New Frontiers program
The New Frontiers program is a series of space missions led by NASA to learn more about the Solar System.[1] The program focuses on medium-sized missions that can provide important scientific results. NASA invites scientists from both the United States and other countries to submit mission ideas.[2]
The New Frontiers program builds on the approach used by the Discovery and Explorer programs, where each mission is led by a principal investigator. It is meant for missions that are too large for the Discovery program but smaller than the biggest missions called Flagship missions.
Currently, there are three active New Frontiers missions and one in development. These include New Horizons, which launched in 2006 and reached Pluto in 2015, Juno, which launched in 2011, and entered orbit around Jupiter in 2016, and OSIRIS-REx, which was launched in 2016 and studied the asteroid Bennu from 2018 to 2021 and returned samples to Earth in 2023.
On June 27, 2019, NASA selected Dragonfly as the fourth mission in the New Frontiers program.[3][4]
Missions
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References
[change | change source]- ↑ Harbaugh, Jennifer (2019-06-18). "New Frontiers Program". NASA. Archived from the original on 2020-03-12. Retrieved 2020-08-31.
- ↑ Foust, Jeff (January 8, 2016). "NASA Expands Frontiers of Next New Frontiers Competition". Space News. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
- ↑ Bridenstine, Jim (June 27, 2019). "New Science Mission to Explore Our Solar System". Twitter. Retrieved June 27, 2019.
- ↑ Brown, David W. (June 27, 2019). "NASA Announces New Dragonfly Drone Mission to Explore Titan – The quadcopter was selected to study the moon of Saturn after a "Shark Tank"-like competition that lasted two and a half years". The New York Times. Retrieved June 27, 2019.