Getting the Answers: Mission Opportunities

Major targets of Astrobiology Interest within the Solar System:

Mars, Europa, Titan, Comets, Space Station, Earth

Evolution Beyond the Planet of Origin

1999: Space Station
Beginning in 1999 there will be opportunities for Astrobiology investigations on both the Space Shuttle and the early Space Station. The Space Station will grow in capability until it is fully functional in 2004 with sophisticated biological laboratory capabilities inside the vehicle and a variety of exterior payload accommodations. Astrobiology research interests include gas/grain simulation studies, intact cosmic dust collection for organic analyses, probabilities and limits of panspermia, evolutionary biology, ecosystem studies.

Habitable Worlds in the Solar System -- Past, Present, Future

Solar System Exploration

2001+: Mars
Approximately every two years, NASA will launch both a Mars orbiter and a Mars lander for detailed explorations of Mars. Astrobiology research interests include the search for water, evidence of past water, evidence of subsurface voids (caves), prebiotic chemical evolution, climate history, evidence for extinct/extant life, cause of the profound environmental change on Mars, and the relationship of impact events and life (if any).

Current Mission:
Mars Global Surveyor - Welcome to Mars!

Future Mars Missions:
Mars Missions

2003: Europa
A Europa Orbiter mission is planned for launch in 2003. Astrobiology interests include determining whether an ocean is present, characterizing the prebiotic organic history, searching for life.

Current Mission:
Galileo Europa Mission—Fact Sheet

Future Mission:
Europa Orbiter
NASA Roadmap Missions: Europa Ocean Observer
NASA Roadmap Missions: Europa Lander Network

2004+: Titan
Titan is the only moon in the solar system with a thick atmosphere (composed largely of nitrogen) and a sophisticated organic chemistry. The Cassini mission to Saturn will drop a probe into TitanÕs atmosphere in 2004 to take measurements of its atmosphere. The Titan Biologic Explorer is being considered for the post-2005 time frame to determine the vertical distribution and chemistry of prebiotic organics and organic chemical process variability in its atmosphere and surface.

Current Mission:
Cassini Mission with Titan Probe—Objectives

Future Missions:
Titan Biological Explorer
NASA Roadmap Missions: Titan Aerobot

1999+: Comets
There are several missions to comets beginning in 1999, including a comet sample return mission and the possibility of commercial missions. Astrobiology interests include determining the degree of prebiotic chemistry and the water/organic inventory of comets to evaluate their role in the origin of life and development of habitable worlds.

1999: Stardust
Stardust will fly close to a comet and, for the first time, bring cometary material back to Earth for analysis. Stardust will encounter comet Wild 2 on January 2004, collect in aerogel cometary material and interstellar dust streaming into the solar system from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, and return these samples to earth in 2006.

2002: Muses
Muses-C/Muses-CN will launch January 2002 and return a sample from asteroid Nereus to Earth. This is a joint mission being carried out by the Japanese space agency, ISAS, and NASA. A tiny NASA rover called the Muses-CN is the smallest rover ever to fly in space and will land on Nereus.

2003: Deep Space 4/Champollion
Deep Space 4/Champollion will launch in 2003, rendezvous with a Comet Tempel 1 in 2005, scoop up a sample of the nucleus and return with it to Earth in 2010.

2003: Rosetta
The international comet mission Rosetta will carry two landers--Champollion and Roland--to characterize the comet nucleus. Both remote and in situ experiments are planned. Launched on an Ariane 5 in January 2003, Rosetta will rendezvous with comet 46 P/Wirtanen in 2011 and land on the comet 2012.

Habitable Worlds Outside the Solar System

The Origins Program--see mission schedule.

Some Key Missions for Astrobiology

Now: Hubble Space Telescope
Visualizing cosmic evolution. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was the first and flagship mission of NASA's Great Observatories program. HST is a 2.4 m, f/24 Ritchey-Chretien telescope capable of performing observations in the visible, near-ultraviolet, and near-infrared (1150 Å to 1 mm).

2001: SOFIA
Space Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) will be the largest airborne telescope in the world. SOFIA will enable studies of interstellar cloud physics and star formation in our galaxy; protoplanetary disks and planet formation in nearby star systems; origins and evolution of biogenic atoms, molecules, and solids; composition and structure of planetary atmospheres and rings, and comets; star formation, dynamics, and chemical content of other galaxies; and the dynamic activity in the center of the Milky Way.

2001: SIRTF
The Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) will enable studies of great interest to astrobiology with unprecedented sensitivity. These include studies of protoplanetary and planetary debris disks and deep surveys of the early universe.

2004?: The Kepler Mission
A Search for Habitable Planets. Of the planets detected so far, with the exception of the pulsar planets, all of them are on the order of jovian or larger in mass. The challenge now is to find Earth-class planets, which are 300 times less massive than Jupiter. The Kepler Mission has been proposed to discover and characterize hundreds of Earth-class planets and will determine the frequency of Earth-class and larger planets in and near the habitable zone (HZ) of a wide variety of spectral types of stars.

2004: Space Interferometry Mission
SIM will be an optical interferometer operating in Earth orbit. SIM's goals are very broad, and cover many important areas of astrophysics, including searching for other solar systems, studying the processing of star and solar system formation, and studying the dynamics of star and star clusters in our Galaxy.

2007: Next Generation Space Telescope
The Next Generation Space Telescope will build on the extraordinary capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope to allow even more exciting and in-depth explorations of how galaxies, stars and planetary systems form and evolve.

2010: Terrestrial Planet Finder
The Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) Mission will be an infrared interferometer operating in an orbit designed to detect planets and planetary atmosphere constituents that fall into the category of "earth-like." It will search out planetary systems around the brightest 1000 stars within 13 pc of our solar system and will characterize spectra of the brightest 50-100 of the detected planetary systems. TPF will be capable of synthetic imaging as well as spectroscopic analysis.