Current Missions
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Kepler
Kepler is NASA's first mission capable of finding Earth-size and smaller planets. The Kepler mission, scheduled to launch in 2009, will monitor the brightness of stars to find planets that pass in front of them during the planets' orbits. During such passes or 'transits,' the planets will slightly decrease the star's brightness.
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Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)
The Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission to look for water on the moon will be a 'secondary payload spacecraft.' LCROSS will begin its trip to the moon on the same rocket as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which will conduct a different lunar task. Launch is scheduled for 2009 on an Atlas V rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
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SOFIA (Joint Venture)
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a joint venture of the U.S. and German aerospace agencies, NASA and the DLR. The aircraft is supplied by the U.S., and the telescope by Germany. Modifications of the Boeing 747SP airframe to accommodate the telescope, mission-unique equipment and large external door were made by L-3 Communications Integrated Systems of Waco, Texas.
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Small Satellite Missions
NASA's ability to rapidly develop and launch ground-breaking technologies into space just got more efficient and less expensive. NASA is pulling together engineers and scientist from across the country to develop and fly very small satellites, also called nanosatellites, in extremely short time frames.
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Phoenix Mars Scout (includes NASA Ames partnership)
In the continuing pursuit of water on Mars, the poles are a good place to probe, as water ice is found there. This mission will send the Phoenix high-latitude lander to Mars, deploy its robotic arm and dig trenches up to 1.6 feet (one half meter) into the layers of water ice.
Future Missions
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ExoMars Urey Instrument (Includes NASA Ames Partnership)
NASA-funded researchers are refining a tool that could not only check for the faintest traces of life's molecular building blocks on Mars, but could also determine whether they have been produced by anything alive.
Past Missions
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Public to Help NASA, SETI Institute, Other Scientists Study Meteor Shower
An airborne mission to search for evidence of a comet's primordial crust and help improve meteor storm prediction models. On September 1, 2007, a team of 24 researchers will deploy from NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. to observe the rare Aurigid meteor shower, caused by a trail of 2000-year old dust from long-period comet C/1911 N1 (Kiess).
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GeneSat-1
The 11-pound (5-kilogram) GeneSat-1, carrying bacteria inside a miniature laboratory, was launched on Dec. 16, 2006. The very small NASA satellite has proven that scientists can quickly design and launch a new class of inexpensive spacecraft -- and conduct significant science.
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Lunar Prospector
Launched on Jan. 6, 1998, Lunar Prospector mapped the moon’s surface composition and looked for possible deposits of polar ice, measure magnetic and gravity fields, as well as study lunar 'out gassing.' On March 5, 1998, scientists announced that Lunar Prospector's neutron spectrometer instrument had detected hydrogen at both lunar poles, which scientists theorized to be in the form of water ice.
