SPACE
MISSIONS – SCI & TECH
News:
From the moon to Europa,
six space missions to be excited for in 2024
What's
in the news?
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The year 2023 proved to be an Important
one for space missions, with NASA'S
OSIRIS-REx mission returning a sample from an asteroid and India's
Chandrayaan-3 mission exploring the lunar south pole region, and 2024 is
shaping up to be another exciting year for space exploration.
Key
takeaways:
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Several new missions under NASA'S Artemis
plan and Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative will target the moon.
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The latter half of the year will feature
several exciting launches, with the launch of the Martian Moons exploration
mission.
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In September, Europa Clipper and Hera in
October and Artemis II and VIPER to the moon in November if everything goes as
planned.
Europa
Clipper:
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NASA
will launch Europa Clipper, which will explore one of Jupiter’s largest moons, Europa.
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Europa is slightly smaller than the
earth’s moon, with a surface made of ice.
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Beneath its icy shell, Europa likely
harbours a saltwater ocean, which scientists expect contains over twice as much
water as all the oceans here on Earth combined.
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With Europa Clipper, scientists want to
investigate whether Europa’s Ocean could be a suitable habitat for
extraterrestrial life.
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The mission plans to do this by flying
past Europa nearly 50 times to study the
moon’s icy shell, its surface’s geology and its subsurface ocean.
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The mission will also look for active
geysers spewing out from Europa.
Artemis
II launch:
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Artemis II, part of NASA's Artemis program, is a crewed
lunar mission set to orbit the Moon, marking humanity's return since 1972.
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The Artemis programme is named after
Apollo’s twin sister in Greek mythology.
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Planned for a 10-day journey, it aims to validate systems for sustained lunar
presence.
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This pivotal mission, including the first
woman and person of colour, follows Artemis I's success, testing an uncrewed
lunar capsule in late 2022.
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Artemis II underscores NASA's commitment
to lunar exploration, preparing for extended space habitation and laying the
groundwork for future missions to Mars.
VIPER:
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VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar
Exploration Rover), is a robot the size of a golf cart that NASA will use to explore the moon’s south pole in late 2024.
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This robotic mission is designed to search
for volatiles, which are molecules that easily vaporize, like water and carbon
dioxide, at lunar temperatures.
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It aims to search for water on the Moon.
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These materials could provide resources
for future human exploration on the moon.
Lunar
Trailblazer:
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NASA
has recently invested in a class of small, low-cost planetary missions called SIMPLEx, which stands for Small,
Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration.
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These missions save costs by tagging along
on other launches as what is called a rideshare, or secondary payload.
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Like VIPER, Lunar Trailblazer will look
for water on the moon.
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But while VIPER will land on the moon’s
surface, studying a specific area near the south pole in detail.
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Lunar Trailblazer will orbit the moon, measuring the temperature
of the surface and mapping out the locations of water molecules across the
globe.
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Lunar Trailblazer’s launch timing depends
on the primary payload’s launch readiness.
PRIME-1
Missions:
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The PRIME-1 mission, scheduled for a
mid-2024 launch, is Lunar Trailblazer’s ride. PRIME-1 will drill into the moon – it’s a test run for the kind of
drill that VIPER will use.
JAXA’s
Martian Moon eXploration Mission:
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The JAXA MMX mission concept to study Mars’ moons - Phobos and Deimos.
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The Japanese
Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, has a robotic mission in development
called the Martian Moon eXploration, or MMX, planned for launch around
September 2024.
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The mission’s main science objective is to
determine the origin of Mars’ moons.
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Scientists aren’t sure whether Phobos and
Deimos are former asteroids that Mars captured into orbit with its gravity or
if they formed out of debris that was already in orbit around Mars.
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The spacecraft will spend three years
around Mars conducting science operations to observe Phobos and Deimos.
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MMX will also land on Phobos’ surface and collect a sample before returning to Earth.
ESA’s
Hera Mission:
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It is a mission by the European Space Agency to return to the
Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system that NASA’s DART mission visited in 2022.
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But DART didn’t just visit these
asteroids, it collided with one of them to test a planetary defence technique
called “kinetic impact”.
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DART hit Dimorphos with such force that it
actually changed its orbit.
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The kinetic impact technique smashes
something into an object in order to alter its path. This could prove useful if
humanity ever finds a potentially hazardous object on a collision course with
Earth and needs to redirect it.
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Hera will launch in October 2024, making
its way in late 2026 to Didymos and Dimorphos, where it will study the physical
properties of the asteroids.