Future Space Missions

In Hello From Jupiter!, you read about the Juno spacecraft’s mission to Jupiter. Find out where NASA plans to explore next.

GSFC/NASA

SEPTEMBER 2016: SAMPLING A SPACE ROCK

The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, launched this fall, will travel for  more than two years to reach an asteroid called Bennu. It will collect samples to bring back to Earth.

JPL-CALTECH/NASA

2018: DRILLING ON MARS

The InSight mission will send a lander to drill into Mars’s interior, giving scientists a better understanding of the Red Planet’s composition.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED PHYSICS LAB/NASA

2018: STUDYING THE SUN

Solar Probe Plus will orbit the sun for nearly seven years to gather data on its outer atmosphere—called the corona

NASA

2020: LOOKING FOR LIFE

The Mars 2020 rover will look for signs of past life on the Red Planet and collect rock samples. It will also test technology for future human exploration.

JPL-CALTECH/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/NASA

2025: VISITING AN ASTEROID

NASA hopes to capture an asteroid and redirect a chunk of it to orbit the moon. Astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft will explore the asteroid.

PAT RAWLINGS/NASA

2030s: SENDING HUMANS TO MARS

Orion’s asteroid mission will help NASA test technology needed to send astronauts even further into the solar system—to Mars.

ANALYZE IT: How might the early events listed in the timeline help NASA send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s?

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