A Flagship class Titan explorer balloon. Credit: Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Space.com’s Leonard David reports that NASA and ESA planetary scientists are working out the details on possible flagship-class missions to Jupiter and Saturn that include landers, balloons and a mini-submarine.
“We have the outer planet flagship mission in the [NASA] budget … I do believe it will happen,” said Dr. Fran Bagenal, who heads up the chair of the Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG). “I couldn’t have said that four years ago … now I have great confidence that this will happen.”
One mission under review involves two orbiters to study Jupiter and its frozen moon Europa, which scientists believe possesses a subsurface ocean. Russia has proposed a Europa lander for the flight.
The Saturn mission would involve a main spacecraft that would orbit the gas giant and a smaller one to explore its satellite Titan. The Titan vehicle could deploy an atmospheric balloon, surface probes, or a mini-submarine to explore the moon’s methane lakes.
The Martian Chronicles blog is hosting Carnival of Space 47, a collection of links to articles on a variety of space topics. The stories include:
- An article by Darnell Clayton at Colony Worlds speculating about whether Bigelow Aerospace could alter the design of its planned space station to accommodate artificial gravity;
- Animation of NASA’s Spirit rover scurrying around on the surface of Mars;
- A summary of the science that would have been lost had NASA gone ahead with budget cuts in the Spirit and Opportunity programs;
- Paul Gilster’s musings about possible life in an ocean below Titan’s frozen surface.
After years of brilliant success studying the Red Planet, scientists and engineers working on NASA’s Mars exploration are getting their just desserts: deep cutbacks in their programs for the next four years.
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin announced last week that he was refocusing the agency’s exploration budget on the outer planets. RedOrbit.com reports that NASA is requesting around $343 million annually for Mars exploration for 2009-12, just over half the $620 million it had estimated just a year ago.
Griffin said the change was spurred by a recent National Research Council report which gave the agency an “A” for its Mars work and a “D” for its exploration of the outer worlds.
“After Mars Science Lab - the current planetary sciences flagship - we are now planning in earnest for an outer planets flagship to Europa, Titan or Ganymede,” Griffin told attendees at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston last week.
Continue reading ‘Mars Program Gets an “A”; NASA Slashes Funding’
NASA PRESS RELEASE
PASADENA, Calif. - NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence that points to the existence of an underground ocean of water and ammonia on Saturn’s moon Titan. The findings, made using radar measurements of Titan’s rotation, will appear in the March 21 issue of the journal Science.
“With its organic dunes, lakes, channels and mountains, Titan has one of the most varied, active and Earth-like surfaces in the solar system,” said Ralph Lorenz, lead author of the paper and Cassini radar scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., “Now we see changes in the way Titan rotates, giving us a window into Titan’s interior beneath the surface.”
Continue reading ‘Cassini Finds Evidence of Underground Ocean on Titan’