Ocean Worlds Exploration Program

Last updated
Two possible models of Europa EuropaInterior1.jpg
Two possible models of Europa

The Ocean Worlds Exploration Program (OWEP) is a NASA program [1] to explore ocean worlds in the outer Solar System that could possess subsurface oceans to assess their habitability and to seek biosignatures of simple extraterrestrial life.

Contents

Prime targets include moons that harbor hidden oceans beneath a shell of ice: Europa, Enceladus, and Titan. A host of other bodies in the outer Solar System are inferred by a single type of observation or by theoretical modeling to have subsurface oceans.

The US House Appropriations Committee approved the bill on May 20, 2015, and directed NASA to create the Ocean Worlds Exploration Program. [2] The "Roadmaps to Ocean Worlds" (ROW) was started in 2016, [3] [4] and was presented in January 2019. [5] The formal program is being implemented within the agency by supporting the Europa Clipper orbiter mission to Europa, [3] [6] and the Dragonfly mission to Titan. The program is also supporting concept studies for a proposed Europa Lander, [7] and concepts to explore the moon Triton. [8] [5] Amanda Hendrix and Terry A. Hurford are the co-leads of the NASA Roadmaps to Oceans World Group. [5] [9]

History

Artist's impression of possible hydrothermal activity on Enceladus's ocean floor PIA19058-SaturnMoon-Enceladus-PossibleHydrothermalActivity-ArtistConcept-20150311.jpg
Artist's impression of possible hydrothermal activity on Enceladus's ocean floor

The chief author of NASA's budget proposal is John Culberson, who was at the time the head of the science subcommittee in the House of Representatives. In Spring 2015 he presented a budget request, creating the possibility of an all-new NASA mission program. [11] [12] The House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the FY2016 House Appropriations Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) bill on May 20, 2015. [6] Therefore, the Committee directed NASA to create the Ocean Worlds Exploration Program whose primary goal is to discover extant life on another world using a mix of Discovery, New Frontiers and Flagship class missions consistent with the recommendations of current and future Planetary Science Decadal Surveys. [3]

In the FY2017 Budget Request, the committee recommended $348 million for "Outer Planets" and "Ocean Worlds," of which not less than $260 million is for the Europa Clipper orbiter and lander, with launch of the orbiter in 2025 [13] and the potential Europa Lander shortly after. [14]

A 2017 technical analysis stated that the technical challenges are enormous, and that "Without a genuinely strategic program plan, the great promise of an OWEP [Ocean Worlds Exploration Program] is highly likely to remain unfulfilled." [15] The report noted that development of OWEP-enabling technologies must currently compete for priority with other Solar System objectives, which is not useful for strategic planning. The report recommends common, multi-mission technical infrastructure and secure funding to develop it. [15]

The Roadmaps to Ocean Worlds (ROW) report was submitted and it was published in January 2019. [5]

Science goals

Artist's cut-away representation of the internal structure of Ganymede. Layers drawn to scale. Ganymede diagram.svg
Artist's cut-away representation of the internal structure of Ganymede. Layers drawn to scale.

On Earth, itself an ocean world, liquid water is essential to life as we know it. A question is whether the dark, alien oceans of the outer Solar System could be habitable for simple life forms, and if so, what would their biochemistry might be. [16]

The goals of the Ocean Worlds Exploration Program are to "identify ocean worlds, characterize their oceans, evaluate their habitability, search for life, and ultimately understand any life we find." [5]

Exploring these moons could help to answer the question of how life arose on Earth and whether it exists anywhere else in the Solar System. [17] It may also be possible to find pre-biotic chemistry occurring, which could provide clues to how life started on Earth. [18] Any life detected at the remote ocean worlds in the outer Solar System would likely have formed and evolved along an independent path from life on Earth, giving us a deeper understanding of the potential for life in the universe. [4]

Oceanographers, biologists and astrobiologists are part of the team developing the strategy roadmap. [3] The planning also considers implementing planetary protection measures to avoid contaminating extraterrestrial habitable environments with resilient stowaway bacteria on their landers. [3] [4]

Targets

Ocean worlds identified in the Solar System so far with reasonable certainty are the major moons Europa, Enceladus, Titan, Ganymede, and Callisto. [5] Of these, Europa and Enceladus have the highest priority because their icy shells are thinner than the others (Europa's is less than 10 km; Enceladus' is about 40 km) and there is some evidence their oceans are in contact with the rocky mantle, which could provide both energy and chemicals for life to form. [5] Enceladus' ice crust has fractures at the south pole that allow ice and gas from the ocean to escape to space, where it has been sampled by mass spectrometers aboard the Cassini Saturn orbiter with tantalizing results. [19] Titan's ocean is the deepest, at 50 to 100 km, and no evidence for active plumes or ice volcanism have been observed.

Bodies such as Triton, Pluto, Ceres, Miranda, Ariel, and Dione are considered candidate ocean worlds, based on hints from limited spacecraft observations. [5]

Missions

The Ocean Worlds Exploration Program (OWEP) is supporting the Europa Clipper orbiter mission to Europa, which is the first planned target of this program to be launched in 2024. [3] [6] The second is the Dragonfly mission to Titan. [5]

The program is also supporting concept studies for a proposed Europa Lander, [7] and a concept to explore the moon Triton with Trident, a mission selected as a finalist in NASA's Discovery Program in 2020. [8] [5]

See also

Astrobiology mission concepts to water worlds in the outer Solar System:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astrobiology</span> Science concerned with life in the universe

Astrobiology is a scientific field within the life and environmental sciences that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe by investigating its deterministic conditions and contingent events. As a discipline, astrobiology is founded on the premise that life may exist beyond Earth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Europa (moon)</span> Smallest Galilean moon of Jupiter

Europa, or Jupiter II, is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, and the sixth-closest to the planet of all the 95 known moons of Jupiter. It is also the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System. Europa was discovered independently by Simon Marius and Galileo Galilei and was named after Europa, the Phoenician mother of King Minos of Crete and lover of Zeus.

<i>Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter</i> Canceled NASA orbiter mission to Jupiters icy moons

The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) was a proposed NASA spacecraft designed to explore the icy moons of Jupiter. The main target was Europa, where an ocean of liquid water may harbor alien life. Ganymede and Callisto, which are now thought to also have liquid, salty oceans beneath their icy surfaces, were also targets of interest for the probe.

The New Frontiers program is a series of space exploration missions being conducted by NASA with the purpose of furthering the understanding of the Solar System. The program selects medium-class missions which can provide high science returns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ocean world</span> Planet containing a significant amount of water or other liquid

An ocean world, ocean planet, panthalassic planet, maritime world, water world or aquaplanet, is a type of planet that contains a substantial amount of water in the form of oceans, as part of its hydrosphere, either beneath the surface, as subsurface oceans, or on the surface, potentially submerging all dry land. The term ocean world is also used sometimes for astronomical bodies with an ocean composed of a different fluid or thalassogen, such as lava, ammonia or hydrocarbons. The study of extraterrestrial oceans is referred to as planetary oceanography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Exploration of Saturn</span> Overview of the exploration of Saturn

The exploration of Saturn has been solely performed by crewless probes. Three missions were flybys, which formed an extended foundation of knowledge about the system. The Cassini–Huygens spacecraft, launched in 1997, was in orbit from 2004 to 2017.

<i>Planetary Science Decadal Survey</i> Publication of the United States National Research Council

The Planetary Science Decadal Survey is a serial publication of the United States National Research Council produced for NASA and other United States Government Agencies such as the National Science Foundation. The documents identify key questions facing planetary science and outlines recommendations for space and ground-based exploration ten years into the future. Missions to gather data to answer these big questions are described and prioritized, where appropriate. Similar decadal surveys cover astronomy and astrophysics, earth science, and heliophysics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uranus Orbiter and Probe</span> Proposed NASA space mission to Uranus

The Uranus Orbiter and Probe is an orbiter mission concept to study Uranus and its moons. The orbiter would also deploy an atmospheric probe to characterize Uranus's atmosphere. The concept is being developed as a potential large strategic science mission for NASA. The science phase would last 4.5 years and include multiple flybys of each of the major moons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Europa Clipper</span> Planned NASA space mission to Jupiter

Europa Clipper is an interplanetary mission in development by NASA comprising an orbiter. Planned for launch in October 2024, the spacecraft is being developed to study the Galilean moon Europa through a series of flybys while in orbit around Jupiter.

Planetary oceanography, also called astro-oceanography or exo-oceanography, is the study of oceans on planets and moons other than Earth. Unlike other planetary sciences like astrobiology, astrochemistry, and planetary geology, it only began after the discovery of underground oceans in Saturn's moon Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa. This field remains speculative until further missions reach the oceans beneath the rock or ice layer of the moons. There are many theories about oceans or even ocean worlds of celestial bodies in the Solar System, from oceans made of diamond in Neptune to a gigantic ocean of liquid hydrogen that may exist underneath Jupiter's surface.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enceladus Life Finder</span> Proposed NASA mission to a moon of Saturn

Enceladus Life Finder (ELF) is a proposed astrobiology mission concept for a NASA spacecraft intended to assess the habitability of the internal aquatic ocean of Enceladus, which is Saturn's sixth-largest moon of at least 146 total moons, and seemingly similar in chemical makeup to comets. The spaceprobe would orbit Saturn and fly through Enceladus's geyser-like plumes multiple times. It would be powered by energy supplied from solar panels on the spacecraft.

Journey to Enceladus and Titan (JET) is an astrobiology mission concept to assess the habitability potential of Enceladus and Titan, moons of Saturn.

THEO is a feasibility study for a New Frontiers class orbiter mission to Enceladus that would directly sample its south pole water plumes in order to study its internal habitability and to search for biosignatures. Specifically, it would take advantage of the direct sampling opportunities of a subsurface ocean.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Europa Lander</span> Proposed NASA lander for Europa

The Europa Lander is a proposed astrobiology mission concept by NASA to send a lander to Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter. If funded and developed as a large strategic science mission, it would be launched in 2027 to complement the studies by the Europa Clipper orbiter mission and perform analyses on site.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oceanus (Titan orbiter)</span>

Oceanus is a NASA/JPL orbiter mission concept proposed in 2017 for the New Frontiers mission #4, but it was not selected for development. If selected at some future opportunity, Oceanus would travel to Saturn's moon Titan to assess its habitability. Studying Titan would help understand the early Earth and exoplanets which orbit other stars. The mission is named after Oceanus, the Greek god of oceans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Explorer of Enceladus and Titan</span> NASA/ESA Saturnian moon probe concept

Explorer of Enceladus and Titan (E2T) is a space mission concept that would investigate the evolution and habitability of the Saturnian satellites Enceladus and Titan and is proposed by the European Space Agency in collaboration with NASA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability</span> Astrobiology concept mission

Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability (ELSAH) is an astrobiology concept mission proposed in 2017 to NASA's New Frontiers program to send a spacecraft to Enceladus to search for biosignatures and assess its habitability. The Principal Investigator is Christopher P. McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center, and the managing NASA center is Goddard Space Flight Center. No details of the mission have been made public, but observers speculate that it would be a plume-sampling orbiter mission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass Spectrometer for Planetary Exploration</span>

The MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration (MASPEX) is a mass spectrometer capable of high-resolution and high-sensitivity that allows the determination of a wide variety of chemical compounds in complex mixtures. This instrument will fly on board the planned Europa Clipper orbiter to explore Jupiter's moon Europa. This astrobiology mission will analyse the composition of Europa's surface while in orbit, and will directly assess its internal ocean habitability by flying through Europa's tenuous atmosphere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neptune Odyssey</span> NASA orbiter mission concept to study the Neptune system

Neptune Odyssey is an orbiter mission concept to study Neptune and its moons, particularly Triton. The orbiter would enter into a retrograde orbit of Neptune to facilitate simultaneous study of Triton and would launch an atmospheric probe to characterize Neptune's atmosphere. The concept is being developed as a potential large strategic science mission for NASA by a team led by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. The current proposal targets a launch in 2033 using the Space Launch System with arrival at Neptune in 2049, although trajectories using gravity assists at Jupiter have also been considered with launch dates in 2031.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Enceladus Orbilander</span> Proposed NASA space probe to Saturns moon Enceladus

The Enceladus Orbilander is a proposed NASA Flagship mission to Saturn's moon Enceladus. The Enceladus Orbilander would spend a year and a half orbiting Enceladus and sampling its water plumes, which stretch into space, before landing on the surface for a two-year mission to study materials for evidence of life. The mission, with an estimated cost of $4.9 billion, could launch in the late 2030s on a Space Launch System or Falcon Heavy with a landing in the early 2050s. It was proposed in the 2023–2032 Planetary Science Decadal Survey as the third highest priority Flagship mission, after the Uranus Orbiter and Probe and the Mars Sample Return program.

References

  1. ↑ Implementable program for efficient ocean-world exploration. Sherwood, Brent; Sotin, Christophe; Lunine, Jonathan; Cwik, Tom. 42nd COSPAR Scientific Assembly. Held 14–22 July 2018, in Pasadena, California, USA, Abstract id. B5.3-5-18.
  2. ↑ Foust, Jeff (14 April 2017). ""Ocean Worlds" discoveries build case for new missions". Space News. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 McEwen, Alfred (1 February 2016). "Roadmaps to Ocean Worlds (ROW)" (PDF). Lunar and Planetary Institute. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  4. 1 2 3 "NASA's plans to explore Europa and other "ocean worlds"". Universe Today. PhysOrg. 6 March 2017. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 The NASA Roadmap to Ocean Worlds. Amanda R. Hendrix, Terry A. Hurford, Laura M. Barge, Michael T. Bland, Jeff S. Bowman, William Brinckerhoff, Bonnie J. Buratti, Morgan L. Cable, Julie Castillo-Rogez, Geoffrey C. Collins, etal. Astrobiology, Vol. 19, No. 1. doi : 10.1089/ast.2018.1955
  6. 1 2 3 "NASA's FY2016 Budget Request" (PDF). Space Policy Online. 27 May 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-07-31. Retrieved 2017-09-30. In fact, the report accompanying the bill directs NASA to create an "Ocean Worlds Exploration Program" of which the Europa mission is part.
  7. 1 2 Europa Lander. Home Page at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) NASA. Accessed on 22 September 2019.
  8. 1 2 Brown, David W. (19 March 2019). "Neptune's Moon Triton Is Destination of Proposed NASA Mission". The New York Times . Retrieved 20 March 2019.
  9. ↑ Fish, Tom (5 March 2019). "NASA Ocean Worlds mission: NASA's space program to search for alien life". UK Express.
  10. ↑ Hsu, Hsiang-Wen; Postberg, Frank; et al. (March 11, 2015). "Ongoing hydrothermal activities within Enceladus". Nature. 519 (7542): 207–10. Bibcode:2015Natur.519..207H. doi:10.1038/nature14262. PMID   25762281. S2CID   4466621.
  11. ↑ Wenz, John (19 May 2015). "NASA Wants to go Underwater Exploring on Ocean Moons". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  12. ↑ Berger, Eric (19 May 2015). "The House budget for NASA plants the seeds of a program to finally find life in the outer solar system". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  13. ↑ Foust, Jeff (22 August 2019). "Europa Clipper passes key review". Space News.
  14. ↑ Foust, Jeff (17 February 2019). "Final fiscal year 2019 budget bill secures $21.5 billion for NASA". Space News.
  15. 1 2 FOLLOW THE (OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM) WATER: PROGRAM OPTIONS TO EXPLORE OCEAN WORLDS. (PDF). B. Sherwood, J. Lunine, C. Sotin, T. Cwik1, F. Naderi. Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop 2017.
  16. ↑ Amanda R. Hendrix; Terry A. Hurford; et al. (January 1, 2019). "The NASA Roadmap to Ocean Worlds". Astrobiology. 19 (1): 1–27. Bibcode:2019AsBio..19....1H. doi:10.1089/ast.2018.1955. PMC   6338575 . PMID   30346215.
  17. ↑ Creech, Stephen D; Vane, Greg. "Ocean World Exploration and SLS: Enabling the Search for Life". Nasa Technical Reports Server. NASA. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  18. ↑ Anderson, Paul Scott (15 May 2015). "'Ocean Worlds Exploration Program': New Budget Proposal Calls for Missions to Europa, Enceladus, and Titan". AmericaSpace. Retrieved 2017-09-30.
  19. ↑ Postberg, Frank; et al. (June 27, 2018). "Macromolecular organic compounds from the depths of Enceladus". Nature . 558 (7711): 564–568. Bibcode:2018Natur.558..564P. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0246-4. PMC   6027964 . PMID   29950623.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.