Terug naar Titan of terug naar komeet 67P?
Ruimte en Astronomie
Terug naar Titan of terug naar komeet 67P?
Terug naar Titan of terug naar komeet 67P?
Het Amerikaanse ruimteagentschap NASA heeft twee finalisten geselecteerd voor een onbemande missie die medio volgend decennium moet worden gelanceerd. De ene kandidaat is een ruimtemissie naar komeet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, waarbij een bodemmonster moet worden opgehaald. De andere kandidaat is een soort drone die de grote Saturnusmaan Titan zou gaan verkennen. Beide hemellichamen waren eerder al het doelwit van twee Europese landingsmissies (Rosetta en Huygens).De twee ruimtemissies heten Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return (CAESAR) en Dragonfly (‘libel’). De ontwikkelaars ervan krijgen tot eind 2018 geld om hun concept verder uit te werken. NASA wil in het voorjaar van 2019 beslissen welke van beide ook daadwerkelijk wordt uitgevoerd. Het winnende concept zal de vierde zijn in het zogeheten New Frontiers-programma van NASA. Dat zijn ruimtemissies die niet meer dan ongeveer 850 miljoen dollar mogen kosten.
Ook de succesvolle Pluto-sonde New Horizons, de Jupitermissie Juno en OSIRIS-REx, die binnenkort een bezoek brengt aan planetoïde Bennu, maken deel uit van dit programma. NASA heeft ook geldt uitgetrokken voor de technologische ontwikkeling van een een tweetal andere concepten. ELSAH krijgt geld om betaalbare technieken te ontwikkelen om de Saturnusmaan Enceladus op mogelijke sporen van leven te onderzoeken, zonder deze ijsmaan te ‘besmetten’ met aardse organismen. Het VICI-concept moet verder werken aan de ontwikkeling van een mineralogische camera die de verwoestende omstandigheden op de planeet Venus moet kunnen doorstaan. (EE)
Bron: http://astronieuws.nl/
NASA Invests in Concept Development for Missions to Comet, Saturn Moon Titan
NASA has selected two finalist concepts for a robotic mission planned to launch in the mid-2020s: a comet sample return mission and a drone-like rotorcraft that would explore potential landing sites on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.The agency announced the concepts Wednesday, following an extensive and competitive peer review process. The concepts were chosen from 12 proposals submitted in April under a New Frontiers program announcement of opportunity.
“This is a giant leap forward in developing our next bold mission of science discovery,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “These are tantalizing investigations that seek to answer some of the biggest questions in our solar system today.”
The finalists are:
Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return (CAESAR)
The CAESAR (Comet Astrobiology Exploration SAmple Return) mission will acquire a sample from the nucleus of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, returning it safely to Earth. Comets are made up of materials from ancient stars, interstellar clouds, and the birth of our solar system. The CAESAR sample will reveal how these materials contributed to the early Earth, including the origins of the Earth's oceans, and of life.
Credits: NASA
The CAESAR mission seeks to return a sample from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a comet that was successfully explored by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft, to determine its origin and history. Led by Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, CAESAR would be managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Dragonfly
Dragonfly is a dual-quadcopter lander that would take advantage of the environment on Titan to fly to multiple locations, some hundreds of miles apart, to sample materials and determine surface composition to investigate Titan's organic chemistry and habitability, monitor atmospheric and surface conditions, image landforms to investigate geological processes, and perform seismic studies.
Credits: NASA
Dragonfly is a drone-like rotorcraft that would explore the prebiotic chemistry and habitability of dozens of sites on Saturn’s moon Titan, an ocean world in our solar system. Elizabeth Turtle from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, is the lead investigator, with APL providing project management.
The CAESAR and Dragonfly missions will receive funding through the end of 2018 to further develop and mature their concepts. NASA plans to select one of these investigations in the spring of 2019 to continue on to subsequent mission phases.
The selected mission will be the fourth in NASA’s New Frontiers portfolio, a series of principal investigator-led planetary science investigations that fall under a development cost cap of approximately $850 million. Its predecessors are the New Horizons mission to Pluto and a Kuiper Belt object known as 2014 MU69, the Juno mission to Jupiter, and OSIRIS-REx, which will rendezvous with and return a sample of the asteroid Bennu.
NASA also announced the selection of two mission concepts that will receive technology development funds to prepare them for future mission competitions.
The concepts selected for technology development are:
Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability (ELSAH)
The ELSAH mission concept will receive funds to develop cost-effective techniques that limit spacecraft contamination and thereby enable life detection measurements on cost-capped missions. The principal investigator is Chris McKay of NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and the managing NASA center is Goddard.
Venus In situ Composition Investigations (VICI)
Led by Lori Glaze at Goddard, the VICI mission concept will further develop the Venus Element and Mineralogy Camera to operate under the harsh conditions on Venus. The instrument uses lasers on a lander to measure the mineralogy and elemental composition of rocks on the surface of Venus.
The call for concepts was limited to six mission themes: comet surface sample return, lunar south pole-Aitken Basin sample return, ocean worlds (Titan and/or Enceladus), Saturn probe, Trojan asteroid tour and rendezvous, and Venus in situ explorer.
New Frontiers Program investigations address NASA’s planetary science objectives as described in the 2014 NASA Strategic Plan and the 2014 NASA Science Plan. The program is managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Planetary Science Division in Washington.
Bron: https://www.nasa.gov
