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China, in a report filed to the United Nations earlier this month, accused SpaceX of endangering the country's new space station and taikonauts on board through close encounters with at least two of the company's Starlink internet satellites.

Why it matters: China also accused the U.S. of failing to meet its obligations under the Outer Space Treaty and said it isn't doing enough to ensure that the California-based company complies.

China said a Starlink satellite had a close encounter with its space station on July 1 and the station conducted an evasive maneuver to avoid a collision.

It said another close encounter happened on Oct. 21 with a separate Starlink satellite.

What they're saying: "The U.S., while talking about the concept of responsible outer space behavior, is in practice ignoring its obligations under the treaty," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a press briefing Tuesday, according to Bloomberg.

SpaceX has not publicly commented on the complaint, which was officially filed to the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs.

The big picture: SpaceX is attempting to expand internet access around the world through its Starlink Constellation, which is designed to use thousands of relatively low-cost satellites.

Since the project's conception, astronomers and regulators have been concerned that the satellites could contribute to the growing problem of space junk.

China is developing its own satellite constellation project called "StarNet" through a state-owned company. It plans to launch 10,000 satellites in the next five to 10 years, Axios' Margaret Harding McGill reports.

Earlier this year, debris from a Russian anti-satellite weapons test endangered astronauts and cosmonauts onboard the International Space Station.

Go deeper: Moon, Mars and asteroid missions top 2022 space goals

China accuses SpaceX of endangering its space station

China also accused the U.S. of failing to meet its obligations under the Outer Space Treaty.

SpaceX Starlink satellites over Turkey in May 2021.

SpaceX Starlink satellites over Turkey in May. Photo: Burhan Ates/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

China

Space

China is becoming the most formidable rival America has faced, and the risk of confrontation with Russia, North Korea or Iran still looms. Authoritarians are rising, the chaotic Afghanistan exit revealed the limits of U.S. power, and the pandemic, climate change and other critical challenges continue to pose grave threats.

World

A look at the scientific breakthroughs changing the world, explorations in space and in worlds beyond our own and the threats posed to us by our own planet, both out of our control and of our own making.

Science

Axios Space

Axios Science

Space science next year will be rocketed forward with missions to the Moon, asteroids, Mars and the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope coming online. 

Why it matters: The data sent back to Earth from these upcoming missions will help scientists learn more than ever before about objects in the solar system and far beyond it. 

What's happening: Space agencies like NASA, the European Space Agency and Japan's space agency, JAXA, are all aiming to send probes to various targets around the solar system this year. They include: 

Mars: The European Space Agency and Russia are planning to launch their joint ExoMars lander and rover to the surface of the Red Planet in September. 

It will join NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity rovers on the Martian surface. Both are expected to continue their work next year.

Asteroids: NASA's Psyche mission is due to launch in August 2022 on a mission to explore a strange, metal-dominated asteroid that may have once been part of the core of a long-dead planet. 

NASA's DART mission is also expected to arrive at its asteroid target next year in the hopes of slamming into it and figuring out just what it would take to throw a dangerous space rock off of a collision course with Earth.

The Moon: NASA is expected to launch the first flight of its Space Launch System mega-rocket on a trip around the Moon, and the space agency plans to load it with scientific experiments.

The rocket will carry a clutch of small satellites that will investigate water in the lunar environment.

Other nations like Japan, Russia and India are also aiming to send missions to the Moon next year. Russia's mission — called Luna-25 — is designed to search for water near the south pole of the Moon.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope — the successor to the Hubble — is also expected to be up and running starting early in 2022. 

The JWST is tasked with no less than piecing together the early history of the universe using its powerful, sensitive instrumentation to see the light of some of the universe's first galaxies and cut through dust to see newborn stars.

The space telescope is also expected to parse the atmospheres of distant alien planets.

Between the lines: As all of these missions launch and arrive at their targets, astronomers and planetary scientists will also be shoring up their goals for the coming years. 

In 2021, an influential report laid out the major priorities for the next decade of astronomy and astrophysics, centering on the idea that scientists should strive to find a potential twin of Earth orbiting a star like the Sun.

2022 will be the year that researchers and agencies like NASA continue to find ways to prioritize those goals and others laid out by the scientific community this year.

What to watch: China is expected to continue collecting data from ongoing robotic missions to the Moon and Mars.

The nation is also expected to complete its space station in the next year or so, providing a new platform for possible scientific research above Earth.

Moon, Mars and asteroid missions top 2022 space goals

The new year will see more Mars rovers, plus a space probe crashing into an asteroid.

Illustration of an astronaut helmet forming the zero in 2022. 

NASA's next great telescope launches to space

The telescope is heading to a point 1 million miles from Earth and will change our view of the universe.

The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. A rocket launches into clouds

NASA

NASA's $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope is set to launch to space on Christmas Day.

Why it matters: The JWST is designed to capture the light of some of the first galaxies that coalesced after the Big Bang, learn more about how stars form, peer into the atmospheres of alien planets and more. 

How to watch: The telescope — which is considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope — is expected to take flight from Kourou, French Guiana, at 7:20am ET on Christmas Day.

You can watch the launch live via NASA TV starting at 6am ET. 

Between the lines: Getting the JWST to the launch pad has been a long time coming.

The project has been decades in the making with technical and budgetary delays that caused the cost of the telescope to balloon over time. 

What's next: The launch is just the beginning for the JWST and the nervous scientists and engineers working with the mission on Earth. 

After launch, the large telescope will need to unfurl in space, deploying its large heat shield, mirrors and instruments over the course of weeks as it makes its way out about 1 million miles from Earth.

That great distance will mean the JWST won't be eligible to be serviced in the way the Hubble Space Telescope after it got to space. 

Go deeper: NASA's next great space telescope has arrived

NASA's next great telescope is set for launch

The $10 billion JWST is the Hubble Space Telescope's succes

The mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope deployed on Earth

The golden mirrors of the James Webb Space Telescope on Earth. Photo: NASA/Chris Gunn

Scientists using NASA's Juno spacecraft have created an audio track of the probe's flyby of Jupiter's moon Ganymede using electromagnetic data captured during the mission.

Why it matters: This type of converted data can help scientists learn more about Jupiter's extreme magnetic field and how it interacts with the planet's largest moon.

Details: The 50-second video released last week sounds alien. (Listen.)

"If you listen closely, you can hear the abrupt change to higher frequencies around the midpoint of the recording, which represents entry into a different region in Ganymede's magnetosphere," Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton said in a statement.

The change in frequency could be due to Juno passing from Ganymede's night side to the moon's day side, William Kurth, who works on the mission said, but more analysis is needed to account for those changes.

The big picture: Juno started orbiting Jupiter in 2016, and since then, the spacecraft has been beaming back data to help researchers learn more about the massive planet.

Photos from Juno are helping scientists realize that storms on Jupiter look a lot like the cyclones found in Earth's oceans.

“When I saw the richness of the turbulence around the Jovian cyclones, with all the filaments and smaller eddies, it reminded me of the turbulence you see in the ocean around eddies,” Lia Siegelman, an oceanographer who studies this, said in the statement.

It's possible that by understanding Jupiter's long-lived storms, researchers may be able to figure out more about how storms on Earth also work, according to NASA.

Listen to Jupiter's moon Ganymede

Ganymede as seen from Juno. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS

The long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope is set to launch this week on a journey to reconstruct the history of the universe.

Why it matters: The telescope, billed as the Hubble Space Telescope's successor, is designed to peer into the atmospheres of distant alien planets and see some of the first galaxies that formed after the Big Bang.

Driving the news: The JWST is expected to launch on Christmas Eve at 7:20am ET from Kourou, French Guiana. 

You can watch the launch live via NASA TV starting at 6am ET here.

The big questions: For decades, scientists have tried to piece together the early history of the universe, and the JWST is the first observatory that may give them a real shot at answering long-standing questions. They include:

How do stars evolve within massive clouds of dust? 

What are the atmospheres of distant planets made of — and how different are they from Earth?

How did the first galaxies assemble after the Big Bang? 

"This telescope will not just rewrite our history of the early universe, but write it," Caitlin Casey, a University of Texas at Austin scientist who plans to use the JWST for her research, told Axios. "There are so many unknowns and blanks that we haven't yet filled in."

For the project Casey is leading, the JWST will stare deeply at a patch of sky about three times the size of the Moon in our night sky, hopefully capturing a view of some of the universe's earliest galaxies.

Casey and her colleagues will use that data to try to piece together a cohesive picture of what the universe looked like not long after it formed.

The JWST will peer out into the universe primarily in infrared light making it more able to cut through dust and capture the faint light emitted by distant, early galaxies more efficiently than the Hubble. 

The backstory: The $10 billion JWST has faced a number of technical setbacks, delays and a ballooning budget during its decades-long development. 

The telescope was recommended by a committee in 1996.

Construction began in 2004, but the project quickly ballooned, at one point being called the "telescope that ate astronomy."

Getting this telescope to space will allow other big projects in line behind it  — like the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — to eventually launch.

Between the lines: The JWST delays, however, have allowed scientists and engineers to include science goals that weren't possible when the telescope began development. 

When the observatory's development began, scientists hadn't yet found many planets around stars other than the Sun. Today, they know there are thousands of them.

"It's fully possible that we might be able to find bio-signatures of life in the atmospheres of other planets," Steven Finkelstein, a scientist using the JWST to learn more about galaxies, told Axios.

Yes, but: All of this science hinges on the telescope actually working the way it's meant to, and a safe launch is only the beginning. 

Once the JWST gets to space, it will spend about a month in transit to a point about 1 million miles from Earth. (Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, this observatory won't be close enough to our planet for an astronaut servicing mission if something were to go wrong.)

During that transit, the telescope's large sunshield, its instruments and mirrors will all deploy over the course of weeks.

NASA calls it "the most complex sequence of deployments ever attempted in a single space mission," noting there are more than 300 single points of failure items that could go wrong.

The bottom line: "No one has ever before unfolded a telescope in space," JWST scientist Jane Rigby told Axios. "What we're doing is necessary — astronomy simply cannot advance in some key areas until we build bigger telescopes, and that means telescopes that have to unfold."

"I'm confident because we have the best engineering team in the world, we've practiced this on the ground over and over, we've tested all the hardware, and now it's time."

NASA's next great space telescope has arrived

The powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope is set to launch this week.

Illustration of a telescope in space with colorful lines.

NASA is constantly tracking potentially dangerous asteroids in Earth's vicinity, and now a new tool allows anyone to explore their paths through the solar system.

Why it matters: There are about 28,000 near-Earth asteroids and comets tracked by astronomers to make sure they don't pose a risk to our planet.

Details: The interactive tool allows anyone using it to zoom in on specific asteroids of interest in order to learn more about the objects and their orbits.

Another feature of the tool allows users to see the next five close approaches of asteroids to Earth.

"We were keen to include this feature, as asteroid close approaches often generate a lot of interest," Jason Craig, one of the developers of the tool, said in a statement.

"The headlines often depict these close approaches as ‘dangerously’ close, but users will see by using Eyes just how distant most of these encounters really are."

What's next: A NASA mission called DART is currently on its way to impact a near-Earth asteroid and learn how to redirect it. 

That type of tech could come in handy if one of these possibly dangerous space rocks is ever found on a collision course with Earth.

Asteroids visualized

There are about 28,000 near-Earth asteroids and comets tracked by astronomers.

Screenshot of asteroids tracked by NASA as visualized in a graphic

Asteroids tracked by NASA. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Asteroids

A privately funded mission to Venus expected to launch in 2023 could kick off a series of launches that could help reveal whether Earth's "evil twin" once hosted — or still hosts — life.

Why it matters: A controversial study published in 2020 suggests there might be phosphine — a possible sign of microbial life — in the clouds of Venus, bolstering the case to return to the world.

Right now, space missions are primarily funded by government agencies like NASA. Privately funded interplanetary missions could fundamentally change how science is done, opening the door to new avenues of exploration.

Details: The mission, which is being planned by scientists from MIT, Georgia Tech, Purdue University, Caltech and the Planetary Science Institute, will make use of a probe sent to space by a Rocket Lab spacecraft.

A new report from the team explains the probe will come equipped with a laser designed to help it figure out what kind of chemistry is happening in droplets in Venus' atmosphere during a three-minute flight through the planet's clouds.

"Fluorescence or impurities detected in the droplets could indicate something more interesting than sulfuric acid might be wafting around up there, and add ammunition to the idea that parts of Venus’ atmosphere might be habitable," MIT wrote in a news release.

That mission is expected to launch in 2023, with another, larger mission into Venus' atmosphere being planned for 2026 that will build on the results of this one.

The 2026 mission could then lead to another that will actually bring a sample of the world's atmosphere back to Earth.

The big picture: NASA is also setting its sights on Venus. The space agency recently greenlighted two major missions to the cloudy, hot planet to learn more about its potential for past and even current life.

Go deeper: The space industry's monumental 2021

A private mission to Venus

It could kick off a series of launches that could help reveal whether Venus hosted — or hosts — life.

A filtered image of Venus as seen by NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

A filtered image of Venus as seen by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Photo: NASA/JPL

The space industry's tremendous year of huge investments, major human launches and hundreds of satellites sent to space also laid bare just how far the sector has to go before it fully matures. 

Why it matters: Years like 2021 help bolster predictions the space industry could be worth more than $1 trillion by 2040.

What's happening: The industry has seen huge amounts of growth and investment this year, bouncing back from a low point during 2020, the first year of the pandemic. 

Launch, satellite and analytics-oriented companies went public via SPAC and have shown that, at least initially, investors are interested in playing a part in the space industry. 

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin both launched their founders to space within weeks of one another, marking the culmination of decades of work, while SpaceX continued to launch crews for NASA and sent a private crew of astronauts to orbit for the first time. 

NASA has awarded companies multimillion- and billion-dollar contracts to design and build private space stations and help the agency explore the Moon in the future.

Meanwhile, SpaceX has continued to build its mega-constellation of Starlink satellites, with other companies like Amazon not far behind. 

Yes, but: This year has also exposed some of the industry's challenges as it grows. 

A newly published essay from former SpaceX engineer Ashley Kosak claims the company didn't address multiple instances of harassment over her 3.5 years of employment, and she left the company in November. 

Kosak contends the culture fostered by SpaceX has enabled harassment. (SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment on these allegations.)

It isn't limited to SpaceX. Twenty-one Blue Origin employees in September claimed cultural issues within the company — like harassment and chronic overwork — and said they question the safety of their systems.

The big picture: SpaceX and many others in the "new space" industry are beginning to move from being a disruption-focused new company on the scene to a more established player in a maturing industry.

"The way an iconoclastic, we're-breaking-the-rules, we're-doing-something-new organization works is really different from when that organization is a couple thousand people, subject to labor laws and worrying about continuity," Carissa Christensen, founder and CEO of BryceTech, told Axios.

Other risks to the growing industry are also being exposed.

The public is just at the beginning of being able to invest in many space companies as they go public, but most — including Wall Street analysts — don't yet understand the nuances of the growing industry.

Instead, Christensen thinks it's possible that all space companies get lumped into the same bucket and judged based on overall performance of that group.

"If some do well, then space companies are a good investment. If some do poorly, then space companies are a bad investment without noticing the differentiation and the relative performance," Christensen said.

The bottom line: The space industry has grown in recognition, popularity and size this year, but its growing pains need to be resolved.

Get smarter, faster on the modern space era with our free, three-video short course.

The space industry's monumental 2021

Illustration of the number 2021 in space backed by a burst of light

Aerospace

The Geminid meteor shower will peak early next week, and it should be a good show for those under dark skies. 

The big picture: The shower appears in the night sky each December as the Earth passes through the debris left behind by the asteroid 3200 Phaethon.

How it works: The best viewing should be overnight from Dec. 13 into the wee hours of Dec. 14. 

Just be sure to pick a spot with a wide view of the sky, no cloud cover and far from city lights. Give your eyes about 30 minutes to adjust.

"Typically the best time to see a meteor shower is between midnight and pre-dawn, because that's when you are on the leading side of the Earth, watching the comet debris come at you like rain hitting a car windshield," the Planetary Society wrote in a post about the shower.

Yes, but: The nearly full Moon could wash out views of meteors as they streak above

Be sure to head out after the Moon has set in your location for the best views.

Get ready for the Geminid meteor shower

The best viewing should be overnight from Dec. 13 into the wee hours of Dec. 14.

Photo of a person watching a Geminid meteor shower

A Geminid meteor and a sky watcher. Photo: Danny Lawson/PA Images via Getty Images

Billionaire entrepreneurs are fundamentally changing the public's relationship with space.

Why it matters: Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are thrusting the industry into a new era of marketing for mass appeal, angling to make citizens into customers and changing the rhetoric around space in the process.

"I think this is a big moment because the public face of the space industry is no longer NASA and science and peaceful activities. It's now billionaires and companies trying to make money," the Secure World Foundation's Brian Weeden told me.

NASA is also supporting the efforts of private companies, looking to become more of a buyer of services in orbit while using its resources to push deeper into space with missions to the Moon and Mars.

Between the lines: The space industry is finding itself at the center of a cultural clash as billionaires make themselves front and center in spaceflight today.

A shift in rhetoric and perception around space — away from government-led exploration and toward a business realm — "comes at a time when there's a significant amount of backlash and criticism about hyper-capitalism and billionaires and inequality," Weeden said.

Criticism of billionaires could also bleed into American support for space exploration in the future, Weeden cautioned.

Driving the news: On Sunday, Virgin Galactic launched Branson to the edge of space aboard its space plane during a star-studded event that barely nodded to the risks of suborbital flight.

Instead of highlighting technical details, as most NASA-involved launches from Cape Canaveral do, the company's webcast served as a form of entertainment and advertising for a flight with Virgin Galactic.

The company tried to draw in potential customers with guest stars on the broadcast, including Stephen Colbert and Khalid.

Branson himself was onboard ostensibly to analyze the astronaut experience. But Kellie Gerardi, one of the webcast hosts, described it this way:  "For this next generation of astronauts, we have the opportunity to optimize the experience and there’s just no one better to curate that experience than Richard Branson."

But, but, but: What the public gains in entertainment, it could lose in transparency. 

Webcasts that focus more on technical details keep an audience up to date on what's happening in mission control or during flight. 

By trading that technical information for entertainment, the public and press could lose access to important safety information necessary for potential customers to make an informed decision.

Plus, these companies aren't likely to be as beholden to the public as the government, meaning they may not freely share as much information as government actors do.

What to watch: Officials in other nations are taking note of the influence billionaires have on U.S. efforts in space.

"I hope that someday our billionaire oligarchs will begin to spend their money not on the next yachts and vanity fairs, but on the development of space technologies and knowledge about space," Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia's space agency, said on Twitter.

Virgin's show may also force other companies to take note and find new and engaging ways to bring a wide audience into their dreams of space travel while remaining entertaining.

It's not yet clear what Blue Origin will pull out for the webcast of its launch with Bezos on July 20, but if it's anything like past launch broadcasts for the company, it should include a mix of technical data and advertising.

Billionaires are the new face of the final frontier

Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and their ilk are changing the rhetoric around space and the public's relationship to it.

Illustration of planets hanging on a retail shopping rack with sale stickers placed haphazardly

Axios Generate

The White House is providing fresh details of a major satellite program that administration officials call poised to reveal vital information about climate change and extreme weather events. 

Why it matters: Known as the "Earth System Observatory," the program consists of at least five satellites to be launched through 2029 that will enhance, or in some cases revolutionize, the capabilities of the space agency's existing fleet of Earth-observing satellites.

Details: In an interview with Axios on Monday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the upcoming satellite constellation will look at everything from aerosols — tiny particles in the atmosphere that are a major source of uncertainty in climate models — to sea level rise. 

He said these missions will observe the changes in the planet's forests and ice sheets, as well as shifts in water resources and geological phenomena. 

“All of these will create a 3D view of our Earth from the atmosphere to the bedrock," Nelson said. 

NASA chief touts new Earth-observing satellites for climate

"I became more of an environmentalist when I went into space," NASA's Bill Nelson said.

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