The ETNA mission concept: Assessing the habitability of an active ocean world

Creators: Deutsch, Ariel N.^{1, 2}; Panicucci, Paolo³; Tenelanda-Osorio, Laura I.⁴; Da Poian, Victoria⁵; Cho, Yun H.⁶; Venigalla, Chandrakanth⁷; Mathanlal, Thasshwin⁸; Castillo Specia, Emiliano⁹; González Peytaví, Graciela¹⁰; Guarriello, Andrea¹¹; Gunasekara, Onalli¹²; Jones, Lewis¹³; Krasteva, Mariya¹⁴; Pouplin, Jennifer¹⁵; Villanueva, Nicole¹⁶; Zaref, Sam¹⁷

1. Brown University
2. Ames Research Center
3. Politecnico di Milano
4. EAFIT University
5. Goddard Space Flight Center
6. University of Sheffield
7. University of Colorado Boulder
8. University of Aberdeen
9. Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education
10. Bundeswehr University Munich
11. Institut d'Electronique et des Technologies du numéRique–INSA of Rennes, France
12. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
13. California Institute of Technology
14. European Space Research and Technology Centre
15. Purdue University West Lafayette
16. Peruvian Space Agency, Lima, Peru
17. Rhode Island School of Design

Abstract

Enceladus is an icy world with potentially habitable conditions, as suggested by the coincident presence of a subsurface ocean, an active energy source due to water-rock interactions, and the basic chemical ingredients necessary for terrestrial life. Among all ocean worlds in our Solar System, Enceladus is the only active body that provides direct access to its ocean through the ongoing expulsion of subsurface material from erupting plumes. Here we present the Enceladus Touchdown aNalyzing Astrobiology (ETNA) mission, a concept designed during the 2019 Caltech Space Challenge. ETNA's goals are to determine whether Enceladus provides habitable conditions and what (pre-) biotic signatures characterize Enceladus. ETNA would sample and analyze expelled plume materials at the South Polar Terrain (SPT) during plume fly-throughs and landed operations. An orbiter includes an ultraviolet imaging spectrometer, an optical camera, and radio science and a landed laboratory includes an ion microscope and mass spectrometer suite, temperature sensors, and an optical camera, plus three seismic geophones deployed during landing. The nominal mission timeline is 2 years in the Saturnian system and ∼1 year in Enceladus orbit with landed operations. The detailed exploration of Enceladus' plumes and SPT would achieve broad and transformational Solar System science related to the building of habitable worlds and the presence of life elsewhere. The nature of such a mission is particularly timely and relevant given the recently released Origins, Worlds, and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology 2023–2032, which includes a priority recommendation for the dedicated exploration of Enceladus and its habitable potential.

Copyright and License

© 2022 Deutsch, Panicucci, Tenelanda-Osorio, Da Poian, Cho, Venigalla, Mathanlal, Castillo Specia, González Peytaví, Guarriello, Gunasekara, Jones, Krasteva, Pouplin, Villanueva and Zaref. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

Acknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge helpful reviews by Francis Nimmo and an reviewer. We are very thankful to the following persons for their mentorship and support: S. Toedtli, F. Royer, N. Angold, M. Cable, D. Landau, T. Nordheim, J.-P. de la Croix, J. Karras, G. Meiron-Grith, T. Heinsheimer, D. Murrow, and JPL’s A-Team. We also thank the spirited participants of Team Voyager, who participated in the 2019 CSC as well: K. Valachandran, P. Cappuccio, J. Di, K. Doerksen, J. Fuchs, A. Gloder, R. Jolitz, M. Li, D. Limonchik, L. Massarweh, A. Meszaros, D. Naftalovich, E. Nathan, T. Peev, M. Rovira Navarro, and S. Santra. This mission design would not have been possible without the support and funding of Lockheed Martin, Keck Institute for Space Sciences, Northrop Grumman, Aerospace Corporation, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, GALcit, the Moore-Hufstedler Fund, and Caltech.

Funding

The contributing authors are/were all students who participated in the fifth Caltech Space Challenge, which was sponsored and supported by Lockheed Martin, Keck Institute for Space Sciences, Northrop Grumman, Aerospace Corporation, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, GALcit, the Moore-Hufstedler Fund, and Caltech.

Data Availability

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Contributions

All authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the ETNA mission, and the creation of a final study report that was presented at the Caltech Space Challenge and served as the preliminary version of this paper. AND and PP iterated on the design and wrote this paper. LT-O, VDP, YHC, CV, and TM provided critical feedback and writing support.

Supplemental Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspas.2022.1028357/full#supplementary-material.

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