With the beginning of this New Year also the aerospace world has new purposes, so let’s have a look to the Solar System exploration plan of 2018!
Hereafter we show you the main points:
During this year it is predicted the expedition of 18 astronauts to ISS;
In March “Chandrayaan -2” probe is going to move on Moon bringing a lander and rover;
“Hayabusa 2” probe (launched in 2014) is in transit to Ryugu asteroid and it will arrive in July;
“OSIRIS-Rex” probe (launched in 2016) is in transit to Bennu asteroid and it will arrive in August;
In October the “Bepi Colombo” (a combined mission of European and Japanese spatial agencies) will leave to Mercury bringing 2 probe;
From November NASA will launch “InSight” (“geologist” lander ) which it will realize some perforations to study Mars inner;
The last day of December is planned the encounter of New Horizons (NASA) with MU69, a little object placed beyond Pluto, in the Kuiper belt;
NASA keeps to have a specialised probe, “Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter”, always in action on Moon;
During the year the NASA “Parker Solar Probe” will reach 6.000.000 Km from Sun, actually nearer than any other previous mission could have;
Akatsuki continues to gravitate around Venus.
Well, it seems to be a great year, isn’t it?
(Written by Carlotta Bellisai)