Mission Development

The following mission concepts or ideas are in various stages of pre-proposal development. They will have to be formally proposed before they could be selected by NASA for spaceflight. Thus, none of these concepts are formally in flight development and the ideas presented here are what we could do if such a mission idea were selected by NASA.

In addition to mission concept studies, we’re working to guide future planetary cave exploration with a Roadmap for Planetary Cave Exploration.

MACIE: Mars Astrobiology Cave and Internal habitability Explorer

A New Frontiers Mission Concept

WHAT IS MACIE?

The Mars Astrobiological Cave and Internal habitability Explorer (MACIE) is named for Macie Roberts, one of NASA’s ‘human computers’. As a group chief for the computers at JPL and she provided job opportunities for women in space. It seems only fitting a mission concept designed to a hidden habitable environment would highlight these oft hidden contributions of women to space science and exploration.

MACIE would access the Martian subsurface via a lava tube. Lava tube caves are compelling subsurface astrobiological targets because they have their own relatively stable microclimates, are shielded from radiation and harsh surface conditions, and may contain water ice. Lava tube caves may also provide access to materials vital to future human exploration and in situ resource utilization (ISRU) activities (Sam et al., 2020).

A cave mission represents a compelling next-step in Mars astrobiology and habitability exploration. We expect to propose MACIE to the New Frontiers 7 call, late in the 2020s.

You can read our MACIE Concept Whitepaper submitted to the Decadal Survey LOCATED here.

We chatted with WeMartians Podcast about this (listen here) and we have a press release with Astrobiology Web.

MACIE’s MISSION GOALS:

1. Assess the present and past habitability of a martian lava tube

   The Martian subsurface is expected to have remained habitable long-after surface conditions degraded.

2. search for evidence of present or past life

   MACIE would target multiple objectives to determine whether life may have existed in a lava

   tube now or in the past. These biosignatures would indicate whether life may have colonized a Martian cave and represent a major advance in our understanding of the astrobiological potential of Mars’ deep subsurface.

   What’s next for MACIE?

   To make MACIE feasible in the next decade, we need to narrow down potential landing sites. While many cave entrances on Mars are vertical entrances, which would require a tethered robot like MoonDiver’s Axel, some entrances are lateral, allowing a robot to walk into the cave.

   While other mission ideas can select a landing location late in the development cycle, we need to prioritize this selection early in the process as it will drive engineering decisions and therefore, cost. Current work being done by scientists analyzing HiRISE and SHARAD data will help us make these choices.

Want to help?

Community enthusiasm and support for subsurface exploration to understand Mars’ habitability and astrobiological potential are essential. Your enthusiasm and engagement with the space program help drive our ability to understand our Solar System. Let’s keep the excitement up about all of the exploration going on, including Europa Clipper, DragonFly, Mars2020, ExoMars, and other planetary missions that help us learn more about our place in the Universe.

We face several challenges that must be solved to propose MACIE. Because MACIE would potentially employ a novel space craft architecture and explore an unknown place where communication will be limited, more work needs to be done to support machine learning and artificial intelligence. MACIE will likely require autonomous sampling, on-board data processing and prioritization, and autonomous navigation. Continuing support for this type of science research will help MACIE’s development. Supporting basic scientific research to better connect lava tube skylights to their subsurface extents, e.g. the ongoing SHARAD work, is essential as it will help us further constrain the best sites for MACIE to potentially explore. This will drive the engineering developments. Additional developments, like a commercial-public partnership for Mars exploration may help lower mission costs. If the Lunar commercial-public partnerships go well, this may set the stage for MACIE.

Special ThANK you to NASA JPL’s A-team who helped us get to this point and determine the work we need to do to keep moving forward.

Enceladus Orbilander could look for life

A Flagship mission concept

A True Life Detection Mission Concept require multiple measurements that seek different types of evidence that life in fact exists.

Enceladus Orbilander, a Pre-Decadal Mission Concept led by Shannon Mackenzie (JHU/APL), would seek to determine whether there is life in Enceladus’ Ocean by sampling the plumes erupting at Enceladus’ south pole from orbit and from the surface.

You can read More about what orbilander could do at enceladus here.

In addition to our report to NASA, we have published additional journal articles about Orbilander here:

The Enceladus Orbilander Mission Concept: Balancing Return and Resources in the Search for Life [open access].

Returning Samples from Enceladus for Life Detection

In addition to missions to Enceladus that might orbit or land on the surface, Sample Return Missions, which would return samples from Enceladus to Earth for analysis (like OSIRIS-Rex) would enable us to use laboratory instruments, some of which have yet to be developed for spaceflight to analyze returned samples in detail to look for evidence of life.

Read more about how Sample Return Missions could enhance our search for life beyond Earth:

Returning Samples from Enceladus for Life Detection

THEO: Testing the Habitability of Enceladus’ Ocean

A New frontiers mission concept

As part of NASA JPL’s Planetary Summer School in 2015, we developed THEO, a New Frontiers Mission Concept that would test the habitability of Enceladus’ Ocean.

This orbiter concept would target the following questions:
(1) How are the plumes connected to the subsurface ocean?
(2) Are the abiotic conditions habitable?
(3) How stable is the ocean environment? and
(4) Is there evidence of biological processes?

You can read more about THEO here.

THEO: Testing the Habitability of Enceladus’ Ocean

INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT

developing instrumentation to search for life is essential to mission success.

Missions incorporate a suite of instrumentation to tackle critical science questions. Right now, we’re developing life-detection specific instrumentation for future astrobiology exploration missions. While there are many approaches, I’m particularly interested in how we design and develop instruments to tackle life in microhabitats where it may be preserved for extended time periods.

Thanks to the Keck Institute of Space Studies (KISS), this fall (2022) Mike Malaska, Jeff Marlow, Heather Graham and I will have the opportunity to work with some of the leading minds in astrobiology instrumentation to figure out how we search for life in microhabitats on other planetary bodies. You can learn more about our endeavors on the KISS website.