What does the future hold for NASA? Here are the agency’s plans

Launching a new giant space telescope, missions to study both Jupiter and its moons, and the continued exploration of the Red Planet are among NASA’s plans for the future, the US space agency revealed in a report published online Monday by Astronomy Magazine.

Fresh off a historic fly-by of Pluto and a mission studying the protoplanets Vesta and Ceres, one of the main focuses now for NASA scientists is the Juno mission, which will examine the origins and the interior structure of our solar system’s largest planet in the weeks and months ahead.

Juno will obtain the first close-up images of Jupiter in late August, and according to Planetary Division Director Jim Green, the spacecraft is “the latest example of the extraordinary science we have to look forward to right in our own solar system. There are many uncharted, promising worlds and objects we are eager to explore with our current and future missions.”

Earlier this month, Juno captured its first (low-resolution) image from orbit around Jupiter, and during the duration of its mission, it will circle the gas giant a total of 37 times, including flybys that will bring it to within 600 miles (4,100 kilometers) of the planet’s cloud tops.

In addition, the agency plans to use continue investigating Jupiter’s moons. They have selected nine science instruments for a planned mission to Europa to search for a liquid ocean beneath the surface of the unusual satellite, and will continue to monitor the intense geological activity on Io, the most volcanically active object in the entire solar system, according to NASA officials.

Hubble’s replacement, continuation of the Journey to Mars planned

One of the instruments that has been responsible for analyzing Jupiter in the past, the Hubble space telescope (which recently captured the planet’s auroras and found evidence of saltwater on its largest moon, Ganymede) will soon have a successor, as NASA plans to launch the new James Webb Space Telescope in 2018.

Called the Webb telescope for short, the instrument will be able to observe all of the planets and moons in our solar system, as well as faint, distant objects located elsewhere in the universe. The telescope’s angular and spectral resolution will enable scientists to observe each of these objects with unprecedented sensitivity, and will purportedly even be able to track geologic activity.

“From 2016 to 2018, there are installations and tests for the telescope and the telescope plus the instruments, followed by shipping to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas where end-to-end optical testing in a simulated cryo-temperature and vacuum space environment will occur,” Paul Geithner, technical manager for the telescope, said in a statement earlier this year. “Then all the parts will be shipped to Northrop Grumman for final assembly and testing.”

NASA also said that it was “closer than ever” to sending a manned mission to Mars. Currently, the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers are exploring the surface of the Red Planet, while the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) and other orbiters continue to monitor its atmosphere from above. InSight, a mission designed to study the interior of Mars, is scheduled to launch in 2018, followed two years later by the next-generation of Mars rover.

Earlier this month, in a speech to the National Press Club, NASA administrator Charles Bolden also said that the agency’s Orion spacecraft, which is being designed to send a four-person crew of astronauts beyond the moon, was “the most advanced… spacecraft ever designed.” He added that the upcoming Asteroid Redirect Mission would play an important part in the organization’s Journey to Mars program, as they hope to send astronauts to explore and collect samples from a relocated near-Earth object sometime in the 2020s.

New Horizons, Cassini to continue work; OSIRIS-REX to launch

New Horizons, the probe responsible for the aforementioned historic flyby of the dwarf planet Pluto and its moons, was approved to continue its voyage to study an object in the cold outer regions of the solar system known as the Kuiper Belt. It is expected to reach that object, a minor planet or cubewano known as 2014 MU69, on January 1, 2019.

Likewise, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will continue its exploration of the Saturn system, and in 2017, it will complete nearly two-dozen dives between the narrow gap that separates the planet’s outer atmosphere from its rings. Dubbed “the Grand Finale” by NASA officials, this portion of the mission will provide researchers with previously unattainable scientific data and new images of the solar system’s second largest planet and its ring system.

Just a few months from now, NASA will launch the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft. Designed to solve several of the mysteries surrounding the history of our solar system and how life originated on Earth, it will launch in September, travel to a near-Earth asteroid known as Bennu, and collect a sample that will be returned to Earth in 2023, according to officials at the space agency.

OSIRIS-REx will reach Bennu in 2018, NASA revealed back in May, and will spend one year flying in close proximity to the asteroid. During this period it will use a suite of five instruments to determine the physical and chemical properties of the object. It will then collect a sample of at least two pristine ounces of surface material which will be transported back to Earth so scientists can further analyze this chunk of debris from the solar system’s formation.

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Image credit: NASA/JPL

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