NASA expands exploration to two planetary scientific missions

The missions – Juno and InSight – have increased our understanding of our solar system, as well as new sets of diverse questions.

As NASA prepares to send astronauts back to the moon and further to Mars, the agency’s quest to find answers about our solar system and beyond continues to inform the efforts and generate new discoveries. The agency expanded the missions of two spacecraft to an external review of their scientific productivity.

The missions – Juno and InSight – have increased our understanding of our solar system, as well as new sets of diverse questions.

An independent review panel, composed of experts with backgrounds in science, operations and mission management, found that the Juno and InSight missions ‘produced exceptional science’ and recommended that NASA continue both missions.

The spacecraft Juno and its mission team have discovered discoveries about Jupiter’s inner structure, magnetic field and magnetosphere and found that the atmospheric dynamics are far more complex than scientists previously thought. Extended until September 2025, or the end of life (whichever comes first), the mission will not only continue the most important observations of Jupiter, but also the investigation into the larger Jovian system, including Jupiter’s rings and large moons, with purposeful observations and close close. flybys planned from the moons Ganymede, Europe and Io.

The InSight mission will be extended by two years and will last until December 2022. InSight’s spacecraft and crew deployed and used its highly sensitive seismometer to expand our understanding of Mars’ crust and mantle. Searching for and identifying Marsquakes, the mission team collected data demonstrating the robust tectonic activity of the Red Planet and improving our knowledge of the planet’s atmospheric dynamics, magnetic field, and internal structure. InSight’s extensive mission will focus on producing a long lasting, high quality seismic data set. Continued operation of the weather station and the burial of the seismic band using the instrument’s instrument deployment arm (IDA) will contribute to the quality of this seismic data set. The extended mission could continue with the deployment (at low priority) of the instrument’s Heat Probe and Physical Properties instrument (HP3), which remains close to the surface.

“The Senior Review has confirmed that these two planetary science missions are likely to bring new discoveries and raise new questions about our solar system,” said Lori Glaze, director of the planetary science division at NASA headquarters in Washington. “I thank the members of the Senior Review Panel for their comprehensive analysis and also thank the mission teams who will now provide exciting opportunities to refine our understanding of the dynamic science of Jupiter and Mars.”

Extensive missions take advantage of NASA’s large investments, enabling continued scientific activities at a cost much lower than developing a new mission. In some cases, the expansions allow missions to obtain valuable data sets of long-term duration, while in other cases it is possible for missions to visit new targets, with entirely new scientific objectives.

NASA’s Division of Planetary Science currently operates more than a dozen spacecraft over the solar system.

The detailed reports of the 2020 Planetary Science Senior Review can be found at:

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/NASA-academies-resources/