NASA never stops pushing the limits of science and technology. Earlier this morning, three astronauts were sent off in the Soyuz MS-09 rocket to the international space station, but that’s not the only plans the space-exploring experts have in mind for the upcoming years.
Recently, the Jupiter drone, aptly named Juno, was planned to crash into the planet later this year, but NASA has decided to extend the Jupiter Program for another 3 years. The 1 billion dollar probe is now expected to continue circulation of the gas giant in order to map the planet and its gravitational fields. Juno is now expected to crash into Jupiter’s moon, Europa, in an attempt to scout the surface for alien life.
Now, the company is planning to wake up a drone that has been on a hiatus in deep space for the past six months. The New Horizons Spacecraft took breathtaking photos of Pluto in 2015, then went dormant. But now, it is being reawakened to travel a billion more miles into the Kuiper Belt to study an ancient formation known as the Ultima Thule.
With these three new developments, NASA continues to remind us how much is left out there in the “great unknown” and is unexplored. We cannot wait to see what these extended projects discover.
