Nasa's to-do list for 2018: Robots in Mars, asteroid visits, touching the sun and more

2018 is slated to be an exciting year for Nasa and its fans.

Nasa has released its roadmap for 2018 and the list is quite expansive and interesting. Here are a few things to look forward to in the coming year from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Robot to Mars — InSight mission launch

Nasa is working on a mission to send a robot to Mars, called the Interior Exploration, using seismic investigations, geodesy and heat transport. The idea is to study the Red Planet's deep interior. It will work as a planet explorer that will attempt to answer questions about the formation of the solar system and its inner rocky planets.

InSight Mars Robot — Artist's concept depicts Nasa's InSight Mars lander fully deployed for studying the deep interior of the planet NASA/JPL-Caltech

All-American launches

The 2018 to-do list includes the Nasa's plans to keep things American — by launching astronauts from the US, by making use of American companies and the country's space stations only.

Blue Origin dummy test — Blue Origin, along with SpaceX have emerged as major players in the space industry Blue Origin

Chasing an asteroid as old as the solar system

Nasa's Osiris- Rex spacecraft is set to land on asteroid Bennu in 2018. It will be the organisation's largest ever sample collecting mission from an asteroid. The spacecraft completed its slingshot around the planet in September 2017 and will intercept Bennu about 11,000 miles off Antarctica in October this year.

OSIRIS-REx Outbound Cruise and Gravity Assist — Bennu is a massive asteroid that will fly close to Earth this year

Study planets around distant stars

The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (Tess) is a mission that is scheduled to launch in June. It is a survey satellite that will give astronomers a clearer view of distant star systems and planets. The Tess camera will interestingly be slightly out of focus.

Journey to the Sun

The Parker Solar probe is one of the most ambitious missions that Nasa is planning this year. For the first time ever, humans will be sending a probe into the Sun's atmosphere, about four million miles from its surface. The probe will be about as big as a car and will launch in the summer. Only in December 2017, the Parker probe went through its heat shield testing.

Prepare to send humans to the moon

Nasa, under the Trump administration, has shifted focus from Mars back to the Moon. In October last year, Vice President Mike Pence declared that "we will return Nasa astronauts to the Moon — not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation, we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond."

The next great observatory

The Hubble Space Telescope has been an invaluable tool to Nasa in exploring the universe and the James Webb space telescope, dubbed the next great observatory, will be put to active duty this year. Webb will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in October.

18 years in space aboard the ISS

Nasa will be observing its 18<sup>th consecutive year of living, working, and studying both the Earth and the beyond from the only space laboratory currently in operation — the International Space Station.

Deep space habitats

The reality of living in outer space, be it on a new base near the Moon, on the Moon or even Mars, requires habitats and not just vehicles. Nasa will be working closely with private players in the market to build and test deep space habitats that can make deep space travel possible.

Monitoring Earth from space

Climate change is a real and present danger, and Nasa is monitoring weather and climate patterns closely, providing invaluable information to researchers. Evidence of this was seen last year when Nasa monitored the entire hurricane season, providing updates and even using images to chart out spots that needed aid. The space agency will continue to do this even in 2018.

Tracking the planet's water from space

Nasa's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) is a mission that is focused on monitoring the planet's water by measuring variations in the Earth's gravitational field. This mission will get the support of a few more satellites through launches planned out this year.

Lasers to measure the ice on Earth

The Arctic and Antarctic ice shelves are melting rapidly and they are being closely monitored by Nasa, not just from space but also through their Ice Bridge missions. To aid this activity and get more precise measurements of the melting ice, Ice Sat2 is set to be launched this year. It will measure ice using lasers from space.

Artist concept of ICESat-2 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Reduce sonic booms

Sonic booms are made by objects when they break the sound barrier and can be quite a disturbance, especially over populated areas. Nasa has been working on a way to reduce these sonic booms through several design tests.