ADVERTISEMENT

NASA's future missions will shoot for an icy moon of Saturn, photograph the Big Bang, and more. Here's what's coming in the next 10 years.

In the past year, NASA has announced plans to return humans to the moon and search for life on one of Saturn's moons with a nuclear-powered helicopter.

humans on mars (normal size)
ADVERTISEMENT

NASA's 10-year plan involves billions of dollars and spans millions of miles. And much like the universe, it's only expanding.

Last year, the agency announced that it's planning to send astronauts back to the moon and eventually build a base there, with a Mars-bound mission to follow in the years after that. In June, the agency introduced a mission that aims to fly a nuclear-powered helicopter over the surface of Titan, an icy moon of Saturn's, to scan for alien life. NASA wants to looking for life in other places too, like the ocean below the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.

Other future missions will try to photograph our entire cosmic history and map the dark matter and dark energy that govern our universe.

ADVERTISEMENT

Here are some of NASA's biggest and most ambitious plans for the coming decade.

NASA Goddard / Youtube

Launched : August 12, 2018

ADVERTISEMENT

Arrived : November 5, 2018

The probe is traveling closer to the sun than anything from Earth before it. The mission aims to investigate the forces behind solar wind, which could inform efforts to protect technology on Earth from the sun's flare-ups.

Parker slingshots around the sun at record speeds of up to 213,200 mph; it's currently approaching its third close encounter. A powerful heat shield keeps the spacecraft's equipment cool.

ADVERTISEMENT

NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Launched : January 19, 2006

Arrived at Ultima Thule : January 1, 2019

The New Horizons spacecraft visited Pluto and the ice dwarfs surrounding it in 2015. In January, the spacecraft reached the farthest object anything human-made has ever visited: a snowman-shaped space rock called 2014 MU69 (or Ultima Thule).

It sent back the following video of Ultima Thule, though it will likely take until late 2020 for scientists to receive and download all the data from New Horizons' flyby.

ADVERTISEMENT

So far, we've learned that the primordial object contains methanol, water ice, and organic molecules.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Launched : May 5, 2018

ADVERTISEMENT

Arrived : November 26, 2018

Since the InSight lander touched down on the surface of the red planet, it has detected dozens of Mars quakes . The early data is giving scientists new insight into the planet's internal structure.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

ADVERTISEMENT

Planned launch : July 2020

Anticipated arrival : February 2021

The Mars 2020 rover will search for signs of ancient microbial alien life on the red planet, collect and stash rock samples, and test out technology that could pave the way for humans to walk the Martian surface one day.

You can tune in to NASA's live broadcast of the Mars 2020 rover's construction anytime to watch the $2.1 billion mission take shape.

ADVERTISEMENT

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Planned launch : Unknown

Anticipated arrival : Unknown

Until NASA sends another robot to Mars that could launch the stored samples to Earth, the 2020 rover will store the samples in its belly and search for a place on Mars where it can stash them for pickup.

ADVERTISEMENT

NASA

Planned launch : Unknown

Anticipated arrival : 2024

ADVERTISEMENT

NASA wants to send humans to the moon again by 2024. Those would be the first boots on the lunar surface since the Apollo program ended over 45 years ago. This time, however, NASA wants to build a moon-orbiting space station with a reusable lunar-landing system.

The idea is that the lunar base could allow for more in-depth scientific research of the moon, and potentially even enable us to mine resources there that could be converted to fuel for further space travel.

JPL / NASA

ADVERTISEMENT

Planned launch : 2030s

Anticipated arrival : 2030s

The next moon mission will test deep-space exploration systems that NASA hopes will carry humans on to Mars.

Astronauts traveling to Mars would have to spend about three years away from Earth. In order to explore of the red planet, human travelers would have to be able to use the materials available on the lunar and Martian surfaces.

NASA is already designing future astronauts' gear. They're sending spacesuit material on the Mars 2020 rover to test how it holds up in the planet's harsh atmosphere. A deep-space habitat competition this year yielded a 3D- printable pod that could be constructed using materials found on Mars.

ADVERTISEMENT

Southwest Research Institute

Planned launch: October 2021

Anticipated arrival: 2027

ADVERTISEMENT

A mysterious swarm of Trojan asteroids the term for space rocks that follow planets trail Jupiter's orbit around the sun. NASA's Lucy mission plans to visit six of them.

"We know very little about these objects," Jim Green, the leader of NASA's planetary science program, said in a NASA video . "They may be captured asteroids, comets, or even Kuiper Belt objects."

What we do know is that the objects are as old as the sun, so they can serve as a kind of fossil record of the solar system.

ADVERTISEMENT

NASA / Jet Propulsion Lab-Caltech / SETI Institute

Planned launch: 2020s

Anticipated arrival : Unknown

When Galileo Galilei first looked at Jupiter through his homemade telescope in 1610, he spotted four moons circling the planet. Nearly 400 years later, NASA's Galileo mission found evidence that one of those moons, Europa, conceals a vast ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust.

NASA is planning to visit that ocean with the Europa Clipper, a spacecraft that will fly by the moon 45 times, getting as close at 16 miles above the moon's surface.

ADVERTISEMENT

Clipper will fly through water vapor plumes that shoot out from Europa's surface (as seen in the NASA visual above) to analyze what might be in the ocean. Radar tools will also measure the thickness of the ice and scan for subsurface water.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Anticipated launch and arrival: Unknown

ADVERTISEMENT

The future lander would search for signs of life in the ocean, digging 4 inches below the surface to extract samples for analysis in a mini, on-the-go laboratory.

NASA

Planned launch: 2026

ADVERTISEMENT

Anticipated arrival: 2034

Titan is a world with ice, liquid methane pools, and a thick nitrogen atmosphere. It somewhat resembles early Earth, since it has carbon-rich organic materials like methane and ethane. Scientists suspect that an ocean of liquid water might lurk 60 miles below the ice.

All that makes Titan a contender for alien life.

But getting to the distant, cold moon is not easy Saturn only gets about 1% of the sunlight that bathes Earth, so a spacecraft can't rely on solar energy. Instead, Dragonfly will propel itself using the heat of decaying plutonium.

ADVERTISEMENT

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State Univ./Space Systems Loral/Peter Rubin

Planned launch: 2022

Anticipated arrival: 2026

Most of the asteroids in our solar system are made of rock or ice, but Psyche is composed of iron and nickel. That's similar to the makeup of Earth's core, so scientists think Psyche could be a remnant of an early planet that was decimated by violent collisions billions of years ago.

ADVERTISEMENT

NASA is sending a probe to find out.

"This is an opportunity to explore a new type of world not one of rock or ice, but of metal," Linda Elkins-Tanton, who's leading the mission, said in a press release . "This is the only way humans will ever visit a core."

If Psyche really is the exposed core of a dead planet, it could reveal clues about the solar system's early years.

The probe NASA plans to send to Psyche would be the first spacecraft to use light, rather than radio waves, to transmit information back to Earth. The agency gave the team the green light to start the final design and early assembly process in June.

ADVERTISEMENT

NASA

NASA is partnering with 93 organizations across the US on these CubeSat projects. Such satellites have already been built and sent to space by an elementary school, a high school, and the Salish Kootenai College of the Flathead Reservation in Montana.

The first CubeSats sent to deep space trailed behind the InSight Mars lander last year. They successfully sent data from the InSight lander back to Earth as it landed on the Martian surface.

One planned mission using the nanotechnology will use lasers to search for ice on the moon's shadowy south pole. It's expected to launch in November 2020.

ADVERTISEMENT

Another CubeSat mission, also set to launch in 2020, will fly past an asteroid near Earth and send back data. It will be the first exploration of an asteroid less than 100 meters in diameter. That data will help scientists plan for future human missions to asteroids, where astronauts might mine resources as they explore deep space.

ESA/C. Carreau

Planned launch and arrival: 2022

ADVERTISEMENT

Dark matter makes up 85% of the universe, but nobody is sure what it is. Part of the problem is that we can't see it because it doesn't interact with light.

Dark matter's gravity holds the entire universe together, while an unknown force called dark energy pushes everything apart. Dark energy is winning, and that's why the universe is expanding.

As Euclid orbits Earth, the space telescope will measure the universe's expansion and attempt to map the mysterious geometry of dark matter and energy.

NASA is working with the ESA on imaging and infrared equipment for the telescope.

ADVERTISEMENT

NASA/Chris Gunn

Planned launch and arrival: 2021

It's been almost 30 years since the Hubble Space Telescope launched. The James Webb Space Telescope is its planned replacement, and it packs new infrared technology to detect light beyond what the human eye can see.

The telescope's goal is to study every phase of the universe's history in order to learn about how the first stars and galaxies formed, how planets are born, and where there might be life in the universe.

ADVERTISEMENT

A 21-foot-wide folding beryllium mirror will help the telescope observe faraway galaxies in detail. A five-layer, tennis court-size shield protects it from the sun's heat and blocks sunlight that could interfere with the images.

NASA

The telescope will also observe distant, young galaxies in detail we've never seen before.

ADVERTISEMENT

NASA

Planned launch and arrival: mid-2020s

WFIRST's field of view will be 100 times greater than Hubble's. Over its five-year lifetime, the space telescope will measure light from a billion galaxies and survey the inner Milky Way with the hope of finding about 2,600 exoplanets.

ADVERTISEMENT

See Also:

SEE ALSO: NASA's next Mars rover will launch in 2020, and it's being built before our eyes here's what the robot's birth has looked like

FOLLOW BUSINESS INSIDER AFRICA

Unblock notifications in browser settings.
ADVERTISEMENT

Recommended articles

Sony’s creators convention redefines the creative landscape for content creators

Sony’s creators convention redefines the creative landscape for content creators

Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa ranked as Africa's most polluted countries in new report

Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa ranked as Africa's most polluted countries in new report

10 African countries with the lowest life expectancy according to the World Bank

10 African countries with the lowest life expectancy according to the World Bank

Kenyan women are more obese than their men - here’s why

Kenyan women are more obese than their men - here’s why

Africa’s richest man Dangote stands between Europe and $17 billion in revenue

Africa’s richest man Dangote stands between Europe and $17 billion in revenue

After months of exchanging blows, Kenya and Uganda takes steps towards resolution

After months of exchanging blows, Kenya and Uganda takes steps towards resolution

Africa's first black billionaire could join $2.9 billion Vivendi bid for MultiChoice

Africa's first black billionaire could join $2.9 billion Vivendi bid for MultiChoice

10 most dangerous African countries in 2024

10 most dangerous African countries in 2024

Russia’s nuclear influence expands further north of Africa

Russia’s nuclear influence expands further north of Africa

ADVERTISEMENT