GENESIS
Mars Surveyor 2001 Orbiter
Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander
MUSES-C
CONTOUR
Europa Orbiter
Lunar-A
SELENE
Rosetta
Mars Surveyor 2003
Mars Express
Deep Space 4/Champollion
Deep Impact
MESSENGER
Mars Surveyor 2005
ISAS Mercury Orbiter
ESA Mercury Orbiter

The GENESIS spacecraft will be inserted into a halo orbit about the L1 Lagrangian point (0.01 AU from Earth) where collector arrays will be exposed to the solar wind for two years, stowed into a contamination-tight canister within a Sample Return Capsule (SRC), and returned to Earth for mid-air recovery in Utah. In case of bad weather, 10 day parking orbits permit delayed entry. Allowable launch periods are very wide.

The Mars Surveyor 2001 Orbiter is scheduled for launch on March 30, 2001. It will arrive at Mars on Oct. 20, 2001, if launched on schedule.

After a propulsive maneuver into a 25-hour capture orbit, aerobraking will be used over the next 76 days to achieve the 2-hour science orbit.

The Orbiter will carry 3 science instruments, the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS), the Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS), and the Mars Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE).

THEMIS will map the mineralogy and morphology of the Martian surface using a high-resolution camera and a thermal infrared imaging spectrometer.

The GRS will achieve global mapping of the elemental composition of the surface and determine the abundance of hydrogen in the shallow subsurface. The GRS is a rebuild of the instrument lost with the Mars Observer mission.

The MARIE will characterize aspects of the near-space radiation environment as related to the radiation-related risk to human explorers. It will be used in conjunction with a similar instrument on the '01 Lander to determine and model the effects of the atmosphere on the radiation-induced hazard on the surface.

The 2001 Orbiter will also support communication with the '01 Lander scheduled to arrive on Jan. 22, 2002.

The Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander is scheduled for launch on April 10, 2001. It will land on Mars on Jan. 22, 2002, if launched on schedule. The 2001 Lander will carry an imager to take pictures of the surrounding terrain during its' rocket-assisted descent to the surface. The descent imaging camera will provide images of the landing site for geologic analyses, and will aid planning for initial operations and traverses by the rover. The 2001 Lander will also be a platform for instruments and technology experiments designed to provide key insights to decisions regarding successful and cost-effective human missions to Mars. Hardware on the Lander will be used for an in-situ demonstration test of rocket propellant production using gases in the Martian atmosphere. Other equipment will characterize the Martian soil properties and surface radiation environment.

MUSES-C is a NASA and Japanese ISAS asteroids sample return mission which will be launched on a Japanese M-5 launch vehicle in January 2002 from Kagoshima Space Center, Japan and touchdown on the asteroid Nereus in September 2003. A NASA-provided miniature robotic rover will conduct in- situ measurements on the rocky surface and collect samples.

The asteroid samples will be returned to Earth by MUSES-C via a parachute-borne recovery capsule in January 2006.

Reference: NASA press release 97-95

The Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) Discovery class mission has as its primary objective close fly-bys of three comet nuclei with the possibility of a fly-by of a fourth, as-yet-undiscovered comet. The three comets to be visited are Encke, Schwassmann-Wachmann-3 and d'Arrest. It is hoped that a fourth comet will be discovered that will be in the inner solar system between 2006 and 2008. Scientific objectives include imaging the nuclei at resolutions of 4 m, performing spectral mapping of the nuclei at resolutions of 100-200 m, and obtaining detailed compositional data on gas and dust in the near-nucleus environment, with the goal of improving our knowledge of the characteristics of comet nuclei.

The Europa Orbiter's Group 1 Science Objectives are to:

The LUNAR-A launch scheduled for 24 August 1999 has been rescheduled to 2003 because a penetrator failed a 300 m drop test and must be redesigned.

Lunar-A's launch was originally scheduled for February or March of 1999. Problems with the penetrator batteries and an addition of an extra orbiter battery and removal of one of the three penetrators previously delayed the launch to August 24, 1999.

Lunar-A is a Japanese lunar orbiting mission. Lunar-A will carry a mapping camera and two 13kg surface penetrators. The surface penetrators are equipped with seismometers and devices to measure heat flow. The seismometers will monitor moonquake activity over the course of a year and this information will be used to learn about the structure of the Moon's interior and the size of the core. The heat flow measurements will provide information on the thermal state and evolution of the Moon. The penetrators will be individually released and impact the Moon at 250 to 300 m/s, burrowing 1 to 3 meters into the surface. Each penetrometer contains a two-component seismometer, a heat flow probe, a tiltmeter, an accelerometer, a radio transmitter and an antenna. The instruments are powered by Li-SOCL2 (super lithium) batteries with an expected lifetime of one year.

After deploying the penetrators, the orbiter will move up to a 200 to 300 km near circular mapping orbit. Data will be stored in memory in the penetrators and transmitted to the orbiter when it transits over each penetrator every 15 days.

A monochromatic mapping camera with a resolution of 30m will be used to take images near the terminator, where the lighting will enhance subtle topographic features.

Updated: 27 September 1999 - by Gregory A. Smith

Selene 1 will carry 15 instruments including a radar sounder, laser altimeter, X-ray flourescence spectrometer and gamma-ray spectrometer to study the origin, evolution, and tectonics of the Moon. The 2800 kg launch-mass spacecraft will be carried by an H-2A rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center. The orbiter will undergo four orbit maneuvers over nine days to place it into a 100 km circular lunar orbit for one year of surface observations. Following this the 830 kg propulsion module of the orbiter will touch down on the lunar surface for two months of operations.

Rosetta is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission designed to rendezvous with comet Wirtanen and perform remote sensing investigations as well as carrying a probe to land on the comet's surface and perform in situ measurements. Flybys of two asteroids on the way to the comet, with gravity assists from Mars and Earth, are also planned.

The mission is named for the Rosetta Stone which was the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics. (The stone was named for the seaside town of Rosetta, Egypt, where it was found by Napoleon's troops in 1799.)

The Mars Surveyor 2003 lander/rover mission will realize the savings from postponing the Mars 2001 rover for two years. It will carry the new and improved long-range, long duration sample collection rover now under developement at JPL.

The European Space Agency has given Britain's Beagle 2 Mars Lander its unreserved approval. The Beagle 2 project will go forward into the building phase.

The Science Programme Committee of the European Space Agency at its meeting on 9-10 November 1999 re-confirmed the payload of the Mars Express mission as approved in May 1998, with two important additions:

Due to budgetary constraints, the Space Technology 4 mission was cancelled on July 1, 1999.

The Deep Space 4/Champollion mission is designed to test advanced technologies for landing on small bodies in the solar system, and for collecting samples of those bodies and returning them to Earth.

DS4/Champollion will rendezvous with periodic Comet Tempel 1 in late 2005. After several months spent studying the cometary nucleus from orbit, will deploy a 100 kg spacecraft that will make the first ever landing on the surface of a comet. The lander will take close-up images of the surface and drill one meter into the nucleus to collect samples of cometary ices and dust. These samples will be examined by instruments onboard the DS4/Champollion lander and the results radioed back to Earth. Up to 100 cubic centimeters of material will be collected and returned to Earth in 2010.

The DS4/Champollion is named after Jean Francois Champollion, a French Egyptologist who, collaborating with Thomas Young, deciphered the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic and demotic text on the stone by comparing it with the known Greek text on the same stone.

The objectives of the Deep Impact mission are to rendezvous with comet P/Tempel 1, launch a projectile into the comet nucleus, and observe the resulting ejecta, much of which will represent pristine material from the interior of the comet, and the crater formation process and resulting crater.

MESSENGER is a MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging mission to orbit Mercury following two reconnaissance flybys.

MESSENGER will investigate key science questions using an optimized set of miniaturized instruments: What is the origin of Mercury's high density? What are the composition and structure of its crust? What is Mercury's tectonic history, and is its surface shaped by volcanism? What are the characteristics of the thin atmosphere and miniature magnetosphere? And what is the nature of the mysterious polar caps?