The biggest rocket launches and space missions we’re looking forward to in 2018

The Verge ^ | 12/29/17 | Loren Grush

[iowamark]

NASA is launching a new lander to Mars, as well as a spacecraft that will get closer to the Sun than ever before. And two of NASA’s vehicles already in space will finally arrive at their intended targets...

But it’s not just NASA that has a busy year ahead; the commercial space industry has a number of significant test flights planned, and the launch of one of the world’s most anticipated rockets, the Falcon Heavy, is slated for early 2018. And if all goes well, people may finally ride to space on private vehicles.

Here are all the missions and tests we’re looking forward to in 2018 and when you can expect to see them take off.

January 2018: Falcon Heavy launch SpaceX CEO Elon Musk first announced plans for the giant Falcon Heavy rocket in 2011 — a vehicle consisting of three reusable Falcon 9 rocket cores strapped together. Originally, the Falcon Heavy was due to launch in late 2013, but the vehicle’s inaugural flight has been consistently pushed back. In July, Musk admitted that engineering the rocket has been harder than expected.

Now, five years after the launch’s original target date, the Falcon Heavy’s flight seems imminent...

Early 2018: Rocket Lab test launch US spaceflight startup Rocket Lab is still testing out its experimental rocket, the Electron, designed to send small satellites into orbit. There was already one test flight in May, though the rocket didn’t achieve orbit. Rocket Lab intended to do a second test flight in December, but the weather and some technical snags prevented the launch. Now, the company plans to launch again in early 2018, and if the flight goes well, Rocket Lab may stop test flights and go straight to commercial missions.

March 31st, 2018: Deadline for Google Lunar X Prize competition Finally, we’ll find out which of the five remaining teams in the Google Lunar X Prize will complete their mission to the Moon before March 31st, 2018, the competition’s deadline — and the answer may be none...

March 2018: TESS launch NASA’s next exoplanet-hunting spacecraft, TESS, is going up this year. Like the space agency’s Kepler probe, TESS will look for planets as they pass in front of distant stars and slightly dim the stars’ light. But TESS will study stars throughout the entire night sky, expanding Kepler’s limited range...

[iowamark]

Full article at the link.

[iowamark]

Falon Heavy

Rocket Lab

Google X Lunar Prize

Tess Launch

Commercial Crew Test Flights

Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic

Mars Insight Lander

Parker Solar Probe

OSIRIS REX asteroid probe

BEPICOLOMBO to Mercury

Insight lands on Mars

New Horizons

[gibsonguy]

I’m concerned these launches will distract NASA’s from its primary mission of Muslim outreach.

[cyclotic]

My kid is graduating as an astronautical engineer at exactly the right time it seems.

Hopefully he’ll get his college loans paid back quickly. I loaned him most of
It

[JoanneSD]

That was obamas dream for the muslims and we are paying Russia to take our people to the space craft..

[PIF]

I’m concerned these launches will distract NASA’s from its primary mission of Muslim outreach.

—

Don’t worry some of them will fail and fall directly on Mecca ...