All.. Some Current Missions

David Benford
Apr 18, 2016
2 min read

Image Source - oddsmagazine.com

Last week I discussed satellites; where the word originated, what they are, and how they help us here on Earth. This week I want to discuss a few of the missions we currently have going on at other planets and moons. Taking a look at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, an extension of NASA whose primary role is keeping track of such missions, there are 39 missions currently being conducted. I will not be naming them all here, but I will give a small glimpse of various missions being conducted to help solve the many mysteries that surround our solar system and universe. Each mission takes years and years of planning, budget constructing, testing and retesting, as well as approval and finding the right windows to insure the satellites reach their destinations. Timing needs to be precise, one small miscalculation and the launch could be off my millions of miles, ending up with the probe drifting for the rest of eternity to the furthest reaches of the cosmos.

Not every mission goes off without a hitch, but the ones that have beam back stellar and important information. Such missions include but not limited to:

ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) - launched in 1989 and designed to capture high resolution images of Earth (All Current Missions)

Image Source - mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov

AIRS (Atmospheric Infrared Sounder) - launched in 2002 being used as a key tool for climate studies on greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide distribution (All Current Missions)

Image Source - en.wikipedia.org

Cassini (Cassini-Huygens) - launched in 1997 and currently orbiting the planet Saturn and its numerous moons (All Current Missions)

Image Source - en.wikipedia.org

Cloudsat – launched in 2006 and is part of NASA’s weather and climate-tracking satellites and uses advanced radar to study the inner structure of clouds, helping researchers better understand how sever tropical cyclones as well as climate changes related to clouds occur (All Current Missions)

Image Source - earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Dawn – launched in 2007 and was orbiting a mini-planet in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is currently orbiting the mini-planet Ceres in the same location. Its mission is to characterize the conditions and processes that shaped our solar system (All Current Missions)

Image Source - blog.al.com

Juno – launched in 2011 and is currently on its way to Jupiter to peek down below Jupiter’s huge mass of clouds, providing us with answers about itself, along with answers about the origin of our solar system (All Current Missions)

Image Source - en.wikipedia.org

Kepler – launched in 2009, Kepler is a telescope that sits nearly 75 million miles away from Earth and studies section of the sky looking for any drop in light from far away stars, watching for the transit of planets outside our solar system

Image Source - physics.usyd.edu.au

DLRE (Diviner Lunar Radiometer) – launched in 2009 and is an instrument flying aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, is designed to measure the surface temperatures on the moon providing us with information for future operations on the lunar surface (All Current Missions)