Future Missions
* Mission list begins with the earliest future launch.

Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer First Light: September 2004    Two 8-meter (26-foot) telescopes on Mount Graham, Arizona will be connected. The ground-based telescope system will identify faint dust clouds around other stars that might hinder planet-finding missions. The mission is managed by the University of Arizona, Tucson in conjunction with multipe international partners. Mission home page

Deep Impact Planned Launch: December 2004    Deep Impact is a spacecraft that will travel to comet Tempel 1 and propel a large projectile into the surface of the comet, creating a crater expected to reveal information about the comet nucleus. Deep Impact home page Mission description

CloudSat Planned Launch: No earlier than April 2005    CloudSat's trio of three satellites will be the first spacecraft to study clouds on a global basis. Their data will contribute to better predictions of clouds and their role in climate change. Cloudsat home page Mission description

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Planned Launch: August 2005    In 2005, NASA plans to launch a powerful scientific orbiter, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This mission will take the most powerful telescopic camera ever to another planet, plus five other scientific instruments. Mission home page

Ocean Surface Topography Proposed Launch: 2005    This mission will be a follow-on to the Jason-1 mission.

Dawn Planned Launch: 2006    Dawn, the first spacecraft ever planned to orbit two different bodies after leaving Earth, will orbit Vesta and Ceres, two of the largest asteroids in the solar system. Dawn home page Mission description

Aquarius Proposed Launch: 2006 - 2007    This mission will provide the first-ever global maps of salt concentration in the ocean surface needed to understand heat transport and storage in the ocean.

Hydros Proposed Launch: 2006 - 2007    This mission will provide the first global measurements of soil moisture and surface freeze/thaw information to improve our understanding of how water, energy and carbon are exchanged between Earth's land and atmosphere.

Orbiting Carbon Observatory Proposed Launch: 2006 - 2007    This mission will make the first space-based measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide with the accuracy and resolution needed to characterize its sources and sinks. Such information will improve forecasts of future concentrations of this important greenhouse gas and its impact on climate. Mission home page

Phoenix Mars Scout Planned Launch: 2007    In the continuing pursuit of water on Mars, the poles are a good place to probe, as water ice is found there. This mission will send a high-latitude lander to Mars and deploy its robotic arm and dig trenches up to half a meter (1.6 feet) into the layers of water ice. More information

Kepler Mission Planned Launch: 2007    The Kepler Mission will search for Earth-like planets with the "transit" method. A one-meter diameter (39-inch) telescope equipped with the equivalent of 42 high quality digital cameras will continuously monitor the brightness of 100,000 stars, looking for planets that cross the lines-of-sight between Kepler and their parent stars. Mission home page

Herschel Space Observatory Planned Launch: 2007    The Herschel Space Observatory is a space-based telescope that will study the universe by the light of the far-infrared and submillimeter portions of the spectrum. Mission home page

Planck Proposed Launch: 2007    Planck is a European Space Agency project to study the cosmic background. JPL is providing the following instrumentation: most or all of the detectors, both of the bolometers in the "high frequency" instrument and the heterodyne receivers in the "low frequency" instrument. Mission home page

Ocean Vector Winds Mission Proposed Launch: 2008    This mission will be a follow-on to the Sea Winds on Adeos II mission.

Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer Planned Launch: 2008    This space-based telescope will scan the entire sky in infrared light, revealing cool stars, planetary construction zones and the brightest galaxies in the universe. Mission home page

Mars Science Laboratory Planned Launch: 2009    NASA proposes to develop and to launch a roving long-range, long-duration science laboratory that will be a major leap in surface measurements and pave the way for a future sample return mission. Mission description

Mars Telecommunications Orbiter Planned Launch: 2009    Visit the Mars Exploration site for more information about missions to Mars.

Space Interferometry Mission Proposed Launch: 2009    This mission is an orbiting interferometer, which will link multiple telescopes to function in unison as a much larger "virtual telescope." The main goal is to detect planets of varying sizes -- from huge planets the size of Jupiter down to planets a few times as massive as Earth. Mission home page Mission description

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