There are a few interesting proposals at the space level in the coming decades. While we have many eyes on returning to set foot on the Moon and continuing to delve into the future installation of colonies on our neighboring red planet, Mars, another corner of the solar system is picking up steam.
Let’s go to Uranus
One of these examples is Uranus. NASA’s Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP) mission would study Uranus’s interior, atmosphere, magnetosphere, satellites, and rings. The orbiter would also deploy an atmospheric probe to characterize the planet’s atmosphere. Launch would take place in 2031 using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch vehicle with gravity assist on Jupiter allowing for arrival at Uranus in 2044.
In fact, a mission to explore one of the ice giants, Uranus or Neptune, was one of three priorities set by the last Decadal Survey in 2010, along with Jupiter’s moon Europa and a sample return mission to Mars. Let us also remember that in recent years, NASA proposed to send a mission to explore Neptune and Triton (the Trident spacecraft) that would visit one of the most enigmatic places in the solar system.
China is considering going to Neptune
This destination is no accident. Proposals for missions to study the ice giant planet Neptune and its mysterious moon Triton have been on NASA’s to-do list for more than a decade, but there had been no apparent movement until recently. China has also made a move.
China is eyeing a nuclear-powered Neptune Explorer to explore the ice giant planet Triton and its other satellites and rings. This mission was the subject of a study by researchers from the China National Space Agency (CNSA), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the China Atomic Energy Authority, the China Academy of Space Technology, and various universities and institutes.
The interest of world powers in ice giants like Neptune is because they are a potential treasure trove of scientific discoveries, the scientists explain. In addition to its intriguing interior structure (including diamond showers), Neptune is believed to have played an important role in the formation of the solar system. In short, its composition includes large amounts of gas that were part of the protostellar nebula from which our system was formed.
As if that weren’t enough, Neptune’s position in the solar system tells us where the planets formed (and have since migrated to their current orbits) when this all started.
Since when don’t we go to Neptune?
In 1989, NASA’s Voyager 2 became the first spacecraft to visit and photograph the planet Neptune, the eighth planet from the Sun. Since then… nothing else has come close to the planet. Most of what we now know about this ice giant and its system was obtained at that point in history.
Indeed, perhaps the most compelling reason to visit Neptune is to take a closer look at its geologically active moon, Triton. It is Neptune’s largest moon that could be a planetoid flung from the outer solar system and captured by Neptune’s gravity. It’s a dark, shaky place (it’s about -235°C at its surface, according to Voyager 2), but it has almost no visible craters , so its surface must be constantly renewing itself. Hence the conclusion that it is a geologically active satellite.
Voyager 2 barely managed to image 40% of Triton’s surface. It could even have an ocean world of liquid water under its icy crust like Enceladus or Europa.
It’s time to send a new mission to Neptune. Exactly when we will be able to send a mission to Uranus or Neptune will depend on the relative position of Jupiter, which would drastically shorten the cruise phase. Since Jupiter takes 12 years to orbit the Sun, we could only propose a mission every 12 years.
Reference: NASA / CNSA
