NASA's busiest year in decades – an astronomer sums up the dizzying array of missions in 2022

The James Webb Space Telescope began sending its first images back to Earth in the summer of 2022. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI via Flickr, CC BY

NASA had a banner year in 2022, with many successful missions in what was one of the organization’s most active years in decades.

I’m a professor of astronomy who has used NASA telescopes for decades to do research in observational cosmology. I also have a keen interest in the role science plays in humanity’s expansion into space.