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The innovative Saturn Ring Skimmer mission concept enables a wide range of investigations that address fundamental questions about Saturn and its rings, as well as giant planets and astrophysical disk systems in general. This mission would…
Over the history of planetary exploration, atmospheric entry vehicles have been used to deliver probes and landers to Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Titan. While the entry vehicles are tools for furthering scientific exploration, by delivering…
Triton is a unique moon in our Solar System, being the only large moon to orbit on a retrograde and highly inclined orbit. As a result, it is thought that it did not form around Neptune, but rather was captured from heliocentric orbit. The…
The complex organic chemistry harbored by the atmosphere of Titan has been investigated in depth by Cassini observations. Among them, a series of solar occultations performed by the VIMS instrument throughout the 13 years of Cassini…
Thermal protection systems are a critical component of planetary exploration, enabling probes to enter the atmosphere and perform in-situ measurements. The aero-thermal conditions encountered during entry are destination and vehicle…
The Cassini-Huygens mission detected large negative ions in Titan's ionosphere at pressures as low as $10^{-6}$ torr. These ions ultimately polymerize to form Titan's complex organic haze particles, which are observed throughout the…
Future missions to Mars and Venus will make use of aerobraking and aerocapture in order to gain mass through the saving of fuel at planetary arrival. So far only aerobraking has been demonstrated, if the Mars Premier project has paved the…
Aerocapture leverages atmospheric drag to convert a spacecraft's hyperbolic trajectory into a bound orbit. For some aerocapture missions, heating due to the radiation of high temperature gases in the shock-layer can be much larger than the…
The martian atmosphere hosts dynamical phenomena ranging from planet-encircling dust storms to mesoscale orographic clouds and nocturnal low-level jets. General circulation model show capability to simulate these phenomena, but is…
The similarity of Venus and Earth in bulk properties make Venus an appealing target for future colonization. Several proposals have been put forward for colonizing and even terraforming Venus despite the extreme conditions on the planet's…
In this white paper, we present a cross-section of important scientific questions that remain partially or completely unanswered, ranging from Titan exosphere to the deep interior, and we detail which instrumentation and mission scenarios…
Dynamic targeting (DT) is a spacecraft autonomy concept in which sensor data is acquired and rapidly analyzed and used to drive subsequent observation. We describe the low Earth orbit application of this approach in which lookahead imagery…
Accurately determining escape rates from a planet's atmosphere is critical for determining its evolution. Escape can be driven by upward thermal conduction of energy deposited well below the exobase, as well as by non-thermal processes…
Neptune-size exoplanets are less studied as characterizing their atmospheres presents challenges due to their relatively small radius and atmospheric scale height. As the most common outcome of planet formation, these planets are crucial…
Accurate determination of Cassini's spacecraft potential in Titan's ionosphere is important for interpreting measurements by its low energy plasma instruments. Estimates of the floating potential varied significantly, however, between the…
Recent miniaturization of electronics in very small, low-cost and low-power configurations suitable for use in spacecraft have inspired innovative small-scale satellite concepts, such as ChipSats, centimeter-scale satellites with a mass of…
Drone-based rapid and accurate environmental edge detection is highly advantageous for tasks such as disaster relief and autonomous navigation. Current methods, using radars or cameras, raise deployment costs and burden lightweight drones…
Previous investigations have employed more than 100 close observations of Titan by the Cassini orbiter to elucidate connections between the production and distribution of Titan's vast, organic-rich chemical inventory and its atmospheric…
The atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon Titan is driven by photochemistry, charged particle precipitation from Saturn's upstream magnetosphere, and presumably by the diffusion of the magnetospheric field into the outer ionosphere, amongst…
Transit spectroscopy is a key tool for exoplanet atmospheric characterization. However, transit spectrum observations can be limited by aerosol extinction when gas opacities are weak. The ultraviolet wavelength range contains a variety of…