and India among them).
For more about the Artemis mission, this is a good starting point. Also, visit NASA’s official page.