Future of NASA

NASA is now preparing for an ambitious new era of sustainable human spaceflight and discovery. To go along with the stunning 1.8-billion-pixel image, a new video offers a sweeping view of the Red Planet.

Lightweight expandable or “inflatable” habitats require much less transport volume for potential future space missions. The Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) package aboard NASA’s Psyche will use a light or laser communications to transmit more data to Earth in a given amount of time. When NASA was created 60 years ago, it had to invent the technology to get where we needed to go, and we will continue to push the boundaries of technology into the future.


And NASA will continue that work by moving forward to the Moon with astronauts landing on the lunar South Pole by 2024.NASA is implementing the President’s Space Policy Directive-1 to “lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the solar system.” NASA stands on the verge of commercializing low-Earth orbit. Designed to measure the height of the ocean - a key component to understanding how Earth's climate is changing - Sentinel-6/Jason CS consists of two identical satellites that will be launched five years apart. NASA is developing more advanced printers that can add metals and other materials like regolith into the mix. Landsat 9 will thus contribute a critical component to the international strategy for monitoring the health and state of the Earth.Artist’s concept for the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, targeted for launch 202, will make the first global survey of Earth’s surface water. The modules expand after being deployed in space, providing a comfortable area for astronauts to live and work. Can you grow it or make it in space? Interplanetary Nano-Spacecraft Pathfinder in Relevant Environment NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration is the biggest rocket ever built, the Space Launch System (SLS), the Orion spacecraft and the Gateway lunar command module. Autonomy will be a key technology for the future exploration of our solar system, where robotic spacecraft will often be out of communication with their human controll… Exploring deep space and three-year missions to Mars pose new challenges: Can you take enough? Roughly the size of a briefcase, Lunar Flashlight is a very small satellite being developed and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that will use near-infrared lasers and an onboard spectrometer to map ice in permanently shadowed regions near the Moon's south pole.Roughly the size of a briefcase, Lunar Flashlight is a very small satellite being developed and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that will use near-infrared lasers and an onboard spectrometer to map ice in permanently shadowed regions near the Moon's south pole. The Dream Chaser also will be able to bring research back to Earth, and Sierra Nevada Corporation also is developing a crew version of the spacecraft for commercial use.

Webb will solve mysteries of our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mystifying structures and origins of our universe. Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser cargo spacecraft will join NASA’s commercial cargo providers Orbital ATK and SpaceX to deliver research and supplies to the International Space Station. Makerbot | 12/4/17 Future Engineers Uses 3D Printing to Inspire. These experiences and partnerships will enable NASA to go back to the Moon in 2024 – this time to stay. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, formerly the Wide Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST), is a NASA observatory designed to settle essential questions in the areas of dark energy, exoplanets and infrared astrophysics. Testing for the new Orion spacecraft.

SWOT will monitor how water bodies change over time and support societal needs such as dams and shipping.Artist’s concept of one of the eight Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) satellites deployed in space above a hurricane. As you look through these images of imaginative travel destinations, remember that you can be an architect of the future.

With its unprecedented power and capabilities, SLS will launch crews of up to four astronauts in the agency’s Orion spacecraft on missions to explore multiple, deep-space destinations.