It's been a busy four years for NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the scientists who seek planets in its data. The mission just hit a major discovery milestone, passing 5,000 of what the team calls TESS Objects of Interest, or TOIs, which include exoplanet candidates and other intriguing signals. Astronomers select objects from these TOIs to study in more detail and with other instruments in order to better understand what TESS may have seen.

NASA can breathe a $10 billion sigh of relief. The agency's James Webb Space Telescope arrived safely at its ultimate destination Monday (Jan. 24), in great health and carrying even more fuel than expected after several deep-space engine burns.

The James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful telescope ever built, has reached its final destination in space. Now comes the fun part. Thirty days after its launch, the tennis court-size telescope made its way into a parking spot that's about a million miles away from Earth. From there, it will begin its ambitious mission to better understand the early days of our universe, peer at distant exoplanets and their atmospheres and help answer large-scale questions such as how quickly the universe is expanding.

Today's the day: Nearly a month after launch, the James Webb Space Telescope will arrive at its deep-space celestial destination on Monday (Jan. 24). Webb will be orbiting Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2 (L2), which is about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from our planet. Here, the spacecraft can use a minimum of fuel to orbit thanks to its alignment with the sun and Earth.

In recent years, much has been said about mining water ice in shadowed craters at the Moon's South Pole for use as rocket propellant. Enthusiasm for this idea has led NASA to begin planning the first human missions of its Artemis Program to land near the South Pole instead of the mid-latitudes.

The Hubble Space Telescope has observed a black hole at the center of a dwarf galaxy that is not acting like the destructive monsters they are often portrayed as. Instead, this black hole is creating stars rather than absorbing them. The black hole is at the center of dwarf galaxy Henize 2-10 that lies 30 million light-years away in the southern constellation Pyxis. According to NASA, the black hole is apparently contributing to a “firestorm” of new star formation taking place in the galaxy.

On Thursday, our sun released its pent-up energy in the form of a little magnetic bomb. It's called a solar flare, and NASA caught the whole thing on camera. Solar flares, which are sudden explosions on the sun's surface caused by strong magnetic forces, are of concern to astronomers because these events can impact electrical power grids on Earth, causing regional blackouts. They also risk interference with radio communications.

Multiple images from the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) were used to generate this view of a regional dust storm obscuring Syrtis Major and Jezero Crater (white circle). The images were acquired on Jan. 9, 2022.

NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has temporarily stopped its science observations while the mission team investigates an issue. On Tuesday night (Jan. 18), the observatory, a gamma-ray hunting space telescope originally called the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Explorer, went into safe mode and paused all science work. This maneuver may have been in response to a reaction wheel failure, which the mission team continues to explore.

NASA's International Space Station team is eager to stick with the orbiting laboratory until 2030. NASA officials speaking at a virtual meeting held on Tuesday (Jan. 18) spoke about plans to take advantage of an extension to the International Space Station program that NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced on Dec. 31. The meeting was held by the Human Exploration and Operations Committee of the NASA Advisory Council, a group of independent experts who monitor NASA's activity relating to human spaceflight.

NASA's Curiosity rover has found some interesting organic compounds on the Red Planet that could be signs of ancient Mars life, but it will take a lot more work to test that hypothesis. Some of the powdered rock samples that Curiosity has collected over the years contain organics rich in a type of carbon that here on Earth is associated with life, researchers report in a new study.

An early morning liftoff kicks off DART, NASA’s first mission to test a spacecraft that could one day save Earth from a deadly space rock.

NASA is starting to implement recommendations of the astrophysics decadal survey by announcing plans for a new line of missions and laying the groundwork for future large space telescopes. During an online town hall meeting Jan. 11, originally intended to take place at the American Astronomical Society conference before that meeting was canceled by the pandemic, the agency announced it will go ahead with a line of “probe” class missions intended to fill the gap between large flagship missions and smaller Explorer-class spacecraft.

Katherine Calvin was appointed NASA's new Chief Scientist and Senior Climate Advisor on Monday. She wants to improve data accessibility.

Work for the James Webb Space Telescope is just beginning. On Saturday (Jan. 8), the new observatory, the largest space telescope ever built, successfully unfolded its final primary mirror segment to cap what NASA has billed as one of its most complicated deployments in space ever. The Webb mission team is now turning its attention to directing the telescope to its final destination, while getting key parts of the observatory online for its astronomy work.

After originally being funded by Congress until 2024, the International Space Station, which is used for research by NASA and many other agencies, will get an extension until 2030. Last week, NASA announced that the Biden-Harris Administration intends to extend International Space Station (ISS) operations through 2030, extending the US’s previous funding deadline by a few years.

Nations around the world spent a total of $92 billion on the "space sector" in 2021, the market intelligence firm Euroconsult reports. This represents an 8 percent increase in spending from the year 2020. In the latest edition of the report "Government Space Programs," the consulting firm says that civilian space activities accounted for $53 billion of the spending, and defense activities $39 billion. However the report noted that the proportion of defense spending is increasing.

Alexa will be the first voice assistant available beyond Earth. Amazon and Lockheed Martin have revealed NASA will carry Alexa to space aboard the Artemis I mission launching later in 2022. While that flight is uncrewed, the companies are planning a "virtual crew experience" at NASA's Johnson Space Center that will let people in Mission Control (including students and special guests) simulate conversations between the digital helper and astronauts.

IF ALL goes well, the first major space mission of 2022 will be the launch of the Space Launch System rocket in February. After many budget and schedule overruns, NASA’s colossal rocket is finally set for its first uncrewed flight, which will carry several small satellites into orbits either near or around the moon.

The White House has given NASA a New Year's Eve "go" to continue operations on board the International Space Station through 2030, granting the orbital outpost a six-year life extension.