Tuesday, 9 October 2018

NASA'S UPCOMING MISSIONS

Introduction

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is an independent agency of the United States Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and aerospace research.

NASA science is focused on better understanding Earth through the Earth Observing System, advancing heliophysics through the efforts of the Science Mission Directorates Heliophysics Research Program, exploring bodies throughout the Solar System with advanced robotic spacecraft missions such as New Horizons, and researching astrophysics topics, such as the Big Bang, through the great observations and associated programs. On May 23, 2009, former President of USA Barack Obama announced the nomination of Charles Bolden as NASA Administrator. Charles Bolden was confirmed by the Senate on July 15, 2009.

1. James Webb Space Telescope [JWST] (2021)
Aim : Observe the most distant events / objects in the Universe.


The JWST being developed by NASA with significant contribution from Canadian Space agency and the European Space agency and is named after James E Webb.

In December NASA announced the construction of JWST was complete and that its extensive testing phase would begin. In March 2018 NASA delayed JWST’s launch after the telescopes sunshield ripped during practice development. It was delayed again in June 2018.

The James Webb Space Telescope is a space telescope that will be the successor to the Hubble space telescope. The JWST will Provide greatly important resolution and sensitivity and will enable a broad range of investigation across the fields of Astronomy and Cosmology. One of its major goals is observing some of the most distant events and objects in the universe. Such as the formation of first galaxies. These types of targets are beyond the reach of current ground and space based instruments. Other goals include understanding the formation of stars and exo-planets, the direct imaging of ex planets and Novas.

The JWST primary mirror is composed of hexagonal mirror segments made of gold coated Beryllium. These combine to create a mirror with a diameter of 6.5m much larger than Hubbles 2.4m mirror. Unlike the Hubble which observes in near UV visible and near IR spectra. The JWST will observe in the long wavelength visible light through the mid infrared range. This will allow the JWST to observe high red shift objects the are too old and too distant for the Hubble and other earlier instruments to observe. The telescope must be kept very cold to observe in the infrared without interference. The JWST will be deployed in space near the earth sun L2 lagrangian point and it consist of a sunshield madeup of five layers of a material called Kapton. Each layer is coated with aluminum, while the sun-facing side of the two hottest layers (designated layer 1 and layer 2) are also coated with doped-silicon (or treated silicon) to reflect the sun's heat back into space. The sunshield is a critical part of the JWST, which is due to be launched in October 2018, because the infrared cameras and four instruments aboard must be kept very cold (below 50 Kelvin) and out of the sun's heat and light if they are to function properly.

2. Euclid Spacecraft (2021)
Aim : Search for dark matter and dark energy.


Euclid is a medium class (M – class) mission and is the part of European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) cosmic vision 2015-2025 Scientific program. Euclid is a visible to near infrared space telescope currently under development by the ESA and Euclid Consortium. This M-class of mission have an ESA budget cap at around $500 million. Basically to say, the mission is named after the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria. Euclid was chosen in October 2011 together with solar orbiter, out of several competing machines. This launch is planned for 2020.

The objective of Euclid mission is to better understand dark energy and dark matter by accurately measuring the acceleration of the universe. To achieve this the korsch type telescope will measure the shapes of galaxies at varying distance from earth and investigate the relationship between distance and red shift. Dark energy is generally accepted as contributing to the increased acceleration of expanding universe. So understanding this relationship will help to define how physicists and Astrophysics understand it. Euclid’s Mission advances and compliment ESA’s plank telescope.

3. Europa Lander (2024) 
Aim: Search for life on Jupiter’s moon Europa.


Europa Lander is a proposed astrobiology mission concept by NASA to say the Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Mainly to say the Europa Lander is a NASA’s mission to study Jupiter moon Europa. If selected and developed it would be launched separately in 2024 to complement the studies by Europa Clipper Orbiter Mission.

On earth Subglacial Microbial mission at blood falls survive in cold darkness without oxygen living in beine water below Taylor Glacier but come out at this location in Antartica. The red colour comes from dissolved iron.

The objective of mission would be searching for bio-signatures at the subsurface to characterize the composition of non-ice near subsurface material and determine proximity of liquid water and recently erupted material near the Lander’s location.

The main goals of this mission are to search for evidence of past or present life on Europa, to assess the habitability of Europa by directly analyzing material from surface and to characterize the surface subsurface for future missions.

4. Mars Manned Mission (2033-2039)
Aim: To establish human settlement on Mars.

Mars is the stepping of the human race on its voyage into the universe. Human settlement on Mars will aid our understanding of the origin of the solar system, the origin of life and our place in universe.

A new report by a non-government organization suggest that NASA could get astronauts to Mars orbit by 2033 and onto the red planet surface by 2039. It is the Mars one’s goal to establish a human settlement on mars. Human settlement of mars is the next gaint leap for mankind. Exploring the solar system as a united humanity will being us all closer together.

Since it would be nice to spend some time at mars we are only interested in the one way trip, which is half of the time of the full orbit, or about nine months. So it takes nine months to get to mars.

The mission of Mars includes obstacles beyond budget. Keeping Astronaut healthy and happy on the journey is important among them. Without stopovers between earth and mars, astronauts will need to port everything they need with them including air, food and water for a round trip duration of two to three years.

5. Psyche Spacecraft (2022)
Aim: Study asteroid Psyche well known for huge amounts of metals like iron, nickel, gold, platinum, etc.

Psyche is the heaviest known M-type asteroid and is thought to be the exposed iron core of protoplanet. This asteroid may be the remnant of a violent collision with another object that stripped off the outer crust. The radar observation of the asteroid from earth indicate an iron nickel compositer. On January 4, 2017 the Psyche mission was chosen along with Lucy mission as NASA’s next discovery class missions.

The Psyche spacecraft will use solar electric propulsion, and the scientific payload will be an imager, a magnetometer and a gamma-ray spectrometer. Scientists think that 16 Psyche could be the exposed core of an early planet that could have been as large as Mars and lost its surface in a series of violent collisions.

The mission will launch in 2022 and arrive in four years to perform 21 months of science. The spacecraft will be built by NASA JPL in collaboration with SSL (formerly space systems / loral) and arizona state university.

REFERENCE: 

[1] https://en.m.wikipepedia.org
[2] https://www.space.com

SUBMITTED BY:

Delvita Veigas
Divyashree K
Ezitha Monteiro
Keerthana

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