New Millennium Program
New Millennium Program was a NASA project with focus on engineering validation of new technologies for space applications. Funding for the program was eliminated from the FY2009 budget by the 110th United States Congress, effectively leading to its cancellation.
The spacecraft in the New Millennium Program were originally named "Deep Space" and "Earth Observing". With a refocussing of the program in 2000, the Deep Space series was renamed "Space Technology".
NMP missions
Missions flown
- Deep Space 1 – standalone spacecraft testing solar electric propulsion, autonomous operation etc.; successful mission 1998-2001 including comet and asteroid encounters
- Deep Space 2 – Mars surface penetrators flown with Mars Polar Lander in 1999;
- Earth Observing 1 –
- Space Technology 5 – a cluster of three satellites investigating the Earth's magnetosphere
- Space Technology 6 – Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment aboard Earth Observing 1 ; Inertial Stellar Compass
- Space Technology 7 – disturbance reduction technology to support gravitational wave observations;. Launched on the European Space Agency's LISA Pathfinder on 3 December 2015.
Cancelled missions
- Deep Space 3/Space Technology 3 – would have been a spaceborne stellar interferometer.
- Deep Space 4/Space Technology 4 – planned for launch in 2003 to orbit and land on comet Tempel 1 and return a sample in 2010
- Earth Observing 2 – a plan to use space-based lidar to measure atmospheric winds
- Earth Observing 3 (GIFTS) – Geostationary Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer originally planned for 2005-6 launch
- Space Technology 8 – originally planned for 2009 launch, the satellite is designed, developed and manufacture by Orbital Sciences Corporation
- Space Technology 9 – a NASA proposal related to precision landing and hazard avoidance for future planetary lander vehicles.