While our spaceflight missions come to fruition in the heavens, they all have to start here on Earth. The next year in space will see a lot of changes, as new technologies get tested and exciting missions get going.
National space agencies and, increasingly, private companies are preparing for their next adventures in space. There will also be great celestial phenomena to enjoy and, very likely, a number of unexpected surprises cropping up. To help prepare for it all, we take a look at what next year holds for spaceflight.
NASA's Challenges
Last year wasn’t a particularly great one for the agency. Yes, it accomplished many great things, including scientific exploration of Mars, Saturn, other planets, and even
the outer reaches of the solar system. But the agency has also been struggling for a while to find a sense of direction and is looking to make do with budgets that have flat-lined. The effects of the sequester and a government shutdown have further eroded its ability to execute all the impressive missions on its plate.
Last month, the NASA Office of the Inspector General, which checks on and audits funding for the agency,
released a report on the top nine challenges facing NASA this year. These included deciding whether or not to extend the lifetime of the International Space Station – which is scheduled for retirement in 2020 – for eight additional years. Many researchers would like to continue using the ISS but NASA might like to use that money to start supporting different projects.
Other major challenges include securing a method to transport its astronauts to the ISS. NASA currently relies on Russian launch vehicles, which are expensive and subject to the increasingly frosty international relationship between the U.S. and Russia. The agency is looking forward to
the debut test flight of Orion, its new manned spacecraft (seen above), in September but human crews wouldn’t board the vehicle until after 2020. A domestic rocket company, such as SpaceX, might be a cheaper and better alternative. The OIG also wants NASA to make sure it has the costs and scheduling of the James Webb Space Telescope under control, a project
that has run billions over budget and is set to launch in 2018.
In 2013, NASA
released a plan to capture an asteroid and bring it back to Earth, perhaps sending astronauts to explore its surface at some future date. But the mission
hasn’t been fully embraced by the spaceflight community, who wonder (and sometimes snicker) about the value of such an expedition. NASA will likely release more information in 2014 about exactly how it wants to go about accomplishing this venture.
Image: NASA
