The HADES mission concept – astrobiological survey of Jupiter's icy moon Europa

Abstract

: The HADES Europa mission concept aims to provide a framework for an astrobiological in-depth investigation of the Jupiter moon Europa, relying on existing technologies and feasibility. This mission study proposes a system consisting of an orbiter, lander and cryobot as a platform for detailed exploration of Europa. While the orbiter will investigate the presence of a liquid ocean and characterize Europa's internal structure, the lander will survey local dynamics of the ice layer and the surface environment. The lander releases a cryobot, that melts into the ice, will sample the pristine subsurface and is expected to provide data on organic and gaseous content and putative bio-signatures. In summary, we present the scientific objectives for an astrobiological investigation of Europa, resulting in a mission concept with a detailed evaluation of scientific instrumentation, mission sequences, basic design of the spacecraft, technology needs and cost estimations.

A lander mission to probe subglacial water on Saturn׳s moon Enceladus for life

“…Due to the development, volume, and mass uncertainties described above, an exact downselection of instruments cannot be given beyond the candidate instruments derived in Section 1.2.3 and listed above. For the following calculations we will use data for the payload of the HADES ice melting probe [88]. Engineering requirements are expected to be in the same order of magnitude as for the instruments eventually selected for a future IceMole version deployed on Enceladus.…”

Methods and measurements to assess physical and geochemical conditions at the surface of Europa

“…Previous Europa Lander studies made an extensive account for the rating of different science experiments on the surface (Chyba and Phillips, 2002;Cooper et al, 2002;Balint, 2004;Greeley and Johnson, 2004;Rager et al, 2006;Balint et al, 2006;Bö ttcher et al, 2009). The most important investigations proposed for many lander projects fall into the following three major groups:…”

“…It leaves about 1 dm 3 , (and possibly 1 kg) for the science instruments; and this design is compatible with the concentration of melted water. A similar probe was considered for HADES mission (Bö ttcher et al, 2009). Still, a serious analytic package could hardly fit in such kind of a probe.…”