NASA to investigate Mars interior, Saturn moon ocean, comets
NASA on Thursday outlined three science investigations to gauge the feasibility to examine Mars' interior, study an ocean on one of Saturn's moons and detail a comet's nucleus.
The awards are part of NASA's Discovery Program, which sought proposals for spaceflight investigations almost a year ago. A NASA panel picked the final three from 28 submissions. Each research team will get $3 million to pursue its mission's concept phase, design studies and analysis.
According to NASA, the Discovery Program launched in 1992 and is designed to maximize returns on research. Projects under Discovery include Deep Impact, Dawn and Stardust.
Here's a look at the investigations:
- Geophysical Monitoring Station (GEMS) aims to study the structure and composition of Mars' interior. The goal is to determine the evolution of planets. Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is lead investigator.
- Titan Mare Explorer will examine an ocean environment beyond earth by landing in a large methane-ethane sea on Saturn's moon Titan. Ellen Stofan of Proxemy Research is the lead investigator with Johns Hopkins University managing the project.
- Comet Hopper will land on a comet multiple times and observe its changes interacting with the sun. The goal would be to study comet evolution. Jessica Sunshine of the University of Maryland in College Park will be lead investigator with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center managing the project.
NASA also awarded projects for technology development. Those include the following:
- Primitive Material Explorer (PriME) plans to develop a mass spectrometer to take the measurements of a comet's chemical composition and how chunks make it to Earth. Anita Cochran of the University of Texas in Austin is investigator.
- Whipple: Reaching into the Outer Solar System Whipple would develop a technique called blind occultation that could discover other celestial objects. Charles Alcock of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is lead investigator.
- NEOCam would develop a telescope to study the origin and evolution of near Earth objects and the risk of impacts. The idea is to create a catalog of objects with measurements. Amy Mainzer of JPL will manage the project.
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com