Grading NASA's Solar System Exploration Program A Midterm Report (2008) / Chapter Skim
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2 Science
2 Science
Pages 18-25
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FIGURE 2.1 Analysis of a particle from the Stardust mission.
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, and progress toward other objectives has been slowed by the steep reduction in astrobiology research and analysis funding. Also, although it is beyond the horizon of the decadal survey, the committee notes that there is a large and growing gap between missions to the giant planets once the Juno mission (currently scheduled for launch in 2011)
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will extend the utility of existing assets (Deep Impact and Stardust) to provide additional investigations into other small bodies or into surface processes on a recently impacted comet. Laboratory study of meteoritic material and Earth-based observations of primitive bodies in the solar system and of extrasolar planets and circumstellar nebulae provide constraints on the evolution of solids in the early solar system.
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The Mars program's "Follow the water" strategy has led to a series of ongoing and planned missions (Odyssey, Express, Reconnaissance Orbiter, Exploration Rovers, Mars Science Laboratory, the Phoenix Scout mission, the Analyzer of Space Plasma and Energetic Atoms [ASPERA] -3 Discovery MoO, and studies of the Astrobiology Field Laboratory, Mars Science Orbiter, and Mars Sample Return)
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A Mars mission has possibly detected methane in the martian atmosphere, and future in situ measurements (Mars Science Laboratory and Phoenix) will be made of this and more complex organic compounds.
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SCIENCE 23 FIGURE 2.2 Saturn's moon Enceladus as viewed by the Cassini spacecraft. Barely visible in this image is the plume of ice particles jetting from the tiny moon's south pole.
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Although the Mars program has an integrated strategy for achieving this objective at Mars in this decade and the next, there is need for a comprehensive strategy to address this question throughout the solar system. Recommendation: NASA should return funding for the Astrobiology Science and Technology Instrument Development program and the Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets program to at least their individual Planetary Instrument Definition and Development levels.
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NASA's overall mission portfolio, extending from Mercury to Pluto to extrasolar planets and from the solar wind to primitive bodies to giant planets, is well constructed to address this question. The current missions have made significant progress, and the second half of the decade promises many more advances.
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