My first Magazine Sky & Telescope - 01.2019 | Page 18

A s t er o id B e lt
Space Missions in 2019
20
Inner Solar System
Moon
IN ORBIT
Artemis
Chang’e 5 T1
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
ON SURFACE
Chang’e 3
MOON-EARTH L 2 POINT
Queqiao (with Longjiang-2)
101955 Bennu
Osiris-REX
Mars
Earth-like
Solar Orbit
Venus
Akatsuki
Kepler
Spitzer
Stereo A
Sun
Here’s our digest of active mis-
sions in 2019. Included are astrophys-
ics, planetary, solar, space weather,
and stellar projects; we omit those
that primarily observe Earth. Planet
locations are for January 1st; mission
statuses are current (to the best of our
knowledge) as of October 2018. Those
orbiting Earth are classiied by primary
research topic, which is subjective. (All
International Space Station projects
are lumped under “ISS.”) Also included
are planned launches for the year.
The big news of 2019 will be New
Horizons’ lyby of 2014 MU 69 on New
Year’s. Also, two private missions (the
unnamed SpaceIL lander and ALINA)
hope to touch down on the Moon. On
a sadder note, the Kepler spacecraft
will run out of fuel in late 2018 or early
2019. When we went to press, it was
unclear if Opportunity had survived the
Martian dust storm.
ON SURFACE
Opportunity
Curiosity
Mercury
162173 Ryugu
Hayabusa 2
Scheduled Arrivals
Insight (Mars)
New Horizons (2014 MU 69 )
BepiColombo (to Mercury)
Chang’e 4 (to Moon)
SpaceIL’s lunar lander (to Moon)
2019 Scheduled Launches
ALINA (to Moon)
Chandrayaan 2 (to Moon)
Chang’e 5 (to Moon)
Cheops (exoplanets, Earth orbit)
Solar Orbiter (to Sun)
Spektr-RG (X-rays, to L 2 )
—Camille M. Carlisle
JA N UA RY 2 019 • SK Y & TELESCOPE
Parker
Solar
Probe
2018 Scheduled Launches
Not to scale
16
IN ORBIT
Mars Express
Mars Odyssey
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
MAVEN
MOM (Mangalyaan)
Trace Gas Orbiter