Flight Projects
in Development
Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)
JPSS is the nation’s advanced series of polar-orbiting environmental satellites. JPSS includes five polar-orbiting satellites with four or more instruments and a versatile ground system. The satellites currently in orbit are Suomi-NPP, NOAA-20 (JPSS-1), and NOAA-21 (JPSS-2). JPSS-3 and JPSS-4 are currently in development for launch readiness dates in 2027 and 2032…
Ocellus 3D
Next generation autonomous planetary exploration missions require advanced sensing capabilities for choosing proper landing areas for the vehicles. Current tools do not have the capability to allow vehicles outside the range of terrestrial control to autonomously perform safe landing operations. The Ocellus 3D lidar developed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is a lightweight, small-footprint 3D lidar system for planetary and lunar exploration. The new 3D lidar can perform both altimetry…
Landsat NeXt
Landsat Next, expected to launch in late 2030/early 2031, is an innovative Landsat mission that represents a quantum leap in measurement capabilities with improved temporal, spatial, and spectral resolutions. The mission will satisfy global Landsat data user needs and support evolving and emerging applications, all while maintaining Landsat data continuity and quality of the longest space-based record of Earth’s land …
The Atmosphere Observing System (AOS)
The Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) mission goal is to optimize how we examine links among tiny particles known as “aerosols”, clouds, atmospheric convection, and precipitation. AOS will deliver key data for improved forecasts of weather, air quality and climate. How? By providing unmatched insight into the vertical structure of our atmosphere with observations from space, our skies, and on the ground…
Dragonfly
Dragonfly may be the most ambitious science mission NASA has ever attempted: sending a car-sized, nuclear-powered octocopter to explore the surface of a distant ocean world.
In a voyage straight out of science fiction, Dragonfly will deliver the most expansive suite of science instruments ever dispatched to another celestial body. Dragonfly will cover more than 50 miles of the organics-rich Titan surface, landing, collecting and returning…
Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO)
Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) is a collaborative NOAA and NASA program that will provide continuous imagery and data on Earth’s atmosphere, land and ocean for operational forecasts and warnings. NASA will build and launch the GeoXO satellites and NOAA will operate them…
Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor – 2
NASA’s Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor – 2, or TSIS-2, will measure the Sun’s energy input to Earth. Since 1978, various satellites have measured the Sun’s brightness above Earth’s atmosphere. TSIS-2 will add solar irradiance measurements to four decades of continuous data records. Unlike its predecessor TSIS-1, which operates from the International Space Station, TSIS-2 will ride on a free-flying spacecraft…
The DAVINCI Mission
The DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission will explore whether the inhospitable surface of Venus could once have been a twin of Earth – a habitable world with liquid water oceans. Due to launch in the early 2030s, NASA’s DAVINCI mission will investigate…
Nancy Grace Roman Telescope (Roman)
Roman is an infrared telescope named after Nancy Grace Roman (1925-2018) who was NASA’s first chief astronomer and is known as the ‘Mother of Hubble.’ Roman has two main objectives: discovering the cause of the expansion of the universe and searching for exoplanets. Roman and the James Webb Space Telescope…