Skip to main content

NASA's 2018 to do list includes mission to 'touch' Sun

Washington: NASA is turning 60 in 2018 and the agency is looking forward to launching a slew of important missions in the coming year, including one to "touch" the Sun.
NASA's Parker Solar Probe is scheduled for launch in 2018 to explore the Sun's outer atmosphere



The probe will use Venus' gravity during seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the Sun, according to a NASA statement.
The spacecraft will fly through the Sun's atmosphere as close as 6.2 million kilometres to our star's surface, well within the orbit of Mercury and closer than any spacecraft has gone before.
The Parker Solar Probe will perform its scientific investigations in a hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation.
The primary science goals for the mission are to trace how energy and heat move through the solar corona and to explore what accelerates the solar wind as well as solar energetic particles.
In 2018, NASA will also add to its existing robotic fleet at the Red Planet with the InSight Mars lander designed to study the interior and subsurface of the planet .
The US space agency's first asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, is scheduled to arrive at the near-Earth asteroid Bennu in August 2018, and will return a sample for study in 2023.
Launching no later than June 2018, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) will search for planets outside our solar system by monitoring 200,000 bright, nearby stars.
To continue the long-term record of how Earth's ice sheets, sea level, and underground water reserves are changing, NASA will also launch the next generation of two missions - ICESat-2 and GRACE Follow-On - in 2018.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Meryl Streep wants to trademark her own name

Meryl Streep has won three Oscars, three Emmys and six Golden Globes during her 40-year long career on stage, screen and television. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP, File) Meryl Streep, the most celebrated actress of her generation, has filed an application to trademark her name. The application was filed with US Patent and Trademark Office on January 22, records show. It requests that the name Meryl Streep be trademarked for “entertainment services,” movie appearances, speaking engagements and autographs. Streep, 68, last week extended her record to 21 Academy Award nominations, this time for her role in “The Post.” She has won three Oscars, three Emmys and six Golden Globes during her 40-year long career on stage, screen and television. It is not clear why Streep would file a trademark application at this stage in her career and her attorney and publicist did not return a request for comment on Monday. Many celebrities trademark their names or catch phrases to pro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beijing’s struggle against pollution will be tough, take time: Mayor

Beijing’s battle against air pollution will take time and be very tough to win despite recent improvements, the acting mayor of China’s capital said on Wednesday. The city has been fighting to clean its notoriously smoggy air through steps such as pushing households and factories to switch away from coal to cleaner fuels like natural gas. “Further improvement in air quality (will be) extremely difficult,” acting mayor of Beijing, Chen Jining, said in a statement released during the city’s congress meeting. The central government’s intense focus on air quality means many local officials’ careers are linked to the success of efforts to tackle smog, making it unusual to speak candidly about the challenges of meeting tough targets. Beijing has chalked up a short-term success by cutting the annual average level of breathable particulate matter (PM 2.5) to 58 micrograms per cubic metre in 2017, beating a target set by the State Council in 2012. However, the city is still some way f...
Post a Comment
Read more

US slaps anti-dumping duty on polyester staple fiber from China, India

United States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. (source: Wikimedia commons) The Trump Administration has slapped anti-dumping duties on stainless steel flangs and finer denier polyester staple fiber from China and India. Exporters from China and India received countervailing subsidies of 41.73 to 47.55 per cent and 9.50 to 25.28 percent, respectively, the US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross alleged Wednesday. As such he has instructed US Customs and Border Protection to collect cash deposits from importers of fine denier polyester staple fiber from China and India based on these final rates. “The US will no longer sit back and watch as its domestic businesses are destroyed by unfair foreign government subsidies. We will continue to take action on behalf of US industry to defend American businesses, workers, and communities adversely impacted by unfair imports,” Ross was quoted as saying by PTI. In 2016, imports of fine denier polyester staple fiber from China and India were ...
Post a Comment
Read more