Browse Resources by Year

2012 – Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Systems

Note: This exhibit is from The Space Report 2013. Please refer to this year’s exhibits for the most current data as numbers may have been revised since this edition was published.

2012 – Emerging Technologies

While space has many practical applications that are already making real differences in people’s daily lives, many more research activities are still in the early stages of development. Depending on their maturity and complexity, the practical uses of these research avenues are not always well understood or guaranteed.

2012 – Space Products and Services Overview

Products and services derived from or enabled by space assets, technologies, or activities provide tangible benefits to people on Earth and continue to improve the quality of life in countries around the world, often in ways that are not readily apparent.

2012 – Ground Observatories, Astronomy

Astronomers are laying the groundwork for a new generation of extraordinarily large observatories. The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Telescope will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope ever built. The SKA takes its name from the combined size of the collecting area of the thousands of individual dishes that comprise it, making it far more sensitive than any existing radio telescope.

2012 – Solar Ground Observatories

Ground-based telescopes also play a key role in studying the Sun, monitoring it for sunspots, flares, and other activity. China is planning to develop the world’s largest solar telescope, called the Chinese Giant Solar Telescope (CGST). While current solar telescopes are typically no more than 1 meter (3.3 feet) in diameter, the CGST will be up to 8 meters (26.2 feet) in diameter.

2012 – Other Technology Efforts

Long-duration space missions beyond Earth’s orbit are not always able to rely on solar panels, so they often require a more compact and powerful source of energy. Radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) were developed to provide this power source. RTGs generate electric power from the heat produced by the natural decay of small amounts of radioactive material, typically plutonium-238 isotopes.

2012 – On-Orbit Servicing

Much of the world depends on GEO satellites for defense, communication, science, and weather monitoring. These expensive assets eventually fail or run out of propellant, but refueling and maintaining them can extend their lives, giving their users more value. Servicing can also help make space more sustainable because broken and drifting satellites take up valuable real estate in GEO and pose a risk to neighboring systems.

2012 – Solar Orbital Systems

Studies of the Sun and how solar activity affects the Earth is a major topic for both ground-based observatories and spacecraft in orbit. In August, NASA launched the two Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) spacecraft to explore the Earth’s radiation belts, a very hazardous region of near-Earth space that can pose dangers to communications, GPS satellites, and human spaceflight.

2012 – Probes

Mars is attracting interest from other nations as well. India’s government announced in August 2012 that it approved plans for their country’s first mission beyond the Moon. The Mars Orbiter Mission, slated to launch in late 2013, will make India the ## to launch a mission to the Red Planet, after the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and China.

2012 – Landers/Rovers

In August 2012, the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, carrying the Curiosity rover, landed on the surface of Mars. Curiosity carries ## science instruments with a total mass almost five times greater than the mass of either Spirit or Opportunity, NASA’s previous Mars rovers.