Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news of exciting discoveries, scientific breakthroughs and more.
CNN
—
This year promises to be out of this world when it comes to space missions, launches and the next steps in space exploration.
In 2023, NASA will travel to the metallic world, a spacecraft will drop unprecedented samples of an asteroid to Earth, a historic lunar mission will receive its crew, and several new commercial rocket launches may make their launch debut.
there is we expect a lotAccording to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“More amazing discoveries Webb telescope, climate missions It will tell us more about how our Earth is changing, the advancement of science aboard the International Space Station, and major developments in aeronautics. X-59 and X-57 experimental aircraft, the selection of the first astronauts to go to the moon in more than 50 years, and much more,” Nelson said in a statement.
In the meantime, European Space Agency It will launch a mission to Jupiter and its moons, send a satellite to create a 3D map of the universe, and begin training the newest class of astronauts, this includes an astronaut with a physical disability.
INTERACTIVE: The best space photos of 2022
Here are some space titles you can expect to see this year.
last year, opening mission NASA’s Artemis Program began with a successful test flight that sent an uncrewed spacecraft on a historic journey around the Moon. Although the Artemis II mission, the program’s first crewed flight, is not expected to fly until spring 2024, the public may soon learn the names of the lucky astronauts who will be on board.
The space agency has already narrowed its astronaut corps down to one field 18 candidates Those suitable for Artemis crew assignments. Last month, NASA officials said they would announce the Artemis II crew in early 2023 — so news could come any day.
The Artemis II mission is expected to send four people on a trip around the Moon and back to Earth.
The next mission after that, Artemis III, will aim to land astronauts on the lunar surface for the first time since the 20th century Apollo program.
While there are no manned Artemis flights to look forward to this year, NASA plans to send robotic landers to the moon as part of efforts to further study the lunar terrain and radiation environment and search for potential resources. mined from the moon and used to enhance deep space exploration.
The program is called Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, and it relies on partnerships with more than a dozen companies that are privately developing their own lunar landers.
The first lander to fly under the program could be the plane built by Pennsylvania-based Astrobotic, which it plans to use to retrieve the Peregrine lunar lander. 11 tools of science and exploration It will reach the surface of the Moon in the first few months of 2023. It will land in Lacus Mortis, a larger crater on the near side of the Moon.
Three more CLPS program missions may also launch in 2023, according to the report NASA website.
The much-anticipated Jupiter Icy Moons is known as the Explorer mission JUDGEwill be available from April 5 to 25.
Launched from the European Spaceport in French Guiana, the European Space Agency’s mission will spend three years studying Jupiter and its three icy moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – in depth.
All three moons are thought to have oceans beneath their ice-covered crusts, and scientists want to investigate whether Ganymede’s ocean is potentially habitable.
After reaching Jupiter in July 2031, the spacecraft and its suite of 10 instruments will conduct 35 flybys of the gas giant and its moons. Some of the mission’s goals include investigating whether life exists in the Jupiter system, how the gas giant formed its moons, and how Jupiter itself formed.
Boeing has been working on a spacecraft capable of transporting astronauts to and from the ISS for a decade, and in 2023 let it be a year that this new space taxi is finally up and running.
After years of delays and stalled development, the Starliner spacecraft has completed a flight unmanned test mission In May of last year, BKS was considered successful. And NASA officials are staring April 2023 for the first crew launch.
The Starliner is expected to complement NASA’s plans to turn over the task of transporting astronauts to the ISS to the private sector. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule already fulfills this role, and the company aims to launch its seventh regular astronaut mission next month. When Starliner enters operations, SpaceX and Boeing are expected to split missions in hopes of keeping as many workers on the ISS as possible before NASA retires the aging space station in the next decade.
Continuing one of the most notable trends in spaceflight of the 2020s, some new commercial rocket companies are expected to debut new launch vehicles that are entirely privately owned and operated.
SpaceX is expected to attempt the first orbital launch of its giant Starship spacecraft. The company wants to use the vehicle to one day put the first humans on Mars, and NASA also hopes to rely on the vehicle for its Artemis program.
Two other powerful commercial rockets are also in the works: Vulcan Centaur, developed by United Launch Alliance, and New Glenn, a product of billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin. At the moment, the Vulcan rocket is expected to take off Early 2023, and New Glenn may make its flight debut after that. (Note, however, that new rockets are notorious for table drifts.)
Several new small rockets designed specifically to launch light satellites into Earth orbit may also enter the scene. Two US-based startups — Relativity and ABL Space Systems — could start the year with their first launches expected from Florida and Alaska, respectively.
A collection of rocks and soil from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu will finally reach their destination this year when NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft lands them on Earth.
The spacecraft, NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, made history It successfully collected a sample from Bennu in October 2020.
OSIRIS-REx On September 24, it will rock with the Earth and drop a 2.1-ounce sample of material from Bennu’s surface to the Utah Test and Training Site. If the spacecraft is still healthy, it will begin a new expedition to study other asteroids.
The samples will reveal information about the formation and history of our solar system, as well as asteroids that may be on a collision course with Earth.
After unexpected delaysNASA’s first spacecraft to study a metallic asteroid will launch in October.
The Psyche mission will embark on a four-year journey to an unexplored potato-shaped world in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The mission will study the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, which appears only as a fuzzy blur to ground- and space-based telescopes.
An unusual object could be a metallic core left over from a planet or a piece of primordial material that never melted. NASA. Psychics can help astronomers learn more about the formation of our solar system. If Psyche really is a core, studying it would be like looking into the heart of a planet like Earth.
The mission missed its initial launch window in 2022 due to delays in software and hardware testing. The mission team increased its staff to complete the tests before launch.
A number of other missions are expected to be launched in 2023. NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions Pollution Monitoring mission or TIMEIt will measure pollution every hour over North America.
The agency will cooperate with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the European Space Agency. CHRISM missionX-ray and Spectroscopy Mission to investigate cosmic X-ray bodies.
The European Space Agency and NASA will also join forces in this work Euclidean mission to explore dark energy, the mysterious and invisible form of energy that is driving the accelerated expansion of the universe.
Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for high spectral resolution observations at submillimetre wavelengths or ASTHROS missionwill launch a balloon larger than a football field from Antarctica to find out what causes the end of star formation in some galaxies.
And NASA’s small satellite called Moon Trailblazer It will use innovative instruments to collect data on the amount of water on the moon.
