In Pictures: 21 critical future NASA missions

NASA space plans include trips to Mars, Jupiter, Pluto and the Sun as well as climate change operations

A huge task: While NASA's 2011 budget got a lot of attention for what it cut – the Constellation program mostly – it does include funding for a ton of other critical satellite and robotic missions. These missions include a huge planned mission to Mars as well as other operations that will send spacecraft to Pluto, Jupiter, Mercury, Pluto and the Sun. New climate change research and observation satellites are also heavily funded. Here we take a look at 21 new or ongoing missions NASA will be hot on this year and in the near future.

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