Sky & Telescope - USA (2020-01)

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ONWARD AND UPWARD by David Dickinson and Terri Dubé

16 JANUARY 2020 • SKY & TELESCOPE

Here’s our digest of active space mis-

sions for 2020. Included are astrophys-

ics, space weather, planetary, and solar

and stellar observation missions; we

omit missions that primarily observe

Earth. Planet locations are marked for

January 1, 2020. Mission statuses are

current (to the best of our knowledge)

as of September 2019. Those orbit-

ing Earth are primarily categorized

by research topic, which can be a bit

subjective, and we’ve lumped all sci-

ence projects aboard the International

Space Station under “ISS.” Also listed

are planned launches, though these are

always subject to change.

2020 is a Mars year. Four missions

from four separate space agencies are

looking to make the journey to the Red

Planet in 2020, adding to the grow-

ing fl eet of craft both on and orbiting

Mars. China may also begin construc-

tion of its own space station in low-

Earth orbit, and NASA’s Osiris-REX

mission will begin its asteroid sam-

pling phase in mid-2020. Meanwhile,

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 sample-return mis-

sion is slated to return to Earth at the

end of the year. Another big mission

end: The Spitzer Space Telescope will

shut down after 16 years (see page 18).

Space

Missions

in 2020

2020 Scheduled

Launches

Solar Orbiter (to Sun)

Lunar Scout (to Moon)

Mars 2020 (to Mars)

ExoMars 2020 (to Mars)

Mars Global Sensing

Remote Orbiter (to Mars)

Mars Hope (to Mars)

NOT TO SCALE

Juno

SATURN

URANUS

OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM

NEPTUNE

Kuiper Belt

2019 Scheduled

Launches

Chang’e 5 (to Moon)

Cheops (exoplanets, Earth orbit)

ICON (space weather, Earth orbit)

Voyager 1

Voyager 2

New

Horizons

JUPITER