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.
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
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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