Articles, September 3, 2017

The last two weeks have seen a number of articles and press releases on future planetary exploration.  The big news was that NASA’s managers are proposing a fast track Mars sample return mission for the mid-2020s.  Numerous articles were written; I’ve listed several that I thought were among the best I saw.

You might also want to check out Leonard David’s story, Beating Curiosity, on the technical enhancements that will enable the Mars 2020 rover mission.

For fans of Titan exploration, there’s now a website for the proposed Dragonfly rotocraft and an article on the proposed Oceanus orbiter.

Several other articles discuss other plans and proposals to explore the planets.

Mars

Beating Curiosity

By Leonard David|September 2017

A future comes into focus for the Mars Exploration Program

Casey Dreier • August 31, 2017

NASA studies mission to return samples from Mars by end of 2020s

August 28, 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA considers kicking Mars sample return into high gear

Jason Davis • August 28, 2017

NASA's Next Mars Mission to Investigate Interior of Red Planet

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Titan

Proposed Orbiter Could Probe the Ocean Beneath Saturn's Moon Titan

By Nola Taylor Redd, August 24th, 2017 

 

APL proposes Dragonfly mission to explore potential habitable sites on Saturn's largest moon

 

Dragonfly website

Presentation on Dragonfly (YouTube)

Venus

A clockwork rover for Venus

 

NASA studies CubeSat mission to solve Venusian mystery

 

Rounding out the field

 

James Webb Telescope will study our solar system's 'ocean worlds'

August 24, 2017 by Eric Villard

CubeSats: faster and cheaper, but are they better?

by Jeff Foust