JPLNews

November 25, 1998

Six Launches, Six Months

NASA's era of "faster, better, cheaper" missions is paying off with an unprecedented schedule of launches in 1998 and 1999. In a six-month period a total of six launches of seven JPL-teamed missions are scheduled:

Deep Space 1, a spacecraft that is testing advanced technologies including an ion engine on its way to fly by an asteroid, was launched October 24, 1998 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. See the Deep Space 1 News and Information Page or the Deep Space 1 Project Home Page.

Mars Climate Orbiter, the first of two spacecraft targeted toward the red planet under the Mars Surveyor '98 project, is scheduled for launch December 10, 1998 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. See the Mars News and Information Page or the Mars Surveyor '98 Project Home Page.

Mars Polar Lander, the second of two Mars Surveyor '98 missions, will carry a science payload including a robotic arm to a landing near Mars' south pole; launch is scheduled January 3, 1999 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. See the Mars News and Information Page or the Mars Surveyor '98 Project Home Page.

Deep Space 2, a project under the New Millennium Program, will send two microprobes along on Mars Polar Lander to smash into the surface of Mars as a test of advanced technologies for future solar system probes; launch is scheduled January 3, 1999 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. See the Mars News and Information Page or the Deep Space 2 Project Home Page.

Quick Scatterometer (QuikScat) is a rapidly developed Earth-orbiting satellite that will carry SeaWinds, a scatterometer instrument studying near-surface ocean winds. Launch is planned for early 1999 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. See the SeaWinds on QuickScat Project Home Page.

Stardust will send a spacecraft flying through a comet's coma, or the cloud that surrounds the nucleus of a comet, and for the first time ever bring cometary material back to Earth. Launch is scheduled February 6, 1999 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. See the Stardust Project Home Page.

Wide-field Infrared Explorer (WIRE) is an Earth-orbiting infrared telescope that will make a four-month infrared survey of the universe, focusing on starburst galaxies and luminous protogalaxies. Launch is scheduled February 26, 1999 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. See the WIRE Project Home Page.


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