With Chandrayaan-3, India made history by making the first-ever landing close to the Moon’s south pole, and NASA retrieved a sample from an asteroid that is 4.5 billion years old.
We think that 2024 might be a very significant year for space travel. Several NASA-sponsored missions will target Jupiter and Mars, while other missions will concentrate on the Moon.
Let’s examine this.
Joint Earth-observing mission will be launched by NASA and ISRO
NISAR is a collaborative project being prepared by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). At a projected cost of $1.5 billion, it is billed as the most costly imaging satellite in the world.
At least once every 12 days, NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) can virtually cover the entire planet, offering detailed information on the “dynamics of forests, wetlands, and agricultural lands.”
Early in 2024, ISRO’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark-2 rocket will carry the mission into low Earth orbit (LEO).
January could see Japan’s historic lunar landing.
There will be two lunar missions launched in the next year.
With the SLIM mission, Japan may be able to perform its maiden soft landing on the moon on January 20.
The goal of SLIM is to make a “unprecedentedly high precision landing.” It is intended to arrive within 100 metres of Shioli, a tiny crater in the lunar equatorial zone, which is its intended landing spot.
Japan would land on the moon fifth after the US, China, Russia, and India if it is successful.
first robotic commercial launch to the lunar surface
On January 8, United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Astrobotic will conduct the “first commercial robotic launch” to the Moon’s surface.
This is a component of NASA’s Artemis programme and CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) effort.
The almost 6.5-foot-tall Peregrine lunar lander, built by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, is scheduled to touch down on the Moon’s surface on February 23. Twenty government and private payloads will be transported by the lander.
The next launch will also be the first time that ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket has flown.
First crewed lunar mission in over fifty years is Artemis 2.
The next spacecraft to visit the Moon is NASA’s Artemis 2, which will be the first crewed mission to do so since the end of the Apollo programme in 1972.
Four astronauts will be carried by Artemis 2 on a ten-day lunar orbit before they are brought back to Earth. There will be no moon landing for the mission.
The launch is currently scheduled for November 2024, but if necessary equipment, including spacesuits and oxygen gear, is not ready, it may be postponed until 2025.
Europa Clipper will look at whether Juipter’s moon Europa is habitable.
The goal of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is to investigate Europa, one of Jupiter’s larger moons.
Under its frozen surface, this Jovian moon is believed to have a sizable salty ocean that might hold more water than all of Earth’s oceans put together.
Researchers want to know if the seas surrounding Europa could harbour extraterrestrial life.
The spacecraft is expected to arrive in the Jupiter system in 2030 after launching on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in October 2024.