Goals

Astrobiology, the study of the living universe, requires the input from a variety of missions in order to answer its key questions:

• How do habitable worlds form and how do they evolve?
• How did living systems emerge?
• How can other biospheres be recognized?
• How have the Earth and its biosphere influenced each other over time?
• How do rapid changes in the environment affect emergent ecosystem properties?
• What is the potential for survival and biological evolution beyond the planet of origin?

The goal of the Piggyback Missions for Astrobiology Workshop was to identify the near term missions that could return important astrobiology data, determine whether there were any opportunities for astrobiology payloads (small to medium sized), evaluate the state of readiness of the technologies to take advantage of these mission opportunities, and recommend key technologies that need to be developed in the near term to take full advantage of potential piggyback opportunities.