Predictions for 2022 (Five years from 2017)

[scienceguy]

So what will be happening in human spaceflight in 2022, five years from now?

I will go first.

SpaceX will be preparing to launch people to Mars, having landed and set up equipment and a base there already.
ESA will have a base on the moon, operated like the ISS.
ISS will still be up there, still doing zero gravity research.
NASA will be using an orbital spaceplane, which replaced SLS and Orion years ago.
NASA will have sent robots to Europa, which are now drilling into the surface.

[meberbs]

So what will be happening in human spaceflight in 2022, five years from now?

I will go first.

SpaceX will be preparing to launch people to Mars, having landed and set up equipment and a base there already.
ESA will have a base on the moon, operated like the ISS.
ISS will still be up there, still doing zero gravity research.
NASA will be using an orbital spaceplane, which replaced SLS and Orion years ago.
NASA will have sent robots to Europa, which are now drilling into the surface.

Those are some ambitious predictions, organizations may be developing what you are talking about by then, but at best your predictions require the most optimistic timeline possible. For the Europa one, there is simply no way it could be done. The fastest Europa Clipper (or similar) could get to Jupiter is around 3 years if it is launched on something like SLS with a direct injection to Jupiter. More like 6 years if launched on something like an Atlas that is likely to be available in time. And then, there is the fact that a NASA mission in CDR phase right now would have trouble launching within 2 years, especially not one with this kind of scope, but there is nothing like that anywhere near a CDR.

That said, there is a lot that can be expected to happen by 2022, especially around 2020. I have no idea how the space industry will react to some of these developments:
-Axiom and Bigelow space stations and/or large commercial modules on the ISS.
-Regular manned commercial space transport, particularly flights to said commercial modules/stations
-Large LEO constellations
-Availability of relatively cheap commercial delivery of small payloads to lunar surface.
-Vulcan (forward path partial reuse, starting with 2nd stage in orbit, backwards from SpaceX, but not ready yet)
-New Glenn (1st stage reuse and price competitive with Falcon Heavy, with greater capability.)
-BFR development far enough along with visible testing by 2020 that anyone not blind will start reacting to it.
-probable first BFR orbital launch around 2022.

Most likely not everything I said will come to fruition, for example there is a good chance that only one of Axiom or Bigelow will get their station started (but I see it as more likely both than neither). Enough of these will either happen by 2020 or clearly be going to happen at that point, that I cannot predict what additional things will be in work by 2022 in reaction to these.

[Endeavour_01]

So what will be happening in human spaceflight in 2022, five years from now?

Commercial Crew vehicles will be conducting regular crew rotation flights to the ISS.

SpaceX (and possibly Boeing) will fly one tourist flight to LEO (or perhaps around the moon) a year.

ISS extended to at least 2026. Likely 2028.

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic will be flying regular sub-orbital tourism flights.

SLS/Orion will be gearing up for the EM-2 flight. DSG and a reusable manned lunar lander are under development.

SpaceX will have made good progress on BFR but are years away from a first flight.

[philw1776]

 Human spaceflight in 2022, five years from now

FH will have flown !!!!  Trust me this time
Commercial Crew a success
Branson's SS2 will have carried passengers on sub-orbital jaunts
BO will be the primary supplier of sub orbital jaunts
BO will have introduced New Glen into service
SpaceX will still be preparing to launch people to Mars, just like now in 2017
SpaceX will have done several short test hops with its latest BFS architecture which will have been revised again & again
ESA will still be talking about a base on the moon
ISS will still be up there, still doing zero gravity research
There will be at least one small commercial space station in LEO
SLS/Orion still live, the undead
DSG boondoggle will still be years away from arriving on orbit
VASIMR still being talked about excitedly
JWST functioning

[jebbo]

Okay, so spaceflight at the end of 2022:

100 – 120 worldwide orbital launches per year. A linear projection from 2001-2017 gives ~103, but it feels like launch rate is about to increase at a faster rate.
ULA. The Vulcan launcher will be just entering service.  ACES will be almost ready.
Blue Origin. New Shepard will be providing suborbital flights; New Glenn will have just entered commercial service.
SpaceX. F9 and FH both in service. BFR hasn’t launched to Mars, but they have done at least one launch to orbit.
SNC. The Dream Chaser cargo version has launched at least once.
Boeing. Starliner is finally operational.
ISS. The ISS will have been extended again and crew replacement will be primarily by commercial crew.
Bigelow and Axiom. At least one (probably Bigelow) will have a commercial station in orbit.
SLS. Will still be plodding along.
ESA and Ariane.  Ariane 5 and Vega continue to be their workhorses, but the first Ariane 6 is entering service. Following the success of SpaceX and, more recently, Blue Origin, the ESA roadmap has flipped to reusable first stages.
China.  Will have started construction of their modular space station and will have succeeded in a lunar sample return mission.
Others.  Planetary Resources will just have launched their prospecting mission (after a 2 year slip).
Moon. Plans will be well underway for a landing. There will have been at least one Apollo 8 style manned flyby.
Mars. SpaceX will have announced their planned landing site.
Orbital debris will be an issue, and a serious programme of mitigation will have started.

--- Tony

[Phillip Clark]

China should have *completed* the assembly of the Tiangong Complex (the modular space station).

China will have landed its first spacecraft on Mars with its small rover operating on the surface.

China will have finalised the design of the CZ-9 and the programme should be heading towards a maiden floight around 2028.

NASA is wondering what to do with SLS and Orion - if they have not been cancelled by 2022.

[francesco nicoli]

1. SpaceX will be 4 years far from flying BFR
2. Bigelow will have an experimental module BA330 recently linked to the ISS. Commercial human transportation to the ISS will be occasional, rare, and expensive.
3. total human population in space will be between 10 and 15.
4. Russia space programme will be almost disappeared.
5. European space programme will be still anchored to Ariane 6, deeply inefficient, and dominated by public-owned corporations.
6. Reaction Engines will be in the process of testing a sub-orbital Skylon, in the US.
7.  the ISS itself will have been extended.
8 work will be ongoing for a Deep Space Station in Moon orbit. This will give a job to SLS.
9 . launch costs will be approximately half than today, but not super low yet.

[TaurusLittrow]

ISS still flying with commercial modules attached
EM-1 has flown but still waiting for EM-2 (delays in PPE development)
"Europa Clipper" lives on thanks to Congressional support for SLS
Commercial crew a success with SNC tagged as a future participant
SpaceX holds >40% of the commercial launch market with most flights using "flight-proven" hardware
BO threatening SpaceX dominance in commercial market with NG
SpaceX has flown 1 or 2 circumlunar tourist missions
BFR/BFS yet to reach space, but Raptor development has matured and subscale "grasshopper" tests underway
ESA, JAXA, and Roscosmos sign onto DSG concept
ESA still talking about a moon base
ESA finally lands successfully on Mars
China constructing a modular space station
China building sample return lunar spacecraft

[Darkseraph]

Spaceflight in 2022:

Commercial
Dragon 2 and Starliner are both performing routine missions to ISS
ISS will now feature a large commercial lab.
There will be no free flying private stations yet.
Boeing and SpaceX will have flown a small number of orbital tourists.
LunarCOTS will be under development.
Lochkheed Martin will propose a version of Jupiter-Exoliner for LunarCOTS.
Blue Origin will have flown 30 times to orbit and will begin testing a reusable upper stage for New Glenn.
New Shepard will have flown 100 times.
Virgin Orbit will have flown approximately 80 missions.
Stratolaunch will partner with Virgin Orbit/Virgin Galactic on 'LauncherTwo' . Soyuz like payload capabilities.
Reaction engines will pivot towards creating a hypersonic bomber for the USA and UK military.
Rocketlab will be conducting around 18 launches per year.
Firefly will have become operational and recieved a new NASA contract.
Masten will partner with a big contractor to bid on LunarCOTS
Orbital servicing of commsats will be normal.
OrbitalATK and SSL will propose adapting their orbital servicing technology for ISS and DSG.
BFR will not have made it to orbit yet.
OrbtialATK NGLV is cancelled.
Vulcan is operational.

China
China will have assembled a large station that has hosted international astronauts and experiments.
A Lunar South Pole Sample Return mission will be successfully completed.
Long March 9 will be far along in development, now featuring RD180 engines.
China will have landed on Mars once with a follow up mission being prepared.
Orbital servicing by Taikonauts at Chinese Space Station will have been demonstrated.

NASA
SLS will have flown 3 missions.
SLS program will get a small budget increase to enable more frequent missions.
The first component of the DSG will be in orbit around Moon.
NASA will create LunarCOTS program for delivery of cargo to both the DSG and Lunar Surface.
ISS will be further extended to 2030 and upgraded. VASIMR module will be added.
Hubble will be serviced again.
Human Lunar lander based on Orion will be under development.
Planet 9 flyby mission is on the drawing board utilizing NEP.
Planet 10 is discovered in a highly eliptical orbit with a mass similar to Mars and a composition similar to Titan.

Europe
Ariane 6 operational but heavily dependent on ESA missions.
ESA develops a cargo vehicle for DSG and a small lunar lander.
Prometheus gets a funding boost.
ESA has a scaled demo platform for landing boosters.
Europe sets up a commercial space program that provides small amounts of funding to European startups.
Vega will have a much larger flight rate than 2017. Constellations will benefit it.

Russia
Soyuz and Proton are still flying regularly.
Federatsiya flies once without crew.
Angara is restricted to civil and military missions, flying infrequently.
Russia provides a module to DSG.
A cosmonaut flies on Chinese Space Station.
Russia's answer to New Glenn is on the drawing board. Uses multiple RD180 engines, lands down range from Baikonur.

Iran
Iran sends a military test pilot to space on a suborbital mission.
Iran now have a launch vehicle capable of sending 1 ton to LEO.
A Soyuz-Class booster will be on the drawing board with first flight planned in 2030s.

North Korea
North Korea will heavily proliferate missile technology in the next 5 years, desperate for money.
The North will conduct increasingly successful missions with small rudimentary satellites to add credbility to its detterent.

South Korea
South Korea will have conducted several flights of KSLV2.
KARI will join the ISS partnership.
KSLV3 will be in development as a EELV-class reusable system.
South Korea will have landed on the Moon.

Turkey
Turkey will be developing a small indigenous launch vehicle for its military.

Canada
Atlantic Canada will have a minor spaceport for small commercial launch vehicles.
Canadarm3 will be developed for DSG.

India
India will not have flown a human mission yet but will be deep into development of that capability.
India will fly 12 missions a year by 2022.
Chandrayanne 3 mission will be far along in construction, sending a rover to the Lunar South Pole.

Japan
SLIM mission will have been successful.
H3 is operational and a cargo lander is in design as part of Japans contribution to DSG.
H4 is on the drawing board. It will be a fully Hydrolox TSTO RLV.
Japan revives plans for indigenous human spaceflight capability.

Brazil
Brazil will have performed a successful suborbital demo of a small ELV.

[Proponent]

So what will be happening in human spaceflight in 2022, five years from now?

Commercial Crew vehicles will be conducting regular crew rotation flights to the ISS.

<snip>

ISS extended to at least 2026. Likely 2028.

<snip>

SLS/Orion will be gearing up for the EM-2 flight. DSG and a reusable manned lunar lander are under development.

Since i have yet to work up the courage to make a prediction of my own, I certainly am certainly in no position to criticize others' predictions.  But may I respectfully ask how one envisions NASA having the funds to simultaneously operating ISS, flying SLS/Orion and developing a lunar lander?  Can I reasonably conclude that you predict a significant budget boost?

[Endeavour_01]

But may I respectfully ask how one envisions NASA having the funds to simultaneously operating ISS, flying SLS/Orion and developing a lunar lander?  Can I reasonably conclude that you predict a significant budget boost?

The current administration is anything but predictable so a significant budget boost could certainly be in the cards IMHO. That said, a significant budget boost is not necessary for my predictions to come true.

Couple of clarifications:

1. I am assuming NASA's budget rises with inflation.

2. It depends on what you consider the phrase "under development" to mean. To me, it means that the program has been announced and is receiving some kind of funding. For example CCP received only ~50 million dollars during its first year of existence. To me that counts as "under development."

In other words I don't anticipate a large amount of funding for a manned reusable lunar lander by 2022. Just enough to get the program started. On the other hand if the current administration is serious about getting boots on the ground before the end of 2024 more funding could be forthcoming.

3. The aforementioned lunar lander could come from anywhere (NASA, commercial, international partners, or some combination of such). NASA may not have to pay the full cost of development.

[A_M_Swallow]

Predictions for 2022. This is 5 years in the future.

1. At least two of the following companies will have landed ~100kg payloads on the lunar surface Astrobotic Technologies, Moon Express and Masten Space Systems.

2. NASA will have issued a formal Request For Information (RFI) or paid for a study for a reusable cabin for a manned lunar lander. The cabin and astronauts to be transported between a lunar spacestation and the surface and returned by the XEUS ACES lander. All up mass of the cabin including cargo and consumables to be less than 25 tonnes.

3. A variant of the Bigelow B330 has been attached to the ISS.

4. A manned lunar rover with life support will be in development.

5. The Propulsion and Power Module for the Deep Space Gateway (under its latest name) will be under going testing.

[yokem55]

I'll bite.
In 2022 BFR is about where Falcon was in 2012. It's had successful flights but had issues and somewhat underperforming. There will have been at least 1 Carbon Fiber tankage related failure during the initial booster-less test of the ship. The heat shield will need a redesign for better reusability. Raptor has been a rock solid engine.

Falcon 9 is flying 25-30 times per year, with Heavy flying once or twice per year.

ULA will have Vulcan getting to it's first launch in late 2020 with somewhat underperforming BE-4 engines but with a somewhat over performing BE-3 based upper stage. By 2022 they are flying it ~6 times per year. SMART reuse is scrapped after a recovery failure due to the shear distance out at sea.

Blue Origin has had 2 successful flights of New Glen, but with both first stages lost after staging, one on landing, one during reentry. BE-4 took much longer to complete qualification then expected.

AR has purchased one of the successful small sat launch companies and is working on an in-house house LV targeting the 10-ton to GTO market with an AR-1 first stage and an oversized J2-X second stage.

SLS will have launched once. An early core shutdown prevented the full execution of the circumlunar mission, but Orion is still able to reach EML1 and able to perform a mostly nominal mission there. The new President uses the partial failure as an excuse to cancel the program 2 months before EM-2.

ISS will have had at least one serious, life threatening scare, but still has plans to be extended to 2028 with new modules and power facilities coming up from private organizations. Commercial cargo and crew continue to be highly success.

Ariane 6 is flying but competition from SpaceX, ULA and Blue origin is keeping them from flying many commercial payloads.

... That's all I can come up with right at moment.

[Athrithalix]

Given the propensity for making predictions on this website, maybe they could be tracked properly, it would be interesting to check back and have an easy way to see who was getting what right. Prediction Book is pretty good, not only can you track your predictions, you can list confidence, and see if your 70% confident predictions are true 70% of the time or not.
https://predictionbook.com/

[high road]

- SpaceX will still be developing BFR, which will be 'next year' for a few more years.
- The number of F9 launches will start to creep up, after having remained stable a few years in a row due to the remaining market not going for cheaper launches, and new applications taking time to develop.
- ESA will be planning/talking about a moon base, much like they do in 2017, still years away from materializing.
- ISS or something that was once part of the ISS, will still be up there, working its way through a privatization process, that proves far more difficult than handing over the proverbial keys.
- NASA will still be planning for missions using SLS by order of congress, although few if any of these are actually funded by congress.
- Serious debate will be going on whether NASA should actually run the DSG, or should just transfer the entire thing to commercial partners and just purchase their services. Depending on how far this discussion has shifted towards commercial, the DSG has not even launched yet.
- Moon express has worked out any remaining issues and proved it can launch to the moon. Missions are rare and far between, and are indirectly sponsored by NASA.
- Missions to the moon are on NASA's books, but requiring dedicated vehicles that need to be designed by NASA and require SLS to launch, so few if any have materialized.
- New Glenn has had a number of test flights, but is not yet doing regular commercial operations.
- Suborbital tourist flight launches have stabilized, drawing a steady stream of customers each year, but not bringing in much money for space exploration in general. Other than indirectly through greater enthusiasm for space, which is hard to measure.
- A telescope specifically designed to detect oxygen in the atmosphere of exoplanets will be under construction. Data from JWST will be used to finetune this new telescope.

[Eric Hedman]

A new launch date for SLS EM-1 will be announced for NET Q4 2025.

[savuporo]

- Smallsats transform the space technology
- Kessler syndrome is real

[freddo411]

2022

* Since starting in 2018, Starlink began, slowly at first, providing ubiquitous internet connectivity.  E. Musk is worth an estimated 50 billion dollars as the communication mogul of the 21 century.  Telsa has been sold to Toyota.   SpaceX remains a private company.   Starlink is publically traded

* SpaceX has been flying Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets at a slowly increasing cadence needed to service its comsat constellation and its other nascent businesses.   In 2022, there are 4 to 5 flights a week. 

* Blue Origin is flying once a week.   In additional to commercial competing with SpaceX, then have a large contract with the US gov't to be the alternative provider for launch services.

* Commercial space travel is a 1 billion dollar a year business.   Approx 500 million dollars  a year total is spent by countries like Australia, the UK, Sweden, Malaysia, Korea, Brazil and UAE to host their astronauts on World Trade Station in LEO for two or four week stints.   Several business are shuttling raw materials and employees up, and manufactured goods down from the WTS.   Several big budget films have been shot in LEO, but the biggest surprize is the greater than 500 million dollars spent by people to visit the station for tourism.

* ISS is in it's final years.   No one can be found (or the gov't can't agree on) a way to keep it going.   

* There is no Moon base.  There is a lot of talk about  a moon base; perhaps the next administration will fund a return to the moon.

* The replacement JWST is scheduled to be launched in two years to replace the first telescope lost when it did not deploy correctly.

* The US air force funds a large constellation of small sats to provide persistent surveillance data.   This represents something like 50% of revenue for BO, and 20% of the revenue for SpaceX

* BFR has made a number of sub orbital and orbital flights.   Turn around time has been hampered by a number of operational issues.   Work continues to optimize the BFR.   Boca Chica hosts an off shore launch platform.   EM. has announced that he has completed work on BFR, and is scaling up to the BMFR and putting the entire company into the new design.

[meberbs]

My predictions for 2022 are thus:

Your post is obviously sarcastic and some of the points are clearly you promoting your anti-science beliefs.

1) The Oort Cloud grows and blots out large swaths of the universe from being viewed at Earth.

2) Invisible asteroids permeate thru our solar system supplying not only the material essence of liquid water upon every object in our solar system, but also the vital nutrients of mitochondrial DNA, photosythentic precursors as well as the occasional seeds of extraterrestrial bacteria.

You should do some research on the evidence for the existence of the Oort Cloud and the evolution of the solar system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_water_on_Earth

3) The climate on Mars continues to generate ample sustainable resources for human life, livestock and agriculture.  The lakes at the top of Olympus Mons begin to teem with life, so abundant, that a mission to begin terraforming is funded by all nations on Earth.

Terraforming Mars is a very long term possibility, and no sarcastic comment changes that it could be done (though not in the near term) or that there are resources on Mars that can be used without first terraforming the whole planet.

9) Colleges and universities discover that a large majority of enrolling students are seeking a formal education in order pursue a career in space.  Bachelors level as well as advanced degrees for deep space exploration, astronautics and flight testing are offered throughout all the Ivy League as well as other major conferences (SEC, Big 10, Pac 10 and many others).

It is actually documented that increases in STEM degrees were tied to inspiration from the Apollo program, and with some of the advances happening in space, over the next 5 year this could start happening again. (there are obvious time delay factors involved)

[Lar]

All the cool kids are doing it... My predictions for (the end of) 2022

SpaceX:
- 100+ F9 and FH launches a year, with over 50% of the total world wide commercial market
- Launch cadence very predictable, backlog mostly worked through, most launches within 2 weeks of originally projected schedule
- No Raptor upper stage
- Pricing switched around, first launch now cheaper, flight proven block 5 more expensive
- There will be 3 ASDS on the east coast, not because of FH but just to keep cadence going
- Starlink very actively being deployed to hit the deadlines, and using a good chunk of the total launch cadence
- Commercial Crew hitting stride, cargo bubbling along nicely, with a mix of D1 and D2
- The D2 hull production line is shut down, lots of D1 and D2 hulls in stock and refurbishment working out
- F9/FH production line still up and running, producing S2:S1 at 10:1
- SpaceX chooses to submit only BFR to the Airforce launch capability programme and gets funding.
- BFR (9m version) will have had several suborbital and orbital test flights.
- Ed Kyle still won't believe their numbers
- Two tourist flights around the moon so far, more on manifest
- Jim still will think success is mostly due to young people working crazy hours
- No Raptor upper stage (did I repeat myself?)

Virgin
- After another major upset, Branson will exit, sell assets to whoever will take them

Blue
- Flying some suborbital flights for tourists with New Shepard but not high frequency
- New Glenn in test phase but no more than 1/2 dozen paid launches so far
- QuantumG will still be throwing shade on their speed (er, lack thereof)
- We still won't know exactly what is in New Armstrong
- Bezos will have invested at least 8B by now as he continues to sell 1B a year of Amazon stock.

OrbitalATKNorthrupGrumman
- Still delivering cargo with Cygnus. Now on Antares again, no more Atlas
- Next Gen Rocket not selected by Airforce for development, still a paper rocket
- Still launching from MARS
- L1011 still flying and launching Pegasi

ULA
- Delta Heavy "almost" retired... any year now.
- Atlas still flying but ULA rationing engines
- ULA selects BE4, Aerojet lobbies to force them to choose theirs but fails
- Vulcan in early test, using dual engine Centaur.
- ACES with IVF still in the future... always "next year"
- Jongoff keeps hinting about future awesome stuff...  but can't tell us about it.
- SMART reuse abandoned as not that smart
- LazyB and LockMart refuse to give ULA any extra capital, or freedom to innovate, milk it for revenue.
- ULA stops advertising their schedule as a feature after studies show their current predictability is no better than SpaceX

Sierra Nevada
- DreamChaser cargo flying
- SN uses F9 for a launch to validate it's doable but mostly sticks to Atlas
- Crew DreamChaser still in the future

SLS
- Alabama (sorry, need to stop here for a second and just say that I have to use stupid words to get my point across. I know that means I must have a weak argument, but that's why I use bad words). has too much clout, so it doesn't get killed, again. And again. And again.
- Still no missions to speak of.
- Europa Clipper slips to 2024
- Projected frequency 1 per 2 years.
- Launched once so far, EM2 slipped due to tower construction taking too long. Talk of using ICPS on EM2

Ariane
- Ariane 5 still flying but mostly government missions. Few commercial customers willing to dual manifest or pay price
- Ariane 6 in development
- Ariane 7 being mooted (fully reusable)
- Another strike at Kourou will have taken it out of service for at least 3 months by now

Satellites
- almost all Geo birds are all electric
- So many cubesats no one can count them all except NORAD
- PRI and DSI both will have launched probes but not yet actually mined anything.

ISS
- Now extended to 2028.
- Russians still threatening to leave
- Russian module no closer to launching, new leaks found
- Bigelow BEAM still there, much to everyone's surprise. Used for storage
- Bigelow still shopping a new module to be added to ISS, but NASA not interested.
- NanoRacks sponsors a commercial astronaut to tend fiber production (for others) and launch/babysit cubesats and generally be a dogsbody for the rest of the crew.
- At least one Cygnus retained on station instead of deorbited, used for automated experiments that need to be sealed off
- Still a crunch with docking/berthing/airlocks/expansion
 
Space Science
- INSight slipped to 2024
- JWST launched, but almost out of helium already after not seeing anything much
- Hubble still functioning but limping, SpaceX proposed service mission, not taken yet
- 2020 sample gathering mission slipped to 2026
- All the rovers are still working but the wheels showing serious wear
 

[MikeAtkinson]

A few observations first:

A. the total space market is growing in real terms, but at a slower rate than in the recent past.

B. the price for launch has fallen recently and is likely to fall further. This is only just starting to feed through into payloads and applications, except perhaps LEO internet constellations (StarLink is probably predicated on cheap launch, not sure about the others). This means that launch as a proportion of the total space market is falling.

C. there is a trend for satellites to both get bigger and smaller, bigger for GEO payloads (excluding propulsion), smaller for LEO constellations.

D. it takes a long time to develop space hardware, few things that are not in development now will be deployed in 5 years time.

E. several areas including mil/intel, human space flight and launch are on the cusp of major changes, because of the long development time changes in these areas will not be complete.

F. there has been a general shift from government to commercial, which has occurred over decades, this is likely to continue, but this shift does not mean reduction in total government spend.

G. there is a trend to more players, with the advent of smallsat launchers launch is not longer the preserve of big countries and there large contractors. Similarly medium and small organisations can launch and operate satellites.

H. there is a shortage of profit, the combination of only a modest increase in total market, lower prices, large development costs and an increase in the number of players means that profits will be hard to come by. This is only likely to get worse.

I. a shortage of profit should make access to venture capital (and other forms of capital) hard to come by, this does not seem to currently be the case, but could change rapidly.

J. there are large market distortions caused by national interests, this is not likely to change over the next few years. Nations do not like spending money outside their borders, leading to barter and workshare agreements.

K. aerospace projects often suffer delays, this can happen to any organisation, recent experience with similar projects can help but is not a guarantee of being on-time and on-budget.

L. some projects can blow their budget and timescale by massive amounts (e.g. JWST, Angara). Generally slowing a project causes its total budget to increase, as does changing the specification. A trend to faster development and more churn in applications should lead to more projects being cancelled if they are late or are overtaken by other developments, but this does not seem to be the case.

M. because cubesats are relatively cheap to design and operate they are in the reach of universities, small and medium companies and developing nations.

Some more specific predictions, based on these general observations, later.

[gorgon69]

I really like the idea, but I don't think that in 5 years we will be seeing any space missions, rather reconstruction of roads and basic infrastructure if the geopolitical world doesn't change its' current course

[jebbo]

SpaceX:
- 100+ F9 and FH launches a year, with over 50% of the total world wide commercial market

That's a very aggressive one, given we're likely to see ~90 orbital launches this year (~20 from SpaceX) and launch rate seems to be growing linearly at about 2 per year (looking at 2001+ numbers).

It implies not just SpaceX growing from 20/yr, but everything else growing from 70 to 100.

But eminently testable and I'd like it to be true! Definitely one to watch.

--- Tony

[Lar]

SpaceX:
- 100+ F9 and FH launches a year, with over 50% of the total world wide commercial market

That's a very aggressive one, given we're likely to see ~90 orbital launches this year (~20 from SpaceX) and launch rate seems to be growing linearly at about 2 per year (looking at 2001+ numbers).

It implies not just SpaceX growing from 20/yr, but everything else growing from 70 to 100.

But eminently testable and I'd like it to be true! Definitely one to watch.

--- Tony

I count Starlink in the commercial launch column. It requires a LOT of launches.  So will its competitors.

Another prediction....  in 2022, NSF will still be plagued with anti-science trolls ranting about Oort clouds and stuff.

[TakeOff]

SpaceX:
- 100+ F9 and FH launches a year, with over 50% of the total world wide commercial market

That's a very aggressive one, given we're likely to see ~90 orbital launches this year (~20 from SpaceX) and launch rate seems to be growing linearly at about 2 per year (looking at 2001+ numbers).

It implies not just SpaceX growing from 20/yr, but everything else growing from 70 to 100.

But eminently testable and I'd like it to be true! Definitely one to watch.

--- Tony

I bet it won't happen, because the F9 core will be old already in 2022. Most mass will be launched by other rockets then. And SpaceX will have more like 80% global market share than 50%.

[meberbs]

- JWST launched, but almost out of helium already after not seeing anything much

JWST running out of helium is not a major failure mode. Overall, JWST is passively cooled. Only one instrument (out of 4) has active cooling, and the helium used is a closed loop system, not like Spitzer.

https://jwst.nasa.gov/cryocooler.html

[deruch]

- BFR (9m version) will have had several suborbital and orbital test flights.

- Hubble still functioning but limping, SpaceX proposed service mission, not taken yet

Curious about these two.  SpaceX has fielded BFR/BFS could they go grab Hubble and bring it back home? 

[Lar]

- BFR (9m version) will have had several suborbital and orbital test flights.

- Hubble still functioning but limping, SpaceX proposed service mission, not taken yet

Curious about these two.  SpaceX has fielded BFR/BFS could they go grab Hubble and bring it back home? 

I'm dubious that it could be returned to gravity/atmosphere without suffering major damage. Grabbing it means bringing it to a museum. Servicing it would be in place.

[Zed_Noir]

- BFR (9m version) will have had several suborbital and orbital test flights.

- Hubble still functioning but limping, SpaceX proposed service mission, not taken yet

Curious about these two.  SpaceX has fielded BFR/BFS could they go grab Hubble and bring it back home? 

I'm dubious that it could be returned to gravity/atmosphere without suffering major damage. Grabbing it means bringing it to a museum. Servicing it would be in place.

Slightly far-fetch. But in theory as long as the current Hubble primary mirror is intact after a trip back to Earth. You could rebuild the telescope with new components and return it back to back to service at a new location with the BFS cargo. Like the Martian Lagrange points.

[Lar]

Let the mods deal with users, let's not get into detailed analysis of individual users by other users.

[saliva_sweet]

Vulcan was cancelled in 2018. The math came in and there was no market for it. ULA continues to fly the Atlas which is allowed to not let SpaceX get a monopoly. It will be retired in a couple of years when New Glenn becomes operational.

New Shepard flew with people precisely once, in september 2018, two months before Dragons crewed test flight. The mainstream media trumpets this as the first private company taking a man to space and Bezos beating Musk once again. Only these forums and some other corners of the internet will remember Spaceship one and mumble disgruntedly into their beards. Musk goes critical on twitter. The next flight is promised, but never happens. A year later, while talking about some other things Bezos reveals that New Shepard is cancelled (no market) and the company is focused on the New Glenn.

Europe: Ariane 6 is kind of a success - higher flight rate (>10/year) and lower cost than Ariane 5 (retired). Attractive option for commercal customers. Arianespace can't trumpet about this too much though, because every time they do someone points out that government subsidies have actually increased, souring the mood. Spacex is still on everyones mind, they are nearing 50 flights/year. The economics of reusability are fairly understood and a reusable launcher is in work. EU will find the money for it.

edit: a couple of small additions

Virgin galactic will be doing regular suborbital flights (3-6 per year) at 500000 per ticket (in 2017 dollars).

BFR will have the first test flight "in the next year or so" according to musk.

[calapine]

All the cool kids are doing it... My predictions for (the end of) 2022

- 100+ F9 and FH launches a year, with over 50% of the total world wide commercial market

- BFR (9m version) will have had several suborbital and orbital test flights.

- We still won't know exactly what is in New Armstrong

- Ariane 6 in development

I can tell you are a SpaceX fan.... 

[Lar]

All the cool kids are doing it... My predictions for (the end of) 2022

- 100+ F9 and FH launches a year, with over 50% of the total world wide commercial market

- BFR (9m version) will have had several suborbital and orbital test flights.

- We still won't know exactly what is in New Armstrong

- Ariane 6 in development

I can tell you are a SpaceX fan.... 

You know what they say
"You can always tell a SpaceX fan... you just can't tell him or her MUCH"

As for Hubble, I can see a service mission, mostly as a demo of what's doable.... But rather than bringing it back and rebuilding it, with the very low $/kg to LEO price BFR brings, it's more likely that a fleet of similar, but cheaper, (much cheaper), instruments would be launched. Maybe not in 2022, but not that long afterwards.

[calapine]

Well, since all the cool kids are doing it.

My shorter list, modelled after Lar's predictions:

SpaceX
- Falcon 9 has surpassed >100 flights total, with one RUD since 2017
- Falcon Heavy flying but with low cadence due to adequate performance of F9
- F9 and Falcon Heavy still in production
- BFR still in development, has been re-scoped again.

Virgin
- Closed shop or sold off

Blue Origin
- New Glenn has seen successful first flight and several commercial ones
- New Armstrong specs announced

Orbital
- Cygnus still flying but on Atlas
- Antares retired due to lack of business case
- NGL project dead

ULA
- Delta IV and Heavy have been retired
- Atlas V is still flying, but with end in sight
- Vulcan flying, with Centaur 5 upper stage
- ACES still in development

SLS
- EM-1 successful
- EM-2 pushed to 2023

Arianespace
- Ariane 5 using up the last construction batch and has it's last launch in 2022 (one year earlier than planned)
- Ariane 6 debuts successfully within +/- 2 months of target date (July 2020), production ramped up.
- Arianegroup claims Ariane 6 needs to be upgraded with a reusable first stage (no solids) to stay competitive.
- Arianegroup calls this Ariane 6+ although it's really a new launcher. Asks ESA for € 3bn+ Euro

SpaceScience
- ISS extended to 2028
- DSG deeply controversial with Space geeks
- JWST launched, working and producing science
- ESA Mars rover landed successfully to the big relief of ESA

Edit: spelling

[raketa]

SpaceX:
- 100+ F9 and FH launches a year, with over 50% of the total world wide commercial market

That's a very aggressive one, given we're likely to see ~90 orbital launches this year (~20 from SpaceX) and launch rate seems to be growing linearly at about 2 per year (looking at 2001+ numbers).

It implies not just SpaceX growing from 20/yr, but everything else growing from 70 to 100.

But eminently testable and I'd like it to be true! Definitely one to watch.

--- Tony

Spacex:
2014    6
2015    7
2016    7(if no failure probably 11)
2017    20
They double their flight cadence( 3 missing flight from 2016 and 3 reuse booster) their production of new S1 speed up by 40%.
But if they reuse F9S1 block 5 10 times. If they are producing them right now. They will have in 2 year fleet to do 100 flights a year easy.

[Asteroza]

SpaceX
- Nearly exclusively F9H missions, no more standalone F9 missions wherever possible
- BFR late
- Starlink deployment late due to deployer failure(s)

Virgin
- Branson refunds suborbital tourists and shuts down Virgin Galactic (likely after another accident)
- Launcher One survives to first launch, but may face forced merger with Stratolaunch

Blue Origin
- New Shepard based commercial reusable sounding rocket service starts, but suborbital tourism is dead
- New Glenn has strong start but has spectacular accident forcing long standdown
- New Armstrong canceled
- Bezos officially has burned $10+ billion on New Glenn, validating the old saw "$10 billion for a new space vehicle"

Orbital
- Cygnus flies Atlas only (Antares dies)
- NGL DOA
- Offload Pegasus to Stratolaunch completely

Stratolaunch
- Acquihires Launcher One/Virgin Galactic
- Teams up with SNC for Dreamchaser launches

ULA
- DIV done
- Atlas limping
- Vulcan has major redesign to improve reusability causing delays
- In unexpected move, ACES tech being shopped around to others for OEM/licensed build to gain stranglehold on orbital ops and as a precursor to managed tug services

Rocketlab
- Good launch cadence
- Announce work on reusable first stage

NASA
- SLS canned after 4 manifested flights
- ISS slugging along, commercial ops takeover discussion dragging feet but Nanoracks sponsored commercial astronaut onboard
- ISS Axiom module demo scheduled
- DSG buildout actually starts but buildout delayed
- LunarCOTS becomes a thing, partially in support of DSG

ESA/Ariane
- Soyuz ST continues despite Vega launches
- Ariane 5 order book closed
- Ariane 6 happens but is a market failure
- Heavy infighting on doing a Ariane 6+ or a fresh design Ariane 7 with better reusability, no decision yet
- Partially funds Skylon NTV to hedge bets

JAXA/Japan
- New private rockets start, but are market failures
- H3 delayed
- HTV based capsule development starts
- Closer cooperation with South Korea

China
- shakeout in newspace players relying on ICBM solid cores, some mergers
- Tiangong station initial construction completed, reserved for government/domestic commercial payloads/research
- Shenzhou followon program formally announced for larger crew/cargo vehicle
- Will launch a commercial space station core block/truss at ISS inclination, invite foreign government and commercial modules/hosted payloads to link up. Bigelow will take them up on their offer. First commercial ZBLAN optical fiber production occurs here. First SpiderFab/Archinaut type 3D printing external structure fabrication demo occurs here.
- Sea launch of a newspace rocket happens

Russia
- Soyuz marches along but has a major failure
- Proton has another failure and plans are afoot to retire
- Federatsia/Fenix delayed but actually moving along, not a paper project
- Angara/Vostochny still a hot mess, some managers arrested for corruption
- Push for a commercial followon in the vein of Dnepr/Rockot for Topol/Bulava ICBM families
- Sea Launch flies once more, then canned

India
- PSLV has another embarrassing failure, blamed on privatization
- Fly their man rated capsule empty once

North Korea
- Detonates orbital EMP in show of force to demonstrate nuclear capabilities, causing significant satellite losses and Van Allen belt strengthening (possible micro-kessler syndrome precursor)

General
- Another major in-orbit collision
- Somebody finally demos a working electrodynamic tether propulsion demo
- VASIMR demo a resounding disappointment
- E-sails are the new hotness
- Commercial repair/refuel of GEO sats starting with sats that have appropriate bus design/receptacles
- Serious GEO Lasercomm discussion in parallel with space corral payload hosting bus/service
- Most of the US smallsat launchers do poorly, lots of consolidation/mergers/bankruptcies
- Brazil will make efforts to expand commercialization of Alcantara spaceport, by declaring it a free-trade zone including inviting foreign providers to setup without a local joint venture
- New defacto small cargo standard emerges, mix of cargo spec (roughly JEM airlock sized with room temp support), delivery spec (2 day launch/delivery fast rendezvous and 2 day retrieval/reentry), and a delivery vehicle interface spec (external docking point/idle hard mount, cargo transfer ops including door/airlock interface, close approach with arm capture for hard dock/berthing)
- XS-1 program surprising success, but leads nowhere
- Micro-Kessler Syndrome event of a specific orbital band requires big changes in trajectory design/planning for megaconstellations and anybody heading higher.
- Unexpected strengthening of Van Allen belts forces spacecraft redesigns, serious talk of draining the belts.

[saliva_sweet]

Vulcan was cancelled in 2018. The math came in and there was no market for it. ULA continues to fly the Atlas which is allowed to not let SpaceX get a monopoly. It will be retired in a couple of years when New Glenn becomes operational.

I will elaborate that this will happen because ULA and Blue Origin will effectively be the same entity by 2022. Either one buys the other or an umbrella company is created. Either way, Bezos will be in control. The merger has been postponed thus far because they want to get two DOD contracts to develop both Vulcan and the New Glenn. New Glenn contract will go towards developing New Glenn and Vulcan contract will be used to develop the BE-4.

[STS-200]

Some serious predictions, some less so...

US Commercial
-Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy flying regularly with recovery and reuse, no reusable upper stage.
-BFR will fly “next year”.
-New Glenn flying.
-Blue actively developing their 150t-to-LEO New Armstrong.
-Vulcan in service, but without the full ACES package.
-Delta IV down to its last couple of launches.
-Atlas V still in service, production being shut down.

-Commercial Cargo in operation, with SpaceX, Orbital/ULA
-Cygnus flying on Atlas, stretched version proposed for Vulcan.
-Commercial Crew in operation with SpaceX, Boeing
-Dragon 2 in service for both crew and cargo.
-Dreamchaser has flown unmanned on New Glenn.

NASA
-Budget still flat in constant-dollar terms.
-ISS extended to 2028.
-SLS is cancelled in 2021. It flew once.
-Orion still nominally intended as a multi-purpose deep space vehicle, now re-re-purposed to facilitate long-duration flight and allow launch on other rockets.
-DSG is being developed for launch on Vulcan, ESA and JAXA are making all the right noises of support.

Europe
-Ariane 5 down to its last 2-3 flights.
-Ariane 6 in service. ESA/Sierra still talking about putting Dreamchaser on it.
-Ariane 7, a two-stage liquid rocket with a reusable lower stage, is in the late stages of being authorised for development. Everyone says how uncompetitive it will be…
-REL have built components or licenced their technology for use on aircraft engines.

Russia
-Soyuz, Proton launchers still in service.
-Soyuz, Progress spacecraft still in service.
-Development of the Soyuz & Proton replacement is still underway.
 
China
-Has completed a small modular space station, with crews visiting 2-3 times/year

Missions
-Hubble out of service, JWST working well.
-Curiosity now a static base station, Opportunity still working!!
-2020 ESA and NASA Mars rovers still working.
-Both Voyagers still working.
-NASA lunar sample return mission in development.
-“Ocean Moon” (of Jupiter/Saturn) orbiter being built.

Adventurous Stuff
-Two sub-orbital tourist providers are flying regularly.
-Tourists have flown to the ISS on commercial vehicles.
-A circumlunar tourist flight has been made.
-An unmanned privately-funded probe has landed on the Moon.
-SpaceX say their manned Mars flight will launch in 2026. Everyone believes them.
-A private space station is attracting some funding, for both tourists and research.
-Indications of molecular Oxygen have been detected in the atmosphere of an exoplanet.

[Stellvia]

UK Spaceflight in 2022:

* 

Post-Brexit, UK still an ESA member, but pivoting progressively towards increased cooperation with India, Australia, Canada. Informal talks around creation of Commonwealth Space Cooperation Agency. Nigeria expresses interest in joining, advancing own plans for domestic spaceport.

* At least one UK domestic smallsat LV firm has conducted a successful suborbital spaceflight from a range in Scotland. Launch to orbit next year.

* SABRE Core 1 successfully completes first phase of ground test firings. REL moving to construction of first SABRE flight engines.

* BAE Systems passes PDR for a hypersonic reconnaissance/strike drone using SABRE engine. DARPA quietly orders three airframes for evaluation. A variant of the vehicle can serve as an operationally-responsive smallsat launcher using a piggyback expendable upper stage, similar to XS-1.

* Virgin announces (with much fanfare) MOU with Reaction Engines on study of use of SABRE engines in SpaceShipThree, but so far it remains a paper spaceplane.

* SSTL launches ‘Ice Mapper’ mission to conduct laser illumination studies of permanently shadowed craters at lunar poles.

* National Space Propulsion Test Facility at Westcott complete and in full operation. Neighbours complain about the noise.

* Seraphim Space Fund latest round exceeds $1 billion. Rumours in London VC investment circles that “something huge” is planned, to do with BFR applications.

* Brian Cox [British particle physicist, TV science presenter] takes suborbital flight on New Shepard for BBC science programme, but is “unwell” mid-flight. Footage leaks on YouTube.

[freddo411]

Vulcan was cancelled in 2018. The math came in and there was no market for it. ULA continues to fly the Atlas which is allowed to not let SpaceX get a monopoly. It will be retired in a couple of years when New Glenn becomes operational.

I will elaborate that this will happen because ULA and Blue Origin will effectively be the same entity by 2022. Either one buys the other or an umbrella company is created. Either way, Bezos will be in control. The merger has been postponed thus far because they want to get two DOD contracts to develop both Vulcan and the New Glenn. New Glenn contract will go towards developing New Glenn and Vulcan contract will be used to develop the BE-4.

That is an interesting claim.  I can certainly see the logic of a BO + ULA marriage.   

Do you have an hard information on this, or is this speculation / reading between the lines?

[DreamyPickle]

* SpaceX is at 40 launches/year, about 15 of them for starlink.
* No more expendables, everything above 5tons to GTO bumped to Heavy.
* F9 first stage production halted.
* BFS prototype flies suborbital but fails. Elon announces design changes.
* BFR gets shrunk further.
* First BFR flight is scheduled to contain only starlink sats.

* Boeing/LM decide Vulcan can't compete with Falcon at historical profit margins and sell ULA to Blue Origin.
* Vulcan becomes Blue Origin's "medium" launcher.
* New Glenn flies a few times with methane upper stage, mostly LEO sats from Starlink competitors.
* Blue Origin announces investment into reusable/refuelable hydrolox upper stage for New Glenn.
* New stage can land with wings on a profile oddly similar to BFS. Separate "deep-space" version lacks wings but can loiter for months.
* RL10 is replaced by BE3 and Aerojet goes bankrupt. Northrop-Grumman buys remaining assets.

* SLS EM-1 slips into 2020 and fails, president Warren kills it.
* Europa Clipper is planned to fly on the very last Delta IV Heavy.
* DSG is replaced by a lunar base collaboration using existing heavy launchers.
* DSG PPE morphs into a LEO-to-LLO tug.

* Bigelow starts a successful space tourism business.
* Plans to deploy extra module once every year.
* Lockheed Martin/NASA agreement to privatize Orion.
* Boeing and LM both fly capsule to the Bigelow station on Blue Origin launchers.

* Ariane 6 flies alongside the last few Ariane 5.
* Ariane 7 in heavy development. Looks like a methane Falcon with a stretched hydrolox upper stage.

* Worsening relations after 2020 results in the ISS Russian section being sealed off and detached.
* China announces Tiangong-4 will attach to OPSEK.
* Russia and China announce a different lunar base.
* Outer space treaty in question among calls to draw borders on Shackleton crater.

[testguy]

Aerojet goes bankrupt?  Even if AR-1, RL-10, RS-68 and RS-25 all were closed out, I don’t see bankrupcy in the cards.  Aerojet is so much more than large liquid engines.  The defense sector is very large including many of the tactical rockets used by the military, there are billions of dollars in real estate assets, air breathing propulsion systems and stratigic solid motors to mention a few other areas of the corporation.

[the_other_Doug]

The Nuclear Exchange of 2018 will end space launches for the remainder of the century, at least.  Since the Nuclear Winter has yet to show any signs of relenting, it's difficult to say whether or not there will be a human race to be launching rockets by then, either...

[saliva_sweet]

That is an interesting claim.  I can certainly see the logic of a BO + ULA marriage.   

Do you have an hard information on this, or is this speculation / reading between the lines?

Just the crystal ball and tealeaves as appropriate for this thread. I just don't think BO pursuing DOD cert for New Glenn was a backstab to ULA. I suspect they're all in on this and the deal is basically done between Bezos, Boeing and LM.

[testguy]

The Nuclear Exchange of 2018 will end space launches for the remainder of the century, at least.  Since the Nuclear Winter has yet to show any signs of relenting, it's difficult to say whether or not there will be a human race to be launching rockets by then, either...

Really dark humor.  Really not funny at all.

[Lar]

* National Space Propulsion Test Facility at Westcott complete and in full operation. Neighbours complain about the noise.

(emphasis mine) ... wow, you REALLY went out on a limb there.... no one EVER complains about noise. LOL

Also, while a prediction of a nuclear exchange doesn't quite fit the rest of the format, it's legit (note that no discussion of WHO or WHY would be in bounds)... if quite morbid.

[floss]

Massive increase in the price of falcon rocket following the failure of four falcons because build quality slipped owning to exhausted workers making errors.Manned flights underway.

Falcon heavy succeeds on its third launch after two failures.

Antaries rocket flying .
Atlas rocket transferring people to the ISS.

Vulcan rocket first launch.

SLS nearing launch .

Cots 2 announced to supply the deep space station .

ISS gets funding for six new modules two habitat ,one docking module ,a centrifuge research module , a power module with 300 kilwatts of power docked to Zvezda and a drive research module docked to the power module .

Ban on all far east rocket launches following a north Korean rocket falling on Japan.

Angara rocket a failure after cost overruns .
 
Moonbase treaty just signed 8 landings per year 4 crew .

Japan working on the lunar personnel ferry.
China working on the heavy lunar cargo lander .

Shenzou spacecraft launched from Kourou  on Soyuz.

Ariane 5 winding down.
Ariane 6 flying .

Vega further upgrades funded. p140 stage under testing.

[tdperk]

SLS is mothballed.  ULA gets a 1bn$/year contract to maintain the vehicle and production facilities in readiness.

[Elvis in Space]

Looking back five years and trying to draw some lessons from that - Who knows?  I guess all you can do is look at the trends -

China continues to expand their efforts.

Russian efforts continue to diminish having lost all commercial payload business to global competition.

Spacex is launching something at several times their current rate. BFR is a happening thing that doesn't take as long to reach fruition as FH but still not as soon as Elon wants. Spacex has flown passengers around the moon and landed robots on Mars.

Blue Origin is launching things both orbital and sub-orbital.

ISS is still doing it's thing with most crew transport being commercial.

NASA/SLS has flown once and been dropped.

ESA is still having a difficult time making decisions.

Most everybody else is still prognosticating unfunded wonders just a few years away.

[ZachS09]

Here are my ten predictions for what will happen by 2022:

1: SpaceX and Blue Origin are launching their reusable rockets (Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, New Glenn) to somewhat dominate the commercial market, leaving United Launch Alliance and Arianespace with barely a chance.

2: Russia eventually launches the Nauka MLM module to the ISS by December 2018.

3: NASA's Space Launch System & Orion spacecraft will be flying; albeit only missions to the Moon and beyond. There will be a one flight per year cadence.

4: China's Long March 2, 3, and 4 launch vehicles will be completely retired; Long March 5, 6, 7, and eventually 8 will take over for the eventual construction of the Chinese Modular Space Station and future lunar orbiters & sample return probes. That goes for manned spaceflights and satellite launches, too.

5: Arianespace's Vega rocket, along with the C and E variants, will keep up its 100% success rate. The Ariane 6 could suffer a failure or partial failure on one of its early flights.

6: The European Space Agency commits to their lunar village project and starts developing the proper equipment and fuel depots.

7: United Launch Alliance's Atlas V will suffer an early ascent failure, resulting in the loss of vehicle and payload, and causing a setback of one to two years. Delta IV Heavy, however, is unaffected due to its success rate.

8: The International Space Station team plans to decommission the station by 2024 by using a Progress spacecraft to deorbit the entire thing while it is unmanned. Its Earth-orbiting replacement will be Bigelow Aerospace's B330 module.

9: ISRO retires the PSLV and GSLV and keeps the GSLV Mk.3 in service, which will launch all interplanetary probes and Earth-orbiting satellites. The eventual replacement, Unified Launch Vehicle, begins simultaneous development.

10: One of the ISS crew ferries atop a Soyuz-2.1a goes through an early abort due to a problem in either the first or second stage engines. Luckily, all three members are alive upon touchdown.

[Bubbinski]

I don’t know if I’d call myself one of the “cool kids” but here’s my take:

- by 2022 I think civilization will have had a “near-death experience” caused by a major war. This will affect spaceflight in a number of ways (certain orbits unusable due to debris from destroyed satellites, economies needing to rebuild causing lower space budgets, new technologies being developed and used, irradiated areas and changed climates needing more intensive study from satellites, etc.).

- Every major surviving launch provider worldwide (private or government) will have some form of reusability (partial or total) in their current or planned launchers to reduce costs. SpaceX won’t have the entire field to itself as Blue Origin, ULA, others foreign and domestic step up their games. BFR will have flown at least one test flight, Falcon 9/Heavy and New Glenn will compete, Vulcan will be flying with US engines and some reuse of engines, Orbital NGLV will be flying (and will feature some degree of reuse in a later version), SLS will have flown but the number of future SLS missions will be capped due to budget constraints and BFR will eventually be the heavy lifter of choice for NASA missions down the line. Surviving non-US space agencies and providers will put reusability features in Ariane 6, H-II/III, Long March, Soyuz, etc.

- Europa Clipper will be in an advanced state of launch prep for flight on the 2nd SLS mission, JWST will have made stunning breakthrough discoveries related to exoplanets and cosmology, all textbooks will need to be rewritten. Microbial life (past life at any rate, maybe current life) will have been discovered elsewhere in the solar system and we will know Earth was not alone in harboring life. (Mars rovers Curiosity, Opportunity, ExoMars, Mars 2020 will feature prominently). We will be VERY hot on the trail of Earth’s twin with promising leads. Hubble will still be going, though in need of a repair mission which will eventually come. These space missions and discoveries will keep humanity hoping and dreaming during a very dark time worldwide.

- Human spaceflight will continue though not fare as well in the rebuilding world. US commercial crew will be a going concern but will need a new destination as ISS suffers damage and has its lifespan shortened. New commercial mini stations will have started flying by late 2022 and the commercial crew craft, besides supplying these stations and perhaps standalone crewed flights, are modified to fly deep space missions, borrowing some tech from Orion. Orion flies EM-1 but is cancelled and parts of it are repurposed for the Deep Space Hab which hasn’t flown yet but metal is being cut for its components. SpaceX has to delay its Mars plans for a few years but will still be working on them. A few suborbital tourism trips will have flown, though widespread regular flights will have to wait until economic and societal recovery is more advanced. At least one Moon flyby with crew will be in advanced preparation though not yet ready to go.

- Another Chelyabinsk incident (with fatalities) will revive all kinds of asteroid detection and deflection plans and a new asteroid deflection and mining demonstration mission will be funded by a billionaire and near the launch pad. New telescope technology will start to come on line and help discover more and more small solar system objects. Planet 9 will also have been confirmed. Asteroid and comet resource extraction will be on the verge of becoming important but not ready for prime time at the end of 2022.

- finally, I will have survived though not without loss, and I will still be enjoying NSF and thinking about what spaceflight would look like in 2027. I will still have more spacecraft and rocket kits than I can ever display, and I will still be planning launch trips, though maybe not by myself if the right one comes along.

[tdperk]

8: The International Space Station team plans to decommission the station by 2024 by using a Progress spacecraft to deorbit the entire thing while it is unmanned. Its Earth-orbiting replacement will be Bigelow Aerospace's B330 module.

I think it is more likely it will be boosted to a caretaking orbit as a museum in waiting.

[Andrew9141]

In 2022:
NASA's SLS has been modified slightly from its original plan and has completed its very first test flight this year.
SpaceX will be the largest commercial space company with ever growing cooperation with NASA
SpaceX's ITS/BFR or whatever it will be named is nearing completion but still hasn't completed a test flight.
The Mars mission is being pushed back another 5 years but excitement for going is stronger than ever.
The Falcon heavy is has already been decommissioned.
Any rocket company that wants to be competitive must be able to reuse their rockets. (This means you too NASA)
Internet coming from satellites will either be a huge success or a topic not even discussed any more.
Great strides will be made in Artificial Intelligence and Automation. (Self driving cars are finally a norm for the most part, increased automation in manufacturing processes and improved automation in rocket launches/trajectories etc..)
 

[Lar]

Welcome Andrew9141

Why would SpaceX decommission the FH before BFR is launching payloads? it means giving up on a certain segment of the market.

[speedevil]

With my unusually optimistic hat on.
BFS manages cargo launches to Mars in Sep 2022, landing Dec 31 2022.

This follows an aggressive testing schedule for BFS:
2020 BFS outer moldline vehicle without TPS, to verify landing at increasing weights up to full nominal landing weight.
2021 BFS-1 constructed
2021-2 many hops of BFS flight article, at increasing delta-v, ending up at SSTO with small cargo.
2022 BFR flies.

In 2020-1, BFHopper, then BFS are aggressively working on reuse. Second flight of BFS after a month, then once a week for a couple of months, then once a day for a month.

Sometime in 2021, SpaceX offers the ability for any relatively small sat to be launched to LEO, nearly any day you want, with the ability to check it out in orbit for a short period before release, and if not, land. (this would be before deployment).

They begin launching starlink sats.

In 2022, this accelerates as BFR comes online, in time to launch several BFS to mars.

A rapid ramp of BFR cadence finishes the full starlink constellation rather sooner than expected.
The first crewed launches occur.

At this point, BFS has some hundreds of flights, and BFR rather less than this.

There are several BFS in flight to mars, and BFR/BFS is reliable enough in everybodies eyes for 'space tourism' class launches with massive waivers.

BFS-P2P jurisdiction/launch-site shopping has begun, and perhaps even some construction of pads awaiting this.

2027: SpaceX and some other vendor, possibly Boeing or Airbus (the aircraft side) have got P2P capable vehicles with an incidental lowering of space launch cost to $10/kg on the back of it, and the capability to launch nearly free (by todays standards) cargo towards mars, for pickup by local BFS.
I like this hat.

Back to 2022.
Out from Musk, SLS flew once, successfully, and Europa Clipper mission failed to materialise.
EM-2 hasn't flown yet, but is not cancelled.

Some of the stuff being launched by BFR/S looks very, very, very odd compared to old-space, with unexpected partners.

[Proponent]

NASA's budget has decreased slightly in real terms compared to 2018.

ISS's life has been extended to 2028.

Both Starliner and Dragon 2 are flying with people, though the earliest of them only since 2020.

Dream Chaser has carried cargo to ISS but other roles for it remain speculative.

EM-1 has flown.

2nd SLS launch is to be Europa Clipper, NET 2024.

Projected EM-2 has slipped to 2025.

NASA and contractors continue to produce pretty viewgraphs of DSG.  A bit of funding, but cumulatively about a gigabuck at most (i.e., a there's long way to go).  ESA is now talking more about DSG than the international lunar village -- but not putting much money into either.

Neither NASA nor ESA has any serious plans for a crewed lunar lander.

SpaceX has not yet flown people around the moon.

BE-4-powered Vulcan is flying, almost exclusively with military payloads.

Ariane 6 is flying, mostly with European-government-sponsored payloads.

Falcon Heavy is flying, though there has been a major failure.

New Glenn has begun flying.

All four of the aforementioned launch vehicles fly at rates expressed more appropriately in flights per year than in flights per month.

Falcon 9 is easily the world's most popular launch vehicle, though Version 5 has turned out not to be so extensively reusable as SpaceX had claimed.  F9 first stages remain in production.

Skylon is still discussed but little closer to realization.

A small number of nanosat launch vehicles have flown, but the sector's long-range economic viability remains unestablished.

Sub-orbital tourist flights have occurred, but business is faltering.

Reasonable people still put BFR's first flight three or more years in the future, though SpaceX may say otherwise.

A NASA robitic mission to a lunar pole has been approved but has not yet flown.

NASA is spending real money for the return of the Mars 2020 sample cache, with international partners.

Jim Brindenstine still awaits Senate confirmation as NASA administrator. [joke]

OSIRIS-REx and JWST notwithstanding, the intensity with which NASA's robotic spacecraft astound the world has been somewhat reduced lately, because of a dearth of arrivals at photogenic destinations (InSight will be on Mars but won't provide the photographic bonanza of a rover; Lucy and Psyche will still be en route; no new New Horizons arrivals will occur by 2022).  It will be up to OSIRIS-REx and JWST.  [More of an observation than a prediction.]

[Wayne Hale]

Powerpoint chart production at an all time high

[freddo411]

Revivifying this thread of predictions from 2017.   My predictions were a bit optimistic, but not too far off.

Reading through other predictions was interesting.   

2022

* Since starting in 2018, Starlink began, slowly at first, providing ubiquitous internet connectivity.  E. Musk is worth an estimated 50 billion dollars as the communication mogul of the 21 century.  Telsa has been sold to Toyota.   SpaceX remains a private company.   Starlink is publically traded

* SpaceX has been flying Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets at a slowly increasing cadence needed to service its comsat constellation and its other nascent businesses.   In 2022, there are 4 to 5 flights a week. 

* Blue Origin is flying once a week.   In additional to commercial competing with SpaceX, then have a large contract with the US gov't to be the alternative provider for launch services.

* Commercial space travel is a 1 billion dollar a year business.   Approx 500 million dollars  a year total is spent by countries like Australia, the UK, Sweden, Malaysia, Korea, Brazil and UAE to host their astronauts on World Trade Station in LEO for two or four week stints.   Several business are shuttling raw materials and employees up, and manufactured goods down from the WTS.   Several big budget films have been shot in LEO, but the biggest surprize is the greater than 500 million dollars spent by people to visit the station for tourism.

* ISS is in it's final years.   No one can be found (or the gov't can't agree on) a way to keep it going.   

* There is no Moon base.  There is a lot of talk about  a moon base; perhaps the next administration will fund a return to the moon.

* The replacement JWST is scheduled to be launched in two years to replace the first telescope lost when it did not deploy correctly.

* The US air force funds a large constellation of small sats to provide persistent surveillance data.   This represents something like 50% of revenue for BO, and 20% of the revenue for SpaceX

* BFR has made a number of sub orbital and orbital flights.   Turn around time has been hampered by a number of operational issues.   Work continues to optimize the BFR.   Boca Chica hosts an off shore launch platform.   EM. has announced that he has completed work on BFR, and is scaling up to the BMFR and putting the entire company into the new design.

[MikeAtkinson]

A few observations first:

A. the total space market is growing in real terms, but at a slower rate than in the recent past.

B. the price for launch has fallen recently and is likely to fall further. This is only just starting to feed through into payloads and applications, except perhaps LEO internet constellations (StarLink is probably predicated on cheap launch, not sure about the others). This means that launch as a proportion of the total space market is falling.

C. there is a trend for satellites to both get bigger and smaller, bigger for GEO payloads (excluding propulsion), smaller for LEO constellations.

D. it takes a long time to develop space hardware, few things that are not in development now will be deployed in 5 years time.

E. several areas including mil/intel, human space flight and launch are on the cusp of major changes, because of the long development time changes in these areas will not be complete.

F. there has been a general shift from government to commercial, which has occurred over decades, this is likely to continue, but this shift does not mean reduction in total government spend.

G. there is a trend to more players, with the advent of smallsat launchers launch is not longer the preserve of big countries and there large contractors. Similarly medium and small organisations can launch and operate satellites.

H. there is a shortage of profit, the combination of only a modest increase in total market, lower prices, large development costs and an increase in the number of players means that profits will be hard to come by. This is only likely to get worse.

I. a shortage of profit should make access to venture capital (and other forms of capital) hard to come by, this does not seem to currently be the case, but could change rapidly.

J. there are large market distortions caused by national interests, this is not likely to change over the next few years. Nations do not like spending money outside their borders, leading to barter and workshare agreements.

K. aerospace projects often suffer delays, this can happen to any organisation, recent experience with similar projects can help but is not a guarantee of being on-time and on-budget.

L. some projects can blow their budget and timescale by massive amounts (e.g. JWST, Angara). Generally slowing a project causes its total budget to increase, as does changing the specification. A trend to faster development and more churn in applications should lead to more projects being cancelled if they are late or are overtaken by other developments, but this does not seem to be the case.

M. because cubesats are relatively cheap to design and operate they are in the reach of universities, small and medium companies and developing nations.

Some more specific predictions, based on these general observations, later.

I never did get round to making detailed predictions, but I think that these observations above have held up pretty well and are still mostly true. A shortage of venture capital is the major miss.

[scienceguy]

So what will be happening in human spaceflight in 2022, five years from now?

I will go first.

SpaceX will be preparing to launch people to Mars, having landed and set up equipment and a base there already.

Wow was this ever wrong.

ESA will have a base on the moon, operated like the ISS.

Wow was this ever wrong.

ISS will still be up there, still doing zero gravity research.

Yes, this was right.

NASA will be using an orbital spaceplane, which replaced SLS and Orion years ago.

Haha. I make me laugh. Why I laugh? (Quote from the Simpsons)

NASA will have sent robots to Europa, which are now drilling into the surface.

This is still st least 20 years away.

Well, I got 1/5 for trying to predict 5 years in advance.

[Vahe231991]

Welcome Andrew9141

Why would SpaceX decommission the FH before BFR is launching payloads? it means giving up on a certain segment of the market.

The Falcon Heavy has made three launches so far, and additional launches with the Falcon Heavy are scheduled for the remainder of the year.

[Orbiter]

So what will be happening in human spaceflight in 2022, five years from now?

Commercial Crew vehicles will be conducting regular crew rotation flights to the ISS.

SpaceX (and possibly Boeing) will fly one tourist flight to LEO (or perhaps around the moon) a year.

ISS extended to at least 2026. Likely 2028.

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic will be flying regular sub-orbital tourism flights.

SLS/Orion will be gearing up for the EM-2 flight. DSG and a reusable manned lunar lander are under development.

SpaceX will have made good progress on BFR but are years away from a first flight.

This prediction ended up being remarkably accurate, sans EM-2 and Virgin Galactic. Well done.