Update: Year of the Solar System
25 Nov 2010
(Source: NASA Science Mission Directorate Planetary Science Division)
The December/January theme for the Year of the Solar System is: A Family Affair
Dr. James Green gave a couple of exciting talks at the recent TEDxNASA event. Watch them on YouTube:
O/OREOS is performing nicely and will be in orbit for the next six months. Want to know more? Well, short for "Organism/ORganic Exposure to Orbital Stresses," O/OREOS will expose a collection of organic molecules and microbes to solar and cosmic radiation. Could space be a natural habitat for these "micronauts?" O/OREOS may provide some answers. Follow the mission on these links:
Next up is the Venus Climate Orbiter on Dec 7th. What happened there could happen here! Here are some links:
This new poster shows the upcoming events in our solar system: Planetary Science Mission Events (PDF, 1.82 MB)
Here's a list of the events listed on the poster (current as of 25 November 2010):
1. EPOXI encounters comet Hartley 2 (24 November 2010)
2. Akatsuki (Venus Climate Orbiter) arrived at Venus (7 December 2010)
3. Stardust-NExT encounters comet Tempel 1 (14 February 2011)
4. MESSENGER orbit insertion and Mercury (18 March 2010)
5. Dawn orbit insertion at asteroid Vesta (July 2011)
6. Juno launch to Jupiter (5 August 2010)
7. GRAIL launch to Moon (8 September 2010)
8. Mars Science Laboratory Launch to Mars (25 November 2011)
Ongoing Mission Events:
9. New Horizons launched to Pluto (19 January 2006); arrives at Pluto (14 July 2010)
10. Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity launched to Mars (10 June 2003 and 7July 2003); surface operations continue.
11. Cassini launched to Saturn (15 October 1997); arrived Jupiter (30 December 2000), entered orbit at Saturn (1 July 2004); Huygens probe Titan landing (15 Februrary 2010); orbital operations continue
12. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (18 June 2010); still operational
