{"dataset":{"slug":"mission-concepts","title":"Mission Concepts","description":"Official and credible planned missions and mission concepts, each with its status, goals, target, and uncertainties.","version":"1.0.0","lastGenerated":"2026-06-29","license":"CC BY-SA 4.0","entityCount":15,"sources":["nasa","esa"]},"entities":[{"id":"mission_concept:artemis-ii","name":"Artemis II","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"The first crewed flight of NASA's Artemis program — a crew of four flying around the Moon and back aboard Orion, the first humans beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/artemis-ii"},{"id":"mission_concept:artemis-iii","name":"Artemis III","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"The mission intended to return humans to the surface of the Moon — the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17, targeting the water-ice-bearing south-polar region.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/artemis-iii"},{"id":"mission_concept:athena","name":"Athena","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"ESA's next great X-ray observatory — designed to study the hot, energetic universe, from the gas that binds galaxy clusters to the black holes that shaped galaxies, at far higher sensitivity than today's X-ray telescopes.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/athena"},{"id":"mission_concept:davinci","name":"DAVINCI","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"A NASA Discovery mission to drop a probe through the atmosphere of Venus, measuring its chemistry and origins layer by layer, and imaging the surface as it descends.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/davinci"},{"id":"mission_concept:decigo","name":"DECIGO","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"A proposed Japanese space-based gravitational-wave observatory designed for the decihertz band, between the low frequencies LISA will observe and the high frequencies of the ground detectors — a range no other instrument covers.","entryPath":"/multi-messenger/decigo"},{"id":"mission_concept:dragonfly","name":"Dragonfly","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"A NASA New Frontiers rotorcraft that will fly across the dunes and impact craters of Saturn's moon Titan, sampling a world with a thick atmosphere and a rich organic chemistry.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/dragonfly"},{"id":"mission_concept:envision","name":"EnVision","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"ESA's Venus orbiter, working alongside the NASA Venus missions to understand why Earth's near-twin became so inhospitable — studying the planet as a whole system.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/envision"},{"id":"mission_concept:habitable-worlds-observatory","name":"Habitable Worlds Observatory","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"NASA's next flagship space telescope, recommended by the astronomy decadal survey — designed to directly image potentially habitable planets around other stars and search their atmospheres for signs of life.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/habitable-worlds-observatory"},{"id":"mission_concept:interstellar-probe","name":"Interstellar Probe","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"A concept for a purpose-built successor to the Voyagers — a spacecraft designed from the start to reach deep interstellar space and study the boundary between the Sun's influence and the galaxy beyond.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/interstellar-probe"},{"id":"mission_concept:lisa","name":"LISA","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"A space-based gravitational-wave observatory — three spacecraft forming a giant laser interferometer to hear the low-frequency ripples in spacetime that ground detectors cannot, from the mergers of the largest black holes.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/lisa"},{"id":"mission_concept:neo-surveyor","name":"NEO Surveyor","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"A NASA infrared space telescope dedicated to planetary defence — hunting for the near-Earth objects that are hard to spot from the ground, to find hazards decades before any possible impact.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/neo-surveyor"},{"id":"mission_concept:taiji","name":"Taiji","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"A proposed Chinese space-based gravitational-wave mission, similar in concept to LISA, that would fly a triangle of spacecraft to detect low-frequency gravitational waves from massive black-hole binaries.","entryPath":"/multi-messenger/taiji"},{"id":"mission_concept:tianqin","name":"TianQin","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"A proposed Chinese space-based gravitational-wave detector of three spacecraft in high geocentric orbit, targeting low-frequency sources such as compact binaries in the Milky Way and merging massive black holes.","entryPath":"/multi-messenger/tianqin"},{"id":"mission_concept:uranus-orbiter-and-probe","name":"Uranus Orbiter and Probe","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"The flagship mission recommended to become the next great outer-planets endeavour — a first dedicated orbiter for an ice giant, to explore Uranus, its tilted magnetosphere, its rings, and its moons.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/uranus-orbiter-and-probe"},{"id":"mission_concept:veritas","name":"VERITAS","type":"mission_concept","domain":"science","description":"A NASA Discovery orbiter to map Venus in fine detail with radar — its topography, geology, and any active volcanism — revealing how the planet evolved so differently from Earth.","entryPath":"/future-exploration/veritas"}]}