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NASA has selected two finalists for the fourth New Frontiers mission: a spacecraft that would retrieve a sample from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and a drone that would explore multiple locations on Saturn's moon Titan:
In the first proposed mission, Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return, or Caesar, a spacecraft would go to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, previously explored by the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, and bring back a small chunk to Earth for closer study.
In the second mission, named Dragonfly, a robotic drone would be sent to Titan, Saturn's largest moon, which has a seas of hydrocarbons. The drone would be able to fly from one location to another and to perform detailed explorations of various terrains.
[...] Each team now will get $4 million and about one year to flesh out its idea. NASA will decide in mid-2019 which one of the two to build. The selected mission is to launch by the end of 2025.
The CAESAR mission to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko would scoop up 100 grams of material and return it to Earth... by 2038. CAESAR would be aided by Rosetta's precise measurements of the comet. The Dragonfly mission would make most of its observations on the ground of Titan, but would be able to fly hundreds of kilometers through Titan's atmosphere to land repeatedly. Flight on Titan is significantly easier than on Earth due to its 1.45 (Earth) atmospheres of pressure and 0.14g surface gravity.
The Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability (ELSAH) and Venus In Situ Composition Investigations (VICI) concepts will also receive funding for technology development.
The previous New Frontiers missions were:
- The New Horizons flyby mission to Pluto, launched on January 19, 2006, which is currently en route to 2014 MU69.
- The Juno mission to Jupiter, launched on August 5, 2011. Perijove 10 (9th science flyby) was on December 16, and Perijove 11 will occur on February 7, 2018.
- The OSIRIS-REx mission, launched on September 8, 2016, which will arrive at the 0.5 km asteroid 101955 Bennu in August 2018 and return a sample to Earth by 2023.
Also at NASA, The Verge and Air & Space.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday December 21 2017, @05:41PM
Why stop there? 1 billion-dollar mission every ~5 years? Why not 5 new missions every year!? Multiplying the New Frontiers expenditure by roughly 25 sounds like a lot of money, but we could always pull it out of the DoD/Pentagon.
But unless you spearhead a successful campaign to give NASA an extra billion to launch both, we are stuck with this choice. Congress can choose to throw extra money at NASA for specific missions, as they have done with Europa Clipper [wikipedia.org]. There is lobbying and excitement [arstechnica.com] behind Europa Clipper, although maybe too much since they have no plans to drill into the ocean.
The funding that Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability [wikipedia.org] and Venus In Situ Composition Investigations [wikipedia.org] receive could help those be realized in a future competition or just as missions NASA wants to select.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]