Operating and Future Science fleet

Current BPS Fleet || NASA’s Division of Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) uses the spaceflight environment to study phenomena in ways that cannot be done on Earth. BPS research is focused on two priorities: quantum science and space biology investigations that enable us to Thrive In DEep Space (TIDES).The vision for BPS, in keeping with the NASA Strategic Plan and Decadal Survey, is: We lead the space life and physical sciences research community to enable space exploration and benefit life on Earth.BPS administers NASA’s: - Space Biology Program, which solicits and conducts research to use the space environment to advance our knowledge of how gravity affects the design and function of living organisms, and to understand how biological systems accommodate to spaceflight environments. - Physical Sciences Program, which solicits and conducts research using the space environment as a tool to provide transformational insights in physics and engineering science, and to understand how physical systems respond to spaceflight environments, particularly weightlessness and the partial gravity of planetary bodies.BPS research and technology development is conducted on a wide range of experimental platforms including ground-based analogs for spaceflight, drop towers and aircraft that provide seconds of weightlessness, to free-flyer satellites. The International Space Station (ISS) is a critically important United States facility that provides researchers the ability to conduct long-duration experiments in low Earth orbit. ISS allows continuous and interactive research similar to Earth-based laboratories, enabling scientists to pursue innovations and discoveries not currently achievable by other means. BPS is also planning research and technology development to enable human spaceflight and scientific discovery beyond low Earth orbit.

The Planetary Fleet || Planetary science is a grand human enterprise that seeks to understand the history of our solar system and the distribution of life within it. Planetary science missions inform us about our neighborhood and our own origin and evolution; they are necessary precursors to the expansion of humanity beyond Earth. Through five decades of planetary exploration, NASA has developed the capac­ity to explore all of the objects in our solar system. Future missions will bring back samples from some of these desti­nations, allowing iterative detailed study and analysis back on Earth. In the future, humans will return to the Moon, go to asteroids, Mars, and ultimately other solar system bodies to explore them, but only after they have been explored and understood using robotic missions. || The Planetary Fleet on or at Mars || The Planetary Fleet - Asteroid and Small Body Missions

The current Heliophysics fleet || Heliophysics encompasses science that improves our understanding of fundamental physical processes throughout the solar system, and enables us to understand how the Sun, as the major driver of the energy throughout the solar system, impacts our technological society. The scope of heliophysics is vast, spanning from the Sun’s interior to Earth’s upper atmosphere, throughout interplanetary space, to the edges of the heliosphere, where the solar wind interacts with the local interstellar medium. Heliophysics incorporates studies of the interconnected elements in a single system that produces dynamic space weather and that evolves in response to solar, planetary, and interstellar conditions.

Astrophysics Fleet || Astrophysics is the study of phenomena occurring in the universe and of the physical principles that govern them. Astrophysics research encompasses a broad range of topics, from the birth of the universe and its evolution and composition, to the processes leading to the development of planets and stars and galaxies, to the physical conditions of matter in extreme gravitational fields, and to the search for life on planets orbiting other stars. In seeking to understand these phenomena, astrophysics science embodies some of the most enduring quests of humankind.

Current Earth Fleet Chart, updated graphic style || In order to study the Earth as a whole system and understand how it is changing, NASA develops and supports a large number of Earth observing missions. These missions provide Earth science researchers the necessary data to address key questions about global climate change. Missions begin with a study phase during which the key science objectives of the mission are identified, and designs for spacecraft and instruments are analyzed. Following a successful study phase, missions enter a development phase whereby all aspects of the mission are developed and tested to insure it meets the mission objectives. Operating missions are those missions that are currently active and providing science data to researchers. Operating missions may be in their primary operational phase or in an extended operational phase.Missions begin with a study phase during which the key science objectives of the mission are identified, and designs for spacecraft and instruments are analyzed. Following a successful study phase, missions enter a development phase whereby all aspects of the mission are developed and tested to insure it meets the mission objectives. || Full set of current Earth fleet charts: full fleet with dates full fleet without dates current operating missions current operating missions with international collaborations noted (flags) all international collaboration (flags) || NASA s current Earth-observing satellite fleet with international/interagency partners.