NASA Reveals Five of its Future Space Exploration Missions

Along with four other mission concepts, DAVINCI was selected as a semifinalist for the NASA Discovery Program’s latest calls for proposed missions.

These finalists will receive $3 million in federal grants for detailed concept studies, and the mission (or missions) that are ultimately chosen will be launched by December 31st, 2021.

“The selected investigations have the potential to reveal much about the formation of our solar system and its dynamic processes”, said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

According to NASA, its epic Discovery Program, which was first launched in the 1990s in an attempt to provide humanity with cutting edge space exploration at the lowest possible costs, may soon feature up to two more missions.

3-D perspective of the Venusian volcano, Maat Mons, generated from radar data from NASA’s Magellan mission. Each of the tasks are picked as a major aspect of NASA’s long-running Discovery program. The theory, which has been born out in practice, is that more science can be done for the buck, with the budget forcing mission designers to be creative.

“This time next year, when the (final proposals) come in and we do the analysis, there’s a criteria on whether we’ll be able to select one or two, and that criteria is, of course, a budgetary one”, Green said Monday at a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council’s planetary science subcommittee. Determining whether or not this is the case, and whether or not volcanic activity plays an active role in the composition of Venus’s thick atmosphere, will be central to DAVINCI’s mission.

Psyche: this mission would explore the origin of planetary cores by studying the metallic asteroid Psyche. Science teams that choose to incorporate the laser telecom unit will be entitled to an extra $30 million above their $450 million cost cap.

DAVINCI would study the chemical composition of Venus’ atmosphere during a 63-minute descent.

Competition for a fifth New Frontiers mission would then begin “before the end of 2023”, Green said. Another asteroid mission would investigate the Jupiter Trojan asteroids-a gaggle of asteroids sharing Jupiter’s orbital path. Researchers think they might offer details on how the solar system developed.

Sample Acquisition, Containment, and Thermal Control Technology for Comet Surface Sample Return, led by principal investigator Steven Squyres at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

An Advanced Pointing Imaging Camera, led by Ryan Park of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Amy Mainzer of JPL is the PI, and JPL would manage the mission.

Those are the two possible Venus missions.

“These asteroids are in an area that really is the last population of objects in the solar system to be visited”, Levison said in a press release. The program has launched 12 projects to date, including Messenger, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, more than 11 years ago. PSI provided ground support for the Deep Impact mission and is operating a gamma ray and neutron detector for the current Dawn mission, examining the giant asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres. Next up for the program is InSight, a seismic probe set for launch to Mars in March.