Related papers: Endurance Science Workshop 2023 Final Report
This paper discusses the scientific objectives for the ESA Lunar Lander Mission, which emphasise human exploration preparatory science and introduces the model scientific payload considered as part of the on-going mission studies, in…
For low-energy missions to the Moon and beyond, Ballistic Capture has proven to be a valuable technique for enabling orbital insertion while alleviating propulsion system requirements. This approach offers two key advantages. First, it…
This white paper submitted for 2020 Decadal Assessment of Plasma Science concerns the importance of multi-spacecraft missions to address fundamental questions concerning plasma turbulence. Plasma turbulence is ubiquitous in the universe,…
Scientists are increasingly leveraging advances in instruments, automation, and collaborative tools to scale up their experiments and research goals, leading to new bursts of discovery. Various scientific disciplines, including…
The goal of finding and characterizing habitable planets in other solar systems represents one of humanity's greatest scientific challenges. NASA and ESA have initiated studies of missions that could accomplish this goal within the next ten…
Seventy-five billion low-mass stars in our galaxy host at least one small planet in their habitable zone (HZ). The stellar ultraviolet (UV) radiation received by the planets is strong and highly variable, and has consequences for…
Venus is known for its extreme surface temperature and its sulfuric acid clouds. But the cloud layers on Venus have similar temperature and pressure conditions to those on the surface of Earth and are conjectured to be a possible habitat…
Global dust storms are the most thermodynamically significant dust events on Mars. They are produced from the combination of multiple local and regional lifting events and maintained by positive radiative-dynamic feedbacks. The most recent…
FLARE (First Light And Reionization Explorer) is a space mission that will be submitted to ESA (M5 call). Its primary goal (about 80% of lifetime) is to identify and study galaxies that dwell in the universe before the end of the…
The lunar surface has historically been considered an optimal site for a broad range of astronomical telescopes. That assumption, which has come to be somewhat reflexive, is critically examined in this paper and found to be poorly…
The long-term sustainability of research software is a critical challenge, as it usually suffers from poor maintainability, lack of adaptability, and eventual obsolescence. This paper proposes a novel approach to addressing this issue by…
[Abridged] It is expected that the ongoing and future space-borne planet survey missions including TESS, PLATO, and Earth 2.0 will detect thousands of small to medium-sized planets via the transit technique, including over a hundred…
Future exploration efforts of the Moon, Mars and other bodies are poised to focus heavily on persistent and sustainable survey and research efforts, especially given the recent interest in a long-term sustainable human presence at the Moon.…
The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early universe, the dynamics of the supernovae that produced the heavy elements necessary for life, and whether protons eventually decay -- these mysteries at the forefront of particle…
The Dark Ages Radio Experiment (DARE) seeks to study the cosmic Dark Ages approximately 80 to 420 million years after the Big Bang. Observations require truly quiet radio conditions, shielded from Sun and Earth electromagnetic (EM)…
The risk of a catastrophic or existential disaster for our civilization is increasing this century. A significant motivation for a near-term space settlement is the opportunity to safeguard civilization in the event of a planetary-scale…
Looking ahead to the next decade and imagining the landscape of astronomy in 2020, it is clear that astronomical surveys, large and small, plus extensive follow-up projects, will be a great engine of progress in our profession. Surveys have…
The first asteroid simulants workshop was held in late 2015. These materials are needed for tests of technologies and mission operational concepts, for training astronauts , for medical studies, and a variety of other purposes. The new…
Ambient energy harvesting is touted as a low cost solution to prolong the life of low-powered devices, reduce the carbon footprint, and make the system self-sustainable. Most research to date have focused either on the physical aspects of…
The icy moons are in the focus of the exploration plans of the leading space agencies because of the indications of water-based life and geological activity observed in a number of these objects. In particular, the presence of geyser-like…