A lot of Space News will be happening in 2018.

The biggest space missions and rocket launches we'll see in 2018

Next year is already overflowing with exciting missions to space. NASA is launching a new lander to Mars, as well as a spacecraft that will get closer to the Sun than ever before.

From article: (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. The plan is for TESS to find the closest rocky exoplanets to Earth, so that astronomers can figure out the types of atmospheres these worlds have and if they can potentially host life. TESS’s launch is currently planned for no earlier than March and no later than June on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

APRIL – NOVEMBER: COMMERCIAL CREW TEST FLIGHTS

This year could be the first test of two vehicles that are part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, the space agency’s initiative to launch astronauts on privately made spacecraft. Both SpaceX and Boeing have been developing capsules to carry passengers to the space station — the Crew Dragon and CST-100 Starliner, respectively. SpaceX is scheduled to do an uncrewed test flight of the Dragon capsule in April, followed by the first crewed flight test in August. Boeing is targeting August for an uncrewed flight of the Starliner and a crewed flight for November.

Many other commercial space companies will likely do big test flights of their own in 2018, too. Just before the end of 2017, Blue Origin pulled off another launch and landing of its New Shepard — a rocket designed to take paying customers to space to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Testing should continue into the new year, and it’s possible test pilots will start flying on board the rocket in 2018.

MAY 5TH, 2018: LAUNCH OF NASA’S INSIGHT MARS LANDER

NASA’s InSight spacecraft is designed to land on the surface of Mars, where it will study the interior of the Red Planet and figure out how the world formed billions of years ago. The lander was originally supposed to launch in 2016, but the mission was delayed after a leak was spotted in one of the spacecraft’s instruments. Now the instrument, meant to analyze quakes on Mars, is fixed and the spacecraft is nearly ready for its trip. InSight’s launch on top of an Atlas V rocket is planned for sometime within a 30-day launch window that opens on May 5th. It should land on Mars around seven months later, on November 26th.

JULY 31ST – AUGUST 19TH: LAUNCH OF NASA’S PARKER SOLAR PROBE

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is being hailed as the first spacecraft that will “touch” the Sun, though it won’t actually plunge into the Sun’s surface. Instead, it’ll be a mere 3.9 million miles away from the solar surface, flying through the outer edges of the Sun’s atmosphere.

That will allow the spacecraft to study the origins of something called solar wind, streams of highly energetic particles that are ejected from the Sun’s atmosphere at super high speeds. Solar wind often zooms past Earth and can mess with our planet’s magnetic field, causing interference with our satellites and even our electrical grid. The Parker Solar Probe is meant to tell NASA how these particles get so sped up — a question that scientists have had for decades.

The probe is scheduled to launch on top of a Delta IV Heavy rocket sometime between July 31st and August 19th.

OCTOBER 2018: LAUNCH OF BEPICOLOMBO TO MERCURY

A new mission to Mercury, the least explored planet in our Solar System, is on the calendar: BepiColombo, a joint project between Europe and Japan, will send two spacecraft into orbit around the closest planet to the Sun. The spacecraft are set to launch combined on top of a European Ariane 5 rocket in October and will arrive at Mercury in 2025. Once in orbit, the two spacecraft will separate, with Europe taking control of one and Japan taking control of the other. Together, the two vehicles will analyze as much as possible about Mercury — from the planet’s magnetic field to its surface and interior.

NOVEMBER 26TH: INSIGHT LANDS ON MARS

After its journey through space, InSight will arrive at Mars and land on its surface on November 26th. But landing on the Red Planet is tough: Mars has a very thin atmosphere, which provides little cushion to slow incoming spacecraft. Many other Mars-bound spacecraft have come in too fast during landing attempts and created new craters on the planet’s surface, like Europe and Russia’s ExoMars lander did in 2016.

InSight will use a combination of parachutes and onboard engines to gently lower itself down to the Martian surface. The entire landing will last just seven minutes, and if it’s successful, the spacecraft will spend the next two years studying Mars and its interior.

JANUARY 1ST, 2019: NASA’S NEW HORIZONS FLIES BY A DISTANT ICY SPACE ROCK

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has been traveling even farther out into the Solar System after its encounter with Pluto in 2015. Early in the morning on New Year’s Day, the probe will fly by a small rock in the Kuiper Belt — the large cloud of icy bodies that orbit beyond Neptune. This is a first: no human crafts have ever visited one of these objects. New Horizons’ target is a rock dubbed 2014 MU69, though it’s possible that the object is actually two rocks orbiting close together. And the science team thinks the rock (or rocks) may even have a moon. We’ll know for sure when New Horizons flies by around 12:30AM ET on January 1st.)