Thursday, December 31, 2009
NASA has a date and a budget for its next New Frontiers mission, but no destination just yet. The space agency does have three possible choices in mind and will decide sometime after 2010 whether to send an unmanned probe to the moon, Venus or an asteroid in our solar system. Three competing scientific programs will receive about $3 million each next year to develop a detailed mission concept study that NASA officials will review and use to decide where next to voyage.
The Surface and Atmosphere Geochemical Explorer (SAGE) would venture to Venus for America’s first-ever scientific probe of the planet’s surface. The challenge of this mission is building a lander that can withstand Venus’ harsh atmosphere long enough to collect samples, analyze them and transmit the information back to earth before succumbing to the intense heat and pressure. The former Soviet Union landed probes on Venus that managed to survive only two hours.
The Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security Regolith Explorer (Osiris-Rex) spacecraft would journey to a nearby asteroid, orbit it, venture close enough to its surface to collect samples and then return home to earth. Scientists say the samples could help better explain how the solar system came into being and the molecular origins of life.
MoonRise: Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission would place a lander near the moon’s south pole to collect two pounds of lunar materials for study. It would then blast off back for home.
Whichever mission is selected, NASA plans to launch no later than December 30, 2018. Mission cost, excluding the launch vehicle, is budgeted at $650 million.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
NASA Chooses Three Finalists for Future Space Science Mission to Venus, an Asteroid or the Moon (NASA)
NASA Considers Missions to Venus, Moon and Asteroid (by Stephen Clark, Spaceflight Now)
NASA Awards CU-Boulder $3.3 Million for Concept Study for Mission to Venus (University of Colorado at Boulder)
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