Ocean Worlds Exploration and the Search for Life

TL;DR

This white paper advocates for a dedicated NASA Ocean Worlds Exploration Program to explore Europa and Enceladus for life, emphasizing sustained funding, technological readiness, and a multi-decade, multi-mission strategy.

Contribution

It proposes a structured, long-term exploration plan with flagship missions to investigate ocean worlds for habitability and biosignatures, supported by existing and developing technologies.

Findings

Successful delta-Mission Concept Review of Europa Lander in 2018

Two flagship missions planned for 2023-2032 and 2033-2042

Technological solutions for landed missions are already in-hand

Abstract

This is a community white paper submitted to the Decadal Survey in Planetary Science and Astrobiology, reflecting the views of the NASA Astrobiology Program's Research Coordination Network for Ocean Worlds (NOW). We recommend the establishment of a dedicated Ocean Worlds Exploration Program within NASA to provide sustained funding support for the science, engineering, research, development, and mission planning needed to implement a multi-decadal, multi-mission program to explore Ocean Worlds for life and understand the conditions for habitability. The two new critical flagship missions within this program would 1) land on Europa or Enceladus in the decade 2023-2032 to investigate geophysical and geochemical environments while searching for biosignatures, and 2) access a planetary ocean to directly search for life in the decade 2033-2042. The technological solutions for a landed mission are already in-hand, evidenced by the successful delta-Mission Concept Review of the Europa Lander pre-flight project in the fall of 2018. Following an initial landed mission, an ocean access mission will require substantial research, development, and analog testing this decade to enable the initiation of a pre-flight project at the start of the following decade.