Posted: Sat, Jul 17, 2004, 10:59 AM ET (1459 GMT)
NASA announced Friday the selection of missions to the Moon and Jupiter as finalists to be the agency's next mission in its New Frontiers program. The two missions were selected from seven proposals submitted to NASA earlier this year; each will receive up to $1.2 million to fund detailed studies due in March of next year. One mission, Moonrise, would send two identical landers to the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the Moon. The rovers would collect over two kilograms of lunar samples for return to Earth. The other mission, Juno, would be placed in polar orbit around Jupiter to study the planet's atmosphere, interior, and magnetosphere. NASA plans to select one of the proposals in May 2005 for launch by the end of June 2010. The mission would be the first mission selected since the creation of the New Frontiers program, a NASA program designed for more ambitious planetary science missions than can fit into the cost caps of the Discovery program. New Horizons, a mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt that predated the creation of the New Frontiers program, is considered the first New Frontiers mission.

Related Links:

•  NASA press release (via Spaceflight Now)