NASA's Next 5 Missions, Explored
From a spacecraft that captures asteroids to a telescope that reveals details of the universe, NASA's upcoming missions will break ground in space science and technology.
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NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph lifted off from the Vandenberg Air Force Base on June 27, successfully riding into low Earth orbit aboard a Pegasus XL rocket. IRIS will study the sun's lower atmosphere, and it's one of several major missions in the works at the space agency.
IRIS will help scientists better understand not only the flow of the sun's energy, but also how radiation and solar particles affect satellites, space weather and our own planet. The 400-pound, 7-foot-long satellite consists of an ultraviolet telescope combined with an imaging spectrograph. As part of its two-year mission, IRIS will orbit the Earth, capturing high-resolution images and data known as spectra.
IRIS is among NASA's near-term missions, which also include launching astronauts from U.S. soil and sending a telescope to space to observe the universe. Looking ahead a decade or so, by 2025 NASA wants to send humans to an asteroid for the first time and by the 2030s make a crewed journey to Mars. In fact, Mars is one NASA's biggest areas of interest. The space agency has already sent one rover, Curiosity, to the Red Planet to collect soil and rock samples. Building on that mission, NASA will send its next rover to Mars in 2020.
Additionally, NASA has partnered with other space agencies on international missions. A partnership with the European Space Agency involves a 2020 mission, Euclid, to investigate dark matter and dark energy. The space telescope will spend six years mapping the locations and measuring the shapes of approximately two billion galaxies. Also, NASA recently joined the Italian Space Agency and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency on a Mars-exploration mission, due to launch in August 2015. BepiColombo, as it's called, consists of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter to map the planet and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter to investigate its magnetosphere.
So far, NASA is on track with most of its plans. President Obama has proposed a federal budget of $17.7 billion for the space agency in fiscal year 2014. The money will fully fund the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle needed to carry astronauts to deep space. Part of the budget will go toward the asteroid mission and the Commercial Crew Program. "The president's budget is also driving the development of space technologies such as solar electric propulsion that will power tomorrow's missions and help improve life on Earth," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said during a speech at a June 17 U.N. committee meeting in Vienna.
The next big launch is scheduled for September when a lunar observatory will make its way toward the moon. InformationWeek Government has been closely following NASA's progress. Explore our slideshow to learn more about five future NASA missions.
Photo credit: NASA
NASA plans to spend $105 million of its fiscal year 2014 budget to visit an asteroid in space by 2025. The mission will combine existing capabilities of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Space Launch System rocket with yet-to-be-developed technologies, such as solar electric propulsion and laser communications, to identify, capture and redirect a small asteroid into a stable orbit near the moon. Astronauts will visit the asteroid and take samples for research, traveling on the Orion crew capsule, which is designed to carry crew to space beyond low Earth orbit. The collected samples will be sent back to Earth. NASA recently released a request for information, calling on other agencies, academia and citizens to help identify asteroid threats and how to deal with them.
Photo credit: NASA
Slated for 2016, Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, or InSight, is a mission that would place a single geophysical lander on Mars to study what's below the surface. The InSight mission is similar in design to the Mars lander used in 2007 for the Phoenix mission. The lander would use sophisticated geophysical instruments to check the Red Planet's vital signs, including "pulse" (seismology), "temperature" (heat flow probe) and "reflexes" (precision tracking), according to NASA. InSight's findings could provide scientists with a glimpse into the evolutionary processes of all rocky planets in the inner solar system. Other Mars missions are dedicated to studying the planet's surface by examining canyons, rocks and soil.
Photo credit: NASA
Since retiring the space shuttle program in 2011, NASA has been trying to privatize the U.S. space industry. In 2010, the Obama administration created a public-private partnership plan, called the Commercial Crew Program (CCP), to help the U.S. develop spacecraft that can transport astronauts to the International Space Station and other low-Earth-orbit destinations. NASA has three American partners -- SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada -- on board for the CCP. However, Congress did not provide the space agency with its requested funding for the CCP this year, thus delaying U.S. launches until 2017. In the meantime, NASA struck a $424 million agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency to continue using its crew transportation services until 2016, with return and rescue services extending through June 2017.
Photo credit: NASA
Scheduled for launch in 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope will look through dusty clouds to see how stars form planetary systems and connect the Milky Way to the solar system. The large space telescope, named after former NASA administrator James Webb, will use instruments that are designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The main feature of the telescope is a folding, segmented mirror to see far-off objects. In total, it will consist of four science instruments, which include a near-infrared camera and spectrograph, another camera and a spectrograph that sees light in the mid-infrared region, and a precision sensor. According to NASA, the James Webb Space Telescope will become the primary observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide.
Photo credit: NASA
In September, NASA will launch its first deep space mission from Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility. The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about its atmosphere during the 160-day mission. It will also monitor conditions near the moon's surface and how the environment affects lunar dust. LADEE, weighing approximately 800 pounds, will lift off on a U.S. Air Force Minotaur V rocket. The observatory consists of three science instruments: an ultraviolet and visible light spectrometer for determining the composition of the lunar atmosphere, a neutral mass spectrometer for measuring variations in the lunar atmosphere, and a lunar dust experiment that will collect and analyze samples of lunar dust particles.
Photo credit: NASA
In September, NASA will launch its first deep space mission from Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility. The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about its atmosphere during the 160-day mission. It will also monitor conditions near the moon's surface and how the environment affects lunar dust. LADEE, weighing approximately 800 pounds, will lift off on a U.S. Air Force Minotaur V rocket. The observatory consists of three science instruments: an ultraviolet and visible light spectrometer for determining the composition of the lunar atmosphere, a neutral mass spectrometer for measuring variations in the lunar atmosphere, and a lunar dust experiment that will collect and analyze samples of lunar dust particles.
Photo credit: NASA
NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph lifted off from the Vandenberg Air Force Base on June 27, successfully riding into low Earth orbit aboard a Pegasus XL rocket. IRIS will study the sun's lower atmosphere, and it's one of several major missions in the works at the space agency.
IRIS will help scientists better understand not only the flow of the sun's energy, but also how radiation and solar particles affect satellites, space weather and our own planet. The 400-pound, 7-foot-long satellite consists of an ultraviolet telescope combined with an imaging spectrograph. As part of its two-year mission, IRIS will orbit the Earth, capturing high-resolution images and data known as spectra.
IRIS is among NASA's near-term missions, which also include launching astronauts from U.S. soil and sending a telescope to space to observe the universe. Looking ahead a decade or so, by 2025 NASA wants to send humans to an asteroid for the first time and by the 2030s make a crewed journey to Mars. In fact, Mars is one NASA's biggest areas of interest. The space agency has already sent one rover, Curiosity, to the Red Planet to collect soil and rock samples. Building on that mission, NASA will send its next rover to Mars in 2020.
Additionally, NASA has partnered with other space agencies on international missions. A partnership with the European Space Agency involves a 2020 mission, Euclid, to investigate dark matter and dark energy. The space telescope will spend six years mapping the locations and measuring the shapes of approximately two billion galaxies. Also, NASA recently joined the Italian Space Agency and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency on a Mars-exploration mission, due to launch in August 2015. BepiColombo, as it's called, consists of the Mercury Planetary Orbiter to map the planet and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter to investigate its magnetosphere.
So far, NASA is on track with most of its plans. President Obama has proposed a federal budget of $17.7 billion for the space agency in fiscal year 2014. The money will fully fund the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle needed to carry astronauts to deep space. Part of the budget will go toward the asteroid mission and the Commercial Crew Program. "The president's budget is also driving the development of space technologies such as solar electric propulsion that will power tomorrow's missions and help improve life on Earth," NASA administrator Charles Bolden said during a speech at a June 17 U.N. committee meeting in Vienna.
The next big launch is scheduled for September when a lunar observatory will make its way toward the moon. InformationWeek Government has been closely following NASA's progress. Explore our slideshow to learn more about five future NASA missions.
Photo credit: NASA
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