2022

India becomes the most populous country on Earth

India is now overtaking China to become the most populous country on the planet, with over 1.4 billion people.* The gap between these two countries will begin to widen as China peaks and declines, while India continues to soar ahead. An earlier estimate by the UN had forecast India to reach this point by 2030. However, its population was subsequently found to be growing faster than expected. By 2040, its economy is rivalling both China and the USA* with its population maintaining growth until the 2060s. A major driver of India's prosperity is the rapid expansion of its energy sector. Huge rural areas undergo electrification with solar playing a key role* – now cheaper and more efficient than ever before and even challenging the dominance of coal.* With its plentiful sunlight, India is geographically well placed to capture this energy source* and 100GW are installed by 2022.*

Crossrail opens in London

Crossrail is a major new rail line built for London and southeast England. In development since 1974, it is one of Europe's largest ever transport projects – designed to boost London's subway capacity by over 10% and bringing widespread regenerative benefits. It is officially named as the Elizabeth Line in honour of Queen Elizabeth II.

The line has a total length of 118 km (73 miles), which includes 42 km (26 miles) of tunnels. It runs from the county of Berkshire in the west, through to Essex in the east, linking together all the main economic hubs in the UK capital: Heathrow Airport, the West End, the City of London and Canary Wharf. Nine-coach trains – each 200 metres (660 ft) long and carrying up to 1,500 people – run at frequencies of 24 per hour at peak periods. These brand new, longer trains feature walk-through air-conditioned carriages, live travel information and free Wi-Fi. In addition to the rail line itself, the project includes ten new state-of-the-art stations.*

The original planned schedule was for the first trains to run during 2017. A Comprehensive Spending Review in 2010 – saving over £1bn of the estimated £16bn projected costs – meant that the first trains to run on the central section would be delayed until December 2018. This timeline was further delayed until the Autumn of 2019, then again until 2021, and yet again until 2022.*

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Germany phases out nuclear energy

After the Fukushima disaster in Japan, a number of countries began to reconsider their use of nuclear power. Germany was among the nations to abandon this form of energy altogether. Its government had originally planned to keep plants running until 2036, but this schedule was brought forward. Seven plants which had been temporarily shut down for testing in 2011, and an eighth taken offline for technical problems, would remain closed permanently. The remaining nine plants would be shut down by 2022.

Prior to this phasing out, nuclear power in Germany had produced a quarter of the country's electricity and the industry employed some 30,000 people. The shortfall would be made up by renewables, a temporary increase in coal use* and the cutting of electricity usage by 10 percent through more efficient machinery and buildings.*

Germany's nuclear plants in 2011, showing the zones of radiation in a potential worst-case scenario, as happened with Fukushima. According to this map, large areas of north and south Germany would be made uninhabitable if all plants were to meltdown.

Beijing hosts the Winter Olympics

The 2022 Winter Olympics take place from 4th February to 20th February 2022, in Beijing, China. The elected host city was announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in July 2015.* Beijing, along with Almaty in Kazakhstan, had been considered an outsider before the bidding process began. However, many European cities later withdrew for political or financial reasons. Beijing eventually beat Almaty by 44 votes to 40 with a single abstention. It becomes the first city to host both a summer and winter Games, having hosted the summer games in 2008. It is the third consecutive Olympic Games to be held in Asia, following Pyeongchang 2018 and Tokyo 2021. In addition to Beijing itself there is another city, Zhangjiakou – located 118 miles to the north-west, which hosts the snow events. As with Beijing's previous games, there are protesters concerned with the country's human rights record.

Completion of the Northeast Corridor high-speed train upgrade

In August 2016, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden announced a $2.5 billion federal loan package to pay for upgrades to Acela – the flagship service of America's national railroad corporation, Amtrak. This route, also known as the Acela Express, ran along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) between Washington, D.C. and Boston via 14 intermediate stops, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City.

Avelia Liberty – a model of high-speed train marketed by French company Alstom – was chosen to replace the existing Bombardier-Alstom trainsets on the Northeast Corridor, adapted for North American railroad standards. This would occur alongside track, signalling and station improvements.

A total of 28 new trainsets were ordered, 40% more than the previous fleet, providing a half-hourly service between Washington, D.C. and New York City during peak times and an hourly service between New York City and Boston. An improvement in maximum regular speed to 160 miles per hour (257 km/h) was possible on some portions of the route, while future track and signalling upgrades would enable a potential maximum of 186 mph (299 km/h).

Each train had more carriages (two power cars and nine passenger cars), one-third more seats and featured a new "anticipative tilting system" to ensure a smoother ride quality. Their lightweight design, combined with minimal aerodynamic drag, would cut energy consumption by 20%. Onboard amenities included adjustable reading lights, disability access, an enhanced food service car, power sockets, USB ports, WiFi and other conveniences.

A prototype Avelia Liberty was completed in 2019 to allow for test running, with the first trains entering service in 2021. The final delivery of all 28 trainsets is completed in 2022, at which point Amtrak retires the previous Acela fleet.*

Qatar hosts the FIFA World Cup

Qatar is a tiny Persian Gulf nation of just 1.7 million people. It has the second highest GDP per capita in the world, owing to its massive natural gas deposits. It becomes the first country in the Middle East to host the World Cup.

Summers in Qatar can reach 50°C. However, each stadium employs state-of-the-art cooling technology, capable of reducing temperatures by over 20 degrees celsius. The upper tiers can be disassembled after the tournament and donated to countries with less developed sports infrastructure.

One of the stadia includes a 420,000 sq ft media facade, covering almost the whole exterior. This futuristic screen displays news, adverts, tournament information and live matches to viewers outside.*

China's first space station is complete

China's efforts to develop low Earth orbit (LEO) space station capabilities began with a space laboratory phase, consisting of three "Tiangong" space modules launched in 2011, 2013 and 2015, respectively. These were small and experimental modules intended to demonstrate the rendezvous and docking capabilities needed for a much larger space station complex. They were designed for short stays with crews of three.

The larger, modular space station begins to take shape in 2020, using the previous separate components which are arranged as a Core Cabin Module (CCM), Laboratory Cabin Module I (LCM-1) and Module II (LCM-2), a "Shenzhou" crewed vessel and a cargo craft for transporting supplies and lab facilities.

The multiphase construction program is completed by 2022. The complex weighs approximately 60,000 kilograms (130,000 lb) and will support three astronauts for long-term habitation. It has a design lifetime of ten years.*



Credit: Chinese Society of Astronautics

New Horizons completes its study of the Kuiper Belt

In 2015, after a nine year journey across 3 billion km of space, the New Horizons probe arrived at Pluto. It surveyed this region for several months, returning a treasure trove of data and imagery from this previously unexplored world and its five moons. NASA intended to go even further, however, with plans for a close flyby of a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO)* measuring 30–45 km (19–28 mi) in size. This phase of the mission would start in 2019* at a distance of 43.4 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. By 2022, the KBO study is complete, and New Horizons is heading towards the outermost reaches of the Solar System. By 2038, it will be 100 AU from the Sun.*

The AIDA mission arrives at Didymos

The Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) is a joint NASA/ESA mission to study an Apollo asteroid – Didymos – and its small moon.* It is the first spacecraft to target an asteroid known to have a moon (243 Ida was visited by Galileo, but its moon was a surprise). The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids that orbit within about 1 AU of the Sun.

The objectives of AIDA are:

• to study and demonstrate the kinetic effects of crashing an impactor into an asteroid moon.

• to test whether a spacecraft could successfully deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

• to gain new insights into the relationship between an asteroid's surface and its interior.

• to gain new understanding of how asteroids and binary asteroids form.

The mission consists of two spacecraft: Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) and Hera. The former is launched in 2021 and arrives in 2022. The latter is a follow-up study that is launched in 2024 and arrives in 2027.

DART, the first half of the mission, is an impactor spacecraft that targets and deliberately crashes into the small moon of Didymos. The primary asteroid is about 800 m (2,600 ft) in diameter, while its satellite is 170 m (558 ft) in diameter and orbits 1.1 km from the primary. Didymos is not an Earth-crossing asteroid and there is no possibility that the deflection experiment could create an impact hazard.

The DART spacecraft weighs 500 kg (1,100 lb) and impacts at 6 km/s (3.7 mi/s), producing a velocity change of around 0.4 mm per second, which leads to a significant alteration in the mutual orbit of these two objects, but only a minimal change in the heliocentric orbit of the system. DART has a 20-cm aperture CCD camera to autonomously guide itself to the target site.

A secondary spacecraft – a small six-unit CubeSat known as Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIA) – accompanies DART and is separated shortly before impact to acquire images of the crash and resulting ejecta as it drifts past. DART and its LICIA payload are launched together in July 2021, and the impact of the Didymos moon occurs during October 2022.*

This is followed by Hera in 2027, which provides a more detailed analysis of the aftermath, including confirmation of change in the binary system orbit, characterisation of the moon's volume and surface properties, as well as measurements of the volume and morphology of the DART impact crater.

Didymos made a relatively close approach to Earth in 2003, at a distance of 7.18 million km (4.46 million miles). It makes another close approach in 2123, at a distance of 5.9 million km (3.66 million miles). It also passes close to Mars: 4.69 million km (2.91 million miles) in 2144.

The Dark Ages Radio Explorer (DARE) is launched

The Dark Ages Radio Explorer (DARE) is a NASA spacecraft designed to investigate the early universe, between 80 million and 420 million years after the Big Bang. The observatory is placed in a lunar orbit, using the Moon's shadow to hide from the Sun's light and Earth's radio interference. DARE is 25 feet (7.5 metres) across when its antennae are fully extended. The craft's highly sensitive instruments can be used to measure redshifted emanations from primeval hydrogen atoms – revealing the moment when the first stars began to emit light.

In its early stages, the universe was opaque or "foggy". Light existed, but invisible to modern telescopes. When photons were released (or decoupled), the universe became transparent. At this point, the only radiation emitted was the 21 cm spin line of neutral hydrogen. DARE uses this precisely redshifted 21 cm transition line from neutral hydrogen (40-120 MHz) to identify and view these first illuminations. This faint radiation is an even more powerful tool than the cosmic microwave background (CMB) for studying the early universe, giving a whole new perspective that earlier astronomy was unable to provide.*

In addition, DARE returns data on the earliest black hole accretions, the reionization of the universe, ancient galaxy formations and dark matter decay. The craft is operational from 2022.*

The X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Transport is tested over U.S. cities

The X-59 QueSST ("Quiet SuperSonic Transport") is an experimental supersonic aircraft developed by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Development Programs (ADP) for NASA's Low-Boom Flight Demonstrator program.

The goal of this $250 million project is to reduce the loudness of a sonic boom – the sound produced by the shock waves created whenever an object travels through the air faster than the speed of sound (1,235 km/h, or 767 mph). In the 1950s and 60s, tens of thousands of claims were filed against the U.S. Air Force for noise pollution and damage to property wrought by sonic booms. As a result, from 1973, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prohibited supersonic flight over land.

Concorde, which first flew in 1969 and entered commercial service in 1976, was the only supersonic airliner to carry passengers in regular scheduled service between America and Europe. It had a maximum speed over twice the speed of sound, at Mach 2.04 (1,354 mph or 2,180 km/h at cruise altitude), with seating for up to 128 passengers. However, its supersonic flight capabilities could only be used on the ocean-crossing part of the routes, to prevent sonic boom disturbance over populated areas.

Following the crash of Air France Flight 4590 in July 2000, the general downturn in the aviation industry after the 9/11 attacks of 2001, and the end of maintenance support for Concorde by Airbus, the plane was officially retired from service in October 2003.

Many years would pass without a successor to Concorde. In the meantime, attempts were made to redevelop supersonic technology. "Quiet Spike" was a collaboration between Gulfstream Aerospace and NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center to investigate the suppression of sonic booms. The project involved a retractable 7.3 m (24 ft), lance-like spike mounted on the nose of an F-15B research testbed aircraft. Made of composite materials, this generated three small shock waves that travelled parallel to each other to the ground, producing less noise than typically built up at the front of supersonic jets. Quiet Spike had its first flight in 2006 and more than 50 subsequent tests, with its team being awarded an Aviation Week Laureate Award in 2008.

Building on the success of Quiet Spike, NASA initiated the X-59 QueSST project in 2016, with Lockheed Martin awarded a preliminary design contract. After a series of wind tunnel tests, a critical design review was successfully held in 2019, with fabrication and wing assembly in 2020. The X-59 would be NASA's first large-scale experimental aircraft in more than three decades. The final design, at 29 m (94 ft) long and with a 9.0 m (29.5 ft) wingspan, was intended to reach Mach 1.5 or 990 mph (1,590 km/h), and cruise at Mach 1.42 or 940 mph (1,510 km/h) at a maximum altitude of 55,000 ft (16,800 m).



Credits: Lockheed Martin

The long and pointed nose cone required for the X-59 would obstruct a pilot's forward vision. To compensate for this, an enhanced flight vision system (EVS), consisting of a forward 4K camera with 33° by 19° angle of view, was fitted to the aircraft, combined with a multispectral imaging system beneath the nose to be used for landing.

Following the completion of Lockheed Martin's work in late 2021, NASA would perform additional tests to prove the quiet supersonic technology worked and was safe to operate in the National Airspace System. Beginning in 2022,* NASA flies the X-59 over a number of U.S. cities and collects data about community responses to the flights. This data is provided to both U.S. and international regulators for their use in considering new sound-based rules regarding supersonic flight over land.

During these tests, the X-59 creates only 75 Perceived Level decibels (PLdB) on the ground, about as loud as closing a car door. This makes it less than 1/1000th as noisy as earlier supersonic planes such as Concorde that caused booms of up to 110 PLdB (decibels are measured on a logarithmic scale). This breakthrough is achieved by its long, narrow airframe and canards to keep the shock waves from coalescing.*

Many more years of development are required for the next generation of supersonic aircraft to become widespread. However, the X-59 marks a pivotal milestone for this technology – it paves the way to new commercial cargo and passenger markets in faster-than-sound air travel with fewer restrictions on routes over land.

NASA's community-response flight tests are used by the International Civil Aviation Organisation's (ICAO) Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection (CAEP13) to establish a sonic boom standard in 2025.

Water is becoming a weapon of war

A combination of rapid population growth, lack of fresh water, social tension and weak government has led to significant regional instability in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.* Worsening climate change is producing longer droughts and more severe flooding, with tensions erupting in shared water basins.

Upstream countries are now using their greater resources for economic and political leverage over their downstream neighbours. At the same time, reservoirs and hydroelectric power plants are being targeted by terrorists and rogue states. Public fear of these attacks is forcing governments to take costly measures to protect their infrastructure.

Some particular flashpoints include the Nile in Egypt, Sudan and nations further south; the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq and the greater Middle East; the Mekong in China and Southeast Asia; the Jordan River that separates Israel and the Palestinian territories from Jordan; the Indus and the Brahmaputra in India** and South Asia, as well as the Amu Darya in Central Asia.

Recent advances in desalination have made it easier to filter seawater.* However, these methods are often patented and guarded by Western corporations. Just as food demands were taken advantage of in previous decades,*** the emerging water crisis is now being used as a means of exploitation and blackmail. Some developing nations are even being sued for attempting to develop cheaper versions for themselves.

Global reserves of antimony are running out

Antimony is a rare metalloid, used mainly as alloying material for lead and tin in products such as lead acid batteries, solders and bullets. It also functions in microelectronic products and in credit cards, as an additive for fireproofing, and in some pharmaceuticals. It is found naturally in the form of the sulfide mineral stibnite and was primarily produced in China, South Africa, Bolivia, Russia and Tajikistan.

Exploited by man for millennia, global reserves are finally beginning to run out during the early 2020s.* Since it now holds the bulk of the dwindling supply, China has been subject to controversies over trade. In an effort to control environmental issues and resolve safety problems, many of the country's mines and smelters were shut down in the previous decade. The local Government in Lengshuijiang, Hunan Province – accounting for 60% of world reserves – shuttered nearly all of its mines and smelters, sending the price of antimony soaring.

This pattern will play out again for other minerals in the decades to come. From this point on, business and industry are forced to rely on recycling of older products and/or shift to replacement materials.

For antimony chemicals in paint, pigments and enamels, the substitutes can include compounds of chromium, tin, titanium, zinc and zirconium. Combinations of cadmium, calcium, copper, selenium, strontium, sulfur and tin can be used as substitutes for hardening lead. Selected organic compounds and hydrated aluminum oxide are widely accepted substitutes as flame retardants. However, many of these other substances will themselves face shortages in the years to come.*

Driverless hover-taxis are operational in Dubai

In 2022, a driverless flying taxi service becomes fully operational in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).* This follows testing that began in late 2017 and ran for five years. The Autonomous Air Taxi (AAT), as it is known, is supplied by Volocopter – a Germany-based specialist manufacturer – working with Dubai’s Road and Transport Authority.

The first service of its kind in the world, the AAT is a two-seater aerial vehicle resembling a cross between a helicopter and large drone. It has 18 rotors and fully redundant power trains, with an intelligent autonomous control system able to transport people without human intervention or a pilot. It can travel at speeds of up to 100 km/h (62 mph) using clean electricity and a battery quick-charge and plug-in system, while also featuring low noise levels.

The AAT service is made available to the public through a smart mobility app. This allows customers to book flights, receive booking reference details and track the route of their vehicle. The AAT is part of an increasing trend for automated transport in Dubai – more than a quarter of all passenger vehicles in the city are self-driving by 2030.*

VIPER mission to the lunar south pole

VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) is a NASA rover delivered to the surface of the Moon in December 2022.* It prospects for resources in permanently shadowed areas in the lunar south pole region, which includes mapping the distribution and concentration of water ice.

The vehicle – about the size of a golf cart – is equipped with a drill and three analysers. The Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS) can detect sub-surface water from a distance. VIPER then stops at that location and deploys a 1 m (3 ft 3 in) drill called TRIDENT to obtain samples, for more detailed analysis by a pair of onboard spectrometers.

The mission takes place over several kilometres, with data collected on different kinds of soil environments affected by light and temperature – those in complete darkness, occasional light, and in constant sunlight. Once it enters a permanently shadowed location, VIPER operates on battery power alone and is unable to recharge until it drives to a sunlit area. Its total operation time is approximately 100 Earth days.

The overall goal of VIPER is to identify the best locations for extracting water from the lunar south pole, in preparation for human missions. An extremely valuable resource in space, water has a number of vital uses – in life support systems, for example, and conversion into rocket propellant, when broken down into its constituent elements (hydrogen and oxygen).