Foresight: A timeline of NASA’s upcoming expeditions

We’re not living on Mars yet, but NASA has an exciting vision of future space missions lined up. By digging around on asteroids, exploring Jupiter’s frozen moons, and looking to the stars to find the evolution of the universe, these journeys (and their technologies) will bring answers to questions we’ve had for centuries. Read on below for some of the agency’s most exciting future projects to take us out of this world.   

Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC)
Launch date: Late 2016
Scientific tools used: Atomic clock 

The Deep Space Atomic Clock, shortened to DSAC, is a technology demonstration of a small, precise, mercury-ion atomic clock which is scheduled to be launched into Earth’s orbit to test its potential as a next-generation tool for spacecraft navigation, radio science, and global positioning systems. Impressively, it’s 50 times more accurate than today’s best navigation clocks. 

Currently, the project is set for a late 2016 launch aboard a hosted payload in partnership with NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation Program and Department of Defense. 

ECOSTRESS
Launch date: April 2018
Scientific tools used: Prototype HyspIRI Thermal Infrared Radiometer 

Called the ECOsystem Spaceborn Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS), this technology will monitor one of the most basic processes of living plants: the loss of water through pores in leaves, known as transpiration.

Because water that evaporates from soil around plants affects the amount of water the plants can use, ECOSTRESS will measure combined evaporation and transpiration, known as evapotranspiration (ET). ECOSTRESS will address three science questions:

• How is the terrestrial biosphere responding to changes in water availability?
• How do changes in diurnal vegetation water stress impact the global carbon cycle?
• Can agricultural vulnerability be reduced through advanced monitoring of agricultural water consumptive use and improved drought estimation?

Plants and vegetables have already been grown on the International Space Station. Perhaps some day in the future, they'll be willing to grow further out in space.

InSight
Launch date: May 5, 2018
Scientific tools used: Seismometer, heat-flow probe   

Aimed at further exploring the Red Planet, the InSight mission will place a lander on Mars that will drill beneath the surface to investigate its interior structure. The mission is designed to give scientists a better understanding of Mars’ evolution as a rocky planet.  

Based on NASA’s Phoenix Mars lander design, the vehicle will be equipped with a seismometer and a heat-flow probe to study the planet’s interior.

MIRI
Launch date: 2018
Scientific tools used: Mid-infrared instrument, telescope

Created to play a major role in NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, the Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI, will image stars and galaxies in infrared light. Once collected, data from the instrument will contribute to investigations about the evolution of the universe and the search for the first-ever episode of star formation. 

Currently, the James Webb Space Telescope is under development with a 2018 launch date.  

Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM)
Launch date: Late 2021
Scientific tools used: Rover

NASA is developing its first robotic mission to visit a large near-Earth asteroid, collect a multi-ton boulder from its surface, and redirect it into a stable orbit around the moon. Once in place, astronauts will explore it and return with samples in the 2020s. Known as the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM), the journey is part of the agency’s plan to advance the new technologies and spaceflight experience needed for a human mission to the Martian system in the 2030s.

Europa Mission
Launch date: 2020s
Scientific tools used: Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS), Interior Characterization of Europa using MAGnetometry (ICEMAG), Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE), Europa Imaging System (EIS), Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON), Europa THermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS), MAss SPectrometer for Planetary EXploration/Europa (MASPEX), Ultraviolet Spectrograph/Europa (UVS), SUrface Dust Mass Analyzer (SUDA)

The goal of NASA’s Europa mission would conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, investigating whether the icy satellite could harbor conditions suitable for life. The mission would send a highly capable, radiation-tolerant spacecraft into a long, looping orbit around Jupiter to closely fly by Europa.   

Getting to one of the fifth planet’s moons is no easy task. NASA selected nine science instruments for the future trip to Europa, including cameras and spectrometers to produce high-resolution images of the moon’s surface to determine its composition. The mission would also carry a magnetometer to measure the strength and direction of the moon's magnetic field, which would allow scientists to determine the depth and salinity of its ocean.   

The far-out mission would perform 45 flybys of Europa at altitudes varying from 1,700 miles to 16 miles above the surface.  

WFIRST
Launch date: Mid 2020s
Scientific tools used: 2.4-m telescope, Wide Field instrument, Coronagraph Instrument  

A NASA observatory designed to settle questions in the areas of dark energy, expoplanets, and infrared astrophysics, the Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope, also known as WFIRST, is a telescope equipped with two different parts. First is its primary mirror, which measures 2.4 meters in diameter and will function similarly to the Hubble Space Telescope’s primary mirror. The other part is the Coronagraph Instrument, which will enable astronomers to detect and measure properties of planets in other solar systems.   

Impressively, the Wide Field Instrument will have a field of view that is 100 times greater than the Hubble infrared instrument, capturing more of the sky with less observing time. It will perform a microlensing survey of the inner Milky Way to find 2,600 exoplanets.  

Mars 2020
Launch date: Summer 2020
Scientific tools used: Mastcam-Z, SuperCam, Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL),
Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals (SHERLOC), Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE), Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA), Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Exploration (RIMFAX)  

With a major goal to search for evidence of past life, the Mars 2020 rover will investigate a region of the Red Planet for microbial life. Throughout its exploration, it will collect samples of soil and rock and cache them on the surface for potential return to Earth by a future mission.    

Mars 2020 will carry a new subsystem to collect and prepare Martian rocks and soil samples that includes a coring drill on its arm and a rack of sample tubes. Two science instruments mounted on the rover's robotic arm will be used to search for signs of past life and determine where to collect samples by analyzing the chemical, mineral, physical, and organic characteristics of Martian rocks. In laboratories on Earth, specimens from Mars could be analyzed for evidence of past life on Mars and possible health hazards for future human missions.

Source: NASA