Brad Tucker's top 10 moments, events and discoveries in space in 2022

First off is Axiom space and the first private mission to the International Space Station. In 2021, we saw the beginning of space tourism with Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX all taking private tourists up. Axiom, a private company comprised of many former NASA astronauts and even a former head of NASA, worked with SpaceX to take private people to the International Space Station as tourist-astronauts. It was essentially the first space working holiday.

At number 9, NASA announced that the 5000th exoplanet had been confirmed. An exoplanet is an extra-solar planet, a planet orbiting around another star, not our Sun in our Solar System. The first exoplanet was discovered back in 1992 and before then, we had only known of planets in our own Solar System. Hundreds more have been confirmed just this year, with tens of thousands awaiting final confirmation, and billions more to discover.

This year we also saw the completion of China's Tiangong Space Station. Late last year, China announced they were aiming to finish their space station by the end of this year. To do so, it would require multiple missions including sending up the remaining two modules to complete it. It seemed ambitious at the time, and last month, China completed it. It was a huge milestone for China's space program and a sign of how quickly they are moving in space.

We also saw the proverbially passing of the baton on Mars, as one mission ends and another prepares for a future mission. NASA's InSight, after four years on Mars discovering Marsquakes and studying the layers underneath the surface of Mars, has come to an end. It even sent a sad, final message to Earth. The same week, NASA's Perseverance rover began collecting and storing samples in 15-centimetre titanium tubes. In a few years, two drones will come, collect them, and take them to a rocket for a return to the Earth to be studied in the lab.

The war in Ukraine has been one of the most disturbing, and biggest, stories of the year. It has also shown a new way space is affecting life on Earth. Private space companies have supplied internet to keep Ukrainian weapons and systems working, imaging to track movements, and more. Space technology is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our lives, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown that.

Cracking the top 5 was a discovery by Dalgety sheep farmers Jock Wallace and Mick Miners. On July 9, the SpaceX Crew-1 trunk broke up and re-entered over NSW. A few weeks later, the two neighbours found pieces of it in their paddocks. After getting in touch with me and identifying it, the Australian 5 Space Agency worked with SpaceX to confirm it. The discovery highlighted just how big the space junk problem was becoming. Since then, multiple piece have been found as far west as Tumbarumba.

In June and July, NASA launched three sounding rockets from the Yolgnu country in the Northern Territory. Decades since the last rocket launch from Australia, Equatorial Launch Australia set-up the first commercial spaceport in Australia. It was a big step forward for Australia's space industry. Next year we are likely to see three spaceports in action in Australia.

Coming in at number three, was the long awaited, and multiple-times delayed, Artemis mission. Artemis I was NASA's beginning at getting humans back to the Moon. Artemis uses the Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket ever. It wasn't just the US sending missions to the Moon either. Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and the UAE also have their own missions launched to the Moon this year.

At the end of September, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) reached the asteroid Didymos and performed a manouever straight out of Hollywood. Travelling nearly 24,000km/hr the probe crashed straight into the asteroid, in a test to see if we could shift an asteroid in case one was headed for Earth. Through the use of AI and precision engineering, not only did it work, it shifted the asteroid three times more than calculated - a whopping success.

And the top story of the year without a doubt is the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). After over three decades of development, JWST was launched on Christmas last year. The telescope hosts a 6.5-metre mirror, and with its ability to look in different colours of light than the Hubble Space Telescope, it promised to deliver new views of the Universe. After a six-month wait to get the telescope tested, aligned, and up and running, it has more than delivered on the eager expectations of astronomers. From breathtaking views of nebula, to spotting the most distant galaxies of the Universe, new views of planets like Jupiter, and even the ability to measure the atmosphere of planets around other stars, detecting carbon dioxide, water vapour, and more, JWST has been the truly outstanding.