(missions by scheduled date of launch)
- Scheduled Launch: - that mission was scheduled as of 2009 but did not appear on NASA launch schedule -
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Scheduled Arrival Date: na
- Mission, Features: SIM will look for exoplanets closely at about 100 nearby stars for exoplanets and at several thousand distant stars. The fist part of the mission will look for easily detectable planets as the second part will help determine what types of stars are likely to produce planet, no planets or multiple planets systems. SIM will pave the way for the Terrestrial Planet Finder launching in 2014, which will observe directly exoplanets for the first time, looking for life-hospitable ones. SIM as far as it is concerned will work based on stars wobble method only
- Route, Remarks: the SIM mission will also be used to study those 50 million dark objects of our Milky Way Galaxy through microlensing events, as much rarer such events will used to try to spot some dark matter events
- Status: under development
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Scheduled Launch: no earlier than Jan. 31, 2015, at 6:30 p.m. EST, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space
Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
- Agency, Country: NASA, NOAA
- Scheduled Arrival Date: -
- Mission, Features: DSCOVR is a U.S. NOAA's real-time solar wind monitoring for space weather
alerts and forecasts issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA)
- Route, Remarks: na
- Status: na
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Scheduled Launch: March 12th, 2015 aboard a Atlas V421 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla
- Agency, Country: NASA (Goddard Space Flight Center) (USA)
- Scheduled Arrival Date: -
- Mission, Features: four identically instrumented spacecraft will make coordinated high-resolution observations of the Earth's magnetosphere, helping to understand the effects of the Sun on its solar system environment, hence on the space environment which astronauts en route to faraway worlds will have to endure. The MMS will too endeavour to a better knowledge of the magnetic reconnection process
- Route, Remarks: -
- Status: under study
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Scheduled Launch: 2015
- Agency, Country: NASA
- Scheduled Arrival Date: -
- Mission, Features: SMEX will detect and measure the polarization of the X-rays emitted by some of the most energetic objects in the Universe like ultra-dense neutron stars, stellar-mass black holes, or supermassive galactic black holes. By studying the changes with time and energy of their polarized X-ray emission, the mission will probe the bending of space and the curving of light in regions of extreme gravity
- Route, Remarks: -
- Status: na
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Scheduled Launch: 2016
- Agency, Country: NASA (JPL) (USA), ESA
- Scheduled Arrival Date: -
- Mission, Features: the mission consists of a fixed lander and a rover that will collect soil samples for detailed analysis. Data relayed from the lander back to NASA's Deep Space Network, will allow scientists to measure and analyze variations in the length of the day and location of the planet's rotational axis, such data helping to understand the structure of the Red Planet's interior, including the size of its core or if the interior is still, at least partially, composed of liquid
- Route, Remarks: -
- Status: under study
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy
and Heat Transport)
- Scheduled Launch: 2016
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Scheduled Arrival Date: na
- Mission, Features: InSight, a Discovery-class mission will probe Mars at new depths by
looking into the deep interior of Mars through drilling under the surface with the so-called Tractor Mole which will descend up to 16 feet (five meters). Temperature sensors will also record how much heat is coming from
Mars' interior, which reveals the planet's thermal history. The original mission is of one Martian year. Such a mission will also allow to processes of early planetary formation. Four landing sites were selected in
August 2013 from a field of 22 candidates as one spot only will be chosen. Four sites lie near each
other on a equatorial plain in Elysium Planitia. InSight builds on spacecraft technology used in NASA's successful Phoenix
polar lander mission. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will build the
spacecraft
- Route, Remarks: na
- Status: scheduled
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
LCRD (Laser
Communications Relay Demonstration)
- Scheduled Launch: 2016
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Scheduled Arrival Date: na
- Mission, Features: LCRD is a mission to demonstrate a new laser transmission system which could increase data rates by anywhere from 10 to 100
times allowing very large increases in the amount of data transmitted, both
downlink and uplink, especially to distant destinations in the solar system and
beyond. The payload will include telescopes, lasers, mirrors, detectors, a pointing and
tracking system, control electronics, and two different types of modems. One
modem is ideal for communicating with deep space missions or tiny, low-power
smallsats operating in low-Earth orbit. The other can handle much higher data
rates, particularly from Earth-orbiting spacecraft, including the International Space Station. The demonstration is expected to run two to three years
- Route, Remarks: na
- Status: scheduled
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Scheduled Launch: 2016
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Scheduled Arrival Date: 2020 and a capsule containing samples released in 2023
- Mission, Features: OSIRIS-REx is the first U.S.
mission to carry samples from an asteroid back to Earth. It will reach 1,900-ft wide NEO asteroid 1999 RQ36 (which was renamed Bennu in 2013, after a important ancient Egyptian divinity, or a grey heron, after a NASA contest) by 2020 after a journey of 4 years. After traveling four years, OSIRIS-REx will approach the asteroid in 2020. Once within three miles of the asteroid, the spacecraft will begin six months of comprehensive surface mapping as it gradually will move closer and the arm will extend to collect more than two ounces of material. Such samples will be released Earth by 2023, at the Utah's Test and Training Range in a capsule similar to the one used by the Stardust mission in 2006
- Route, Remarks: asteroids are considered time capsules for the origins of our solar system as they may also contain carbon, a key element in the organic molecules necessary for life, both representing a interest for the mission. The mission also could pave the way for future human space missions to an asteroid and other deep space destinations as, because 1999 RQ36 is a NEO, the mission also will acquire usefuld data, like measuring the solar, Yarkovsky effect for the first time or devise future strategies about threatening Earth impacts from such objects. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will provide the mission management as Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver will build the spacecraft
- Status: under construction
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Scheduled Launch: note: after a launch scheduled in 2008, the mission is on the NASA launch schedule no more
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Scheduled Arrival Date: -
- Mission, Features: the LOLA mission will orbit the Moon using a high-precision laser altimeter, creating a 3-dimensional map of the surface. This will provide an accurate map for next manned missions. The laser will work measuring the laser light roundtrip. The map will have no distance error superior to 160 ft (50 meters) and no elevation error superior to 3ft (1 m), thus being the first such accurate ever map of the Moon. Mission duration is at least one year
- Route, Remarks: the LOLA laser is a close relative to MOLA, this instrument which served to map the surface of Mars in the late 1990s. LOLA will be in a polar orbit around the Moon, with one orbit each 113 minutes. Such an accurate mapping is needed as next-best laser ranging map, made by the Clementine mission in 1994, has an horizontal resolution as coarse as 19 mi (30 km) with an error of 100 m vertically . Other current maps of the Moon may range from 3,300 ft (1 km), on the near side, to many miles (several kilometers), on the far side, of uncertaintly about the positioning of lunar features as, near Apollo landing sites, the locations of craters and ridges are well known. Much of the lunar surface is known only approximately.
- Status: under study
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Scheduled Launch: 2017, aboard a NASA vehicle, from Cape Canaveral
- Agency, Country: ESA (Europe)
- Scheduled Arrival Date: -
- Mission, Features: Solar Orbiter is a European ESA mission to study the solar flows, with strong NASA
contributions managed from Goddard Space Flight Center
- Route, Remarks: multiple gravity assists from Venus will allow the Solar Orbiter to tilt its orbit
until it can see the poles of the Sun and in closeness to the Sun, by about the orbit of Mercury, to better details of the overall solar events
- Status: officially announced by ESA
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Scheduled Launch: June 2017 by Orbital Sciences Corporation from the Reagan Test Site on Kwajalein
Atoll aboard a Pegasus XL launched from the Orbital's 'Stargazer' L-1011 aircraft. NASA's Launch Services Program at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida
is responsible for management and oversight of the Pegasus XL launch services
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Scheduled Arrival Date: -
- Mission, Features: the ICON mission, a mission to study the Earth's ionosphere, will study what causes variation in airglow such as the
red glowing band seen in the atmosphere. Such emissions point to disturbances that can interfere with
radio communications
- Route, Remarks: na
- Status: officially announced by NASA
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Scheduled Launch: August 2017 aboard a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Air Force
Station
- Agency, Country: NASA (USA)
- Scheduled Arrival Date: -
- Mission, Features: the TESS mission will search the entire sky for exoplanets, the first all-sky survey. The overall duration of the mission is of 3 years
- Route, Remarks: na
- Status: in development. Critical Design Review is to occur in 2015
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
- Scheduled Launch: August 2018 aboard a Ariane 5 ECA launcher
- Agency, Country: NASA (Goddard Space Flight Center) (USA), ESA (Europe), Canadian Space Agency (Canada)
- Scheduled Arrival Date: -
- Mission, Features: the JWSP is the first tool of next generation astronomy instruments which will allow astronomers further into the Dark Ages of the Universe. The JWSP will make observations in the far visible to the mid-infrared part of the spectrum with a mirror twice the one of Hubble. Northrop Grumman Space Technology is the prime contractor to develop the JWST as Goddard Space Flight Center is managing the project and the Space Telescope Science Institute will be responsible for the telescope science and mission operations. the JWSP a planned lifetime of 10 years or more
- Route, Remarks: the JWSP will take its spot about 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) beyond the Earth for steady temperature conditions. The James Webb Telescope will, amongst others, use 3 to 6 human hairs-wide 'microshutters' which will allow to sparse the light coming from the farmost objects from the one from the nearmost ones, allowing to pear depp into the past, as its mirror will be made of the combination of 18 mirrors
- Status: under study
- for more check at NASA site for their dedicated page to that mission, as their Mission Finder is a useful tool
Website Manager: G. Guichard, site 'Amateur Astronomy,' http://stars5.6te.net. Page Editor: G. Guichard. last edited: 1/19/2015. contact us at geguicha@outlook.com
