CaltechAUTHORS
  A Caltech Library Service

Venus Life Finder Missions Motivation and Summary

Seager, Sara and Petkowski, Janusz J. and Carr, Christopher E. and Grinspoon, David H. and Ehlmann, Bethany L. and Saikia, Sarag J. and Agrawal, Rachana and Buchanan, Weston P. and Weber, Monika U. and French, Richard and Klupar, Pete and Worden, Simon P. and Baumgardner, Darrel (2022) Venus Life Finder Missions Motivation and Summary. Aerospace, 9 (7). Art. No. 385. ISSN 2226-4310. doi:10.3390/aerospace9070385. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20220721-8945000

[img] PDF - Published Version
Creative Commons Attribution.

1MB

Use this Persistent URL to link to this item: https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20220721-8945000

Abstract

Finding evidence of extraterrestrial life would be one of the most profound scientific discoveries ever made, advancing humanity into a new epoch of cosmic awareness. The Venus Life Finder (VLF) missions feature a series of three direct atmospheric probes designed to assess the habitability of the Venusian clouds and search for signs of life and life itself. The VLF missions are an astrobiology-focused set of missions, and the first two out of three can be launched quickly and at a relatively low cost. The mission concepts come out of an 18-month study by an MIT-led worldwide consortium.


Item Type:Article
Related URLs:
URLURL TypeDescription
https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace9070385DOIArticle
ORCID:
AuthorORCID
Seager, Sara0000-0002-6892-6948
Petkowski, Janusz J.0000-0002-1921-4848
Grinspoon, David H.0000-0002-2265-7551
Ehlmann, Bethany L.0000-0002-2745-3240
Agrawal, Rachana0000-0003-4504-3971
Buchanan, Weston P.0000-0001-6339-3807
Additional Information:© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Received: 7 June 2022 / Revised: 7 July 2022 / Accepted: 13 July 2022 / Published: 18 July 2022. (This article belongs to the Special Issue The Search for Signs of Life on Venus: Science Objectives and Mission Designs) We thank the extended Venus Life Finder Mission team for useful discussions. List of the individuals involved as the VLF extended Venus Life Finder Mission team can be found here: https://venuscloudlife.com/, accessed on 14 May 2022. This research was partially funded by Breakthrough Initiatives, the Change Happens Foundation, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Author Contributions. Conceptualization, S.S., J.J.P., C.E.C., D.H.G., B.L.E., S.J.S., R.A., W.P.B., M.U.W., R.F., P.K., S.P.W., D.B.; writing—original draft preparation, S.S., J.J.P.; writing—review and editing, S.S., J.J.P., C.E.C., D.H.G., B.L.E., S.J.S., R.A., W.P.B., M.U.W., R.F., P.K., S.P.W., D.B., Venus Life Finder Mission Team; All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. The authors declare no conflict of interest. Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicable. Informed Consent Statement: Not applicable. Data Availability Statement: Not applicable.
Funders:
Funding AgencyGrant Number
Breakthrough InitiativeUNSPECIFIED
Change Happens FoundationUNSPECIFIED
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)UNSPECIFIED
Subject Keywords:Venus; space missions; astrobiology
Issue or Number:7
DOI:10.3390/aerospace9070385
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:20220721-8945000
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20220721-8945000
Official Citation:Seager, Sara, Janusz J. Petkowski, Christopher E. Carr, David H. Grinspoon, Bethany L. Ehlmann, Sarag J. Saikia, Rachana Agrawal, Weston P. Buchanan, Monika U. Weber, Richard French, Pete Klupar, Simon P. Worden, Darrel Baumgardner, and on behalf of the Venus Life Finder Mission Team. 2022. "Venus Life Finder Missions Motivation and Summary" Aerospace 9, no. 7: 385. https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace9070385
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:115749
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: George Porter
Deposited On:21 Jul 2022 19:47
Last Modified:21 Jul 2022 19:47

Repository Staff Only: item control page