Space mission

Wednesday, January 3 2024 – 13:03 WIB

Jakarta – Two thousand two four will be an extraordinary year for space missions – especially to the Moon – Earth’s closest neighbor, and this is a continuation of last year’s mission.

So, here is a list of space exploration missions that will launch this year, as reported LIVE Techno from the page Gree ReporterWednesday, January 3, 2024:

Illustration of space junk orbiting the Earth.

Space Exploration to the Moon: NASA’s CLPS Mission

Nasa’s series of Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) missions, most of which will launch in 2024, will carry a variety of instruments to the Moon. These missions were created and launched by various private companies under contract from Nasa.

CLPS-2 is scheduled for launch in early January 2024, and there are four other CLPS missions planned for launch throughout the year. That’s the great thing about the Moon – it’s so close that there’s not much worry about launch windows (no complicated orbits to calculate) or distance to cover.

Indeed, human exploration of the Moon is expected to take a small step forward, perhaps as early as November 2024, when Artemis II orbits the Moon for several days. One of the astronauts who will be on board will be a woman – a big leap in exploration that until now was only carried out by men.

Trailblazer

Continuing the lunar theme, Nasa’s Trailblazer mission travels to the Moon to understand where water is located. Is water locked in rocks as part of the mineral structure, or is it stored as ice on rocky surfaces?

The Trailblazer is currently scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2024. However, no exact date has been confirmed yet. This is a small mission, part of the Artemis human lunar exploration program.

Chang’e 6

Illustration of China’s rocket launch into space.

The launch of Chang’e 6, China’s latest mission to the Moon, is planned for May 2024 and is intended to bring material back to Earth. This is very important because this spacecraft will collect material from the far side of the Moon – the Aitkin Basin at the South Pole.

This basin is an area that is believed to have abundant frozen water. We don’t yet have samples of material from this part of the Moon – and although the ice will be long gone by the time the samples arrive on Earth, we will hopefully learn a lot about this unexplored region and its potential as a water source for visitors.

In September 2022, Nasa’s Dart mission encountered a system consisting of two asteroids called Didymos and Dimorphos, and crashed into Dimorphos (the junior partner). This impact had a purpose: to see whether such a collision could divert the asteroid from its path – an important goal if Earth were to be the target of a direct collision by an incoming asteroid.

Two years later, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera mission will be launched to visit the same pair of asteroids. This mission was not designed to hit either of these two objects, but rather to measure the effects of previous Dart impacts.

At the time of the impact, Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos was 33 minutes faster – a significant movement that suggests the asteroid’s path could have been deflected.

Europa Clipper

Illustration of the Chinese space station

Photo :

• YouTube / Courtesy of CCTV

Launching almost simultaneously with Hera was Nasa’s flagship mission: the Europa Clipper to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. This mission has been long awaited, since the Galileo mission first provided views of Europa’s icy surface in the late 1990s. Since then, we have known about the ocean that hides under the shell of ice.

The Europa Clipper will fly by Europa between 40 and 50 times, taking detailed images of Europa’s surface, monitoring ice floes, and most importantly, finding out whether the moon has conditions suitable for supporting life. This mission will also investigate whether Europa’s oceans are salty, and whether life-forming elements (carbon, nitrogen and sulfur) are present.

Unfortunately, it won’t be until 2030 that the results of these observations will be sent back to us, so we will have to wait patiently until then.

MMX

Illustration of a satellite weapon in space.

I started this article by mentioning my excitement over the return of material from Bennu. I will end with my anticipation of the discoveries to come. I know I’ve mentioned the return of material from the Moon – but actually, I’m much more excited about the prospect of the return of material from other moons. The moon in question is Phobos, a satellite of Mars.

The launch of the Japanese Space Agency’s Mars Moon Exploration (MMX) mission to Phobos is currently scheduled for September 2024, and is designed to return material to Earth in 2029.

I will be 70 years old by the time the material returns – but, I hope, not too old to enjoy analyzing a unique sample of a mysterious object.

2024-01-03 06:03:02
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