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Here’s the Spaceflight Stuff We’re Most Anticipating in 2018

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday January 06 2018, @10:40PM   
from the to-infinity-and-beyond dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

ArsTechnica looks ahead to 2018 space news:

Last year offered a mixed bag for spaceflight aficionados. The highs were very high, with SpaceX flying, landing, and reflying rockets at an unprecedented rate while finally beginning to deliver on its considerable promise. But the lows were pronounced, too, with the loss of the Cassini spacecraft in the outer Solar System and NASA's continued lack (for nearly a full year) of an administrator.

There were also delays upon delays. The ultra-expensive James Webb Space Telescope saw its launch date slip from 2018 into some time in 2019. NASA's Space Launch System rocket saw its maiden launch slip from late 2018 into 2019 and then again into 2020. The Falcon Heavy also moved to the right on the calendar, from November, then December, and finally into early 2018.

But all of those delays mean that the last couple of years of the 2010s should feature a lot of spaceflight action, and a good chunk of that will occur in the next 12 months. Looking ahead at what is to come, here are the key spaceflight milestones we're most eager to see in 2018, grouped by the approximate quarter of the year in which they might happen.

Falcon Heavy, Solar Sails, Chinese Land on the Moon, and more.

[The 'loss' of the Cassini spacecraft was a planned event. Having nearly exhausted the fuel available for orbit corrections, it was sent on a trajectory to disintegrate in Saturn's atmosphere. This, instead of running the risk of possibly landing on, and contaminating, one of Saturn's potentially habitable moons (e.g. Enceladus) --martyb].

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Original Submission

• Re:Huygens contaminated Titan a decade ago (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:13PM

  by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:13PM (#619230) Journal

  https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/grand-finale/overview/ [nasa.gov]

  By 2017, Cassini had spent 13 years in orbit around Saturn, following a seven-year journey from Earth. The spacecraft was low on the rocket fuel used for adjusting its course. If left unchecked, this situation would have eventually prevent mission operators from controlling the course of the spacecraft.

  Two moons of Saturn, Enceladus and Titan, have captured news headlines over the past decade as Cassini data revealed their potential to contain habitable – or at least "prebiotic” – environments.

  In order to avoid the unlikely possibility of Cassini someday colliding with one of these moons, NASA chose to safely dispose of the spacecraft in the atmosphere of Saturn. This ensured that Cassini could not contaminate any future studies of habitability and potential life on those moons.

  https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/analysis-nasas-cassini-probe-must-destroyed [pbs.org]

  But what of Huygens, the European Space Agency probe, that Cassini released onto Titan in 2005? Wouldn’t that be a contamination hazard? Perhaps, but landing on Titan was considered a much more acceptable risk. “Given the fact that Titan is too cold and that there is no liquid water for life as we know it to evolve, the risk of contamination is practically non-existing,” the European Space Agency stated. “The harsh environment is expected to kill microorganisms that may have hitchhiked from Earth on board the clean space probe.”

  There is some discrepancy there, but more is known about Titan than when we first contaminated it, and non-water-based life [wikipedia.org] has been a subject of speculation.

  --
  [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

  Parent

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