Maybe most of the attention NASA now focused on Mars, however, space Agency has not forgotten about the rest of the Solar system. NASA is beginning a critical analysis and review of the 12 proposals it has received for the further implementation of the program, New Frontiers (“New frontier”). This is the same program under which currently operating spacecraft “New horizons” and “Juno”.
For the next 7 months all proposals received will undergo a critical review and analysis of scientific and technical groups, after which one or several options will go to the next selective stage. The final version, the Agency will select in 2019, and then continue its further development and will invest up to $ 1 billion for the project.
Unfortunately, the Agency holds all the details of the program, New Frontiers in secret, but Western journalists managed to find out a few names that have surfaced in the document. From the names it becomes clear that it is regarded as sentences:
- Collecting samples of the comet;
- Collection of soil samples from the Basin South pole-Aitken – collection of samples from the largest and most famous crater on the moon;
- Exploring the ocean worlds (Titan and/or Enceladus);
- Zaturinskiy probe interplanetary station to study the atmosphere of Saturn;
- “Backdoor tour” and “convergence” — we are talking about the objects of the group of Trojan asteroids;
- Researcher of Venus “In Situ” project of research of the automatic interplanetary station
In the debate on “the Grand finale” the spacecraft “Cassini”, Linda Spilker one of the researchers on this project noted that three of the proposals received referred to the possibility of continuing the work of this spacecraft. One of the variants proposes to collect samples of the atmosphere of Saturn and return them to Earth. Another suggestion related to the research contained in the lakes of Titan (moon of Saturn) hydrocarbons. According to the latest proposed collecting samples of material from the geysers of Enceladus, and examined for the presence of amino acids, which can be indicators of the presence of the companion.
Final selected project, NASA plans to launch by 2024. And considering the achievements of previous projects in the framework of the program New Frontiers, you can expect some amazing discoveries and a ton of photos in high resolution. Thanks to the probe “New horizons” we got the opportunity to enjoy close views of Pluto, the spacecraft “Juno” (pictured above) is now investigating Jupiter and taking pictures of its fantastic atmosphere. Automatic interplanetary station Osiris-Rex is hurrying to meet near-earth asteroid Bennu. And this is only a small part of the planned NASA research.
NASA selects ideas for new space missions
Nikolai Khizhnyak