Mars

Mars Astrobiological Cave And Internal Habitability Explorer (MACIE): A New Frontiers Mission Concept

By Keith Cowing
astro-ph.IM)
May 13, 2021
Filed under
Mars Astrobiological Cave And Internal Habitability Explorer (MACIE): A New Frontiers Mission Concept
Mars Astrobiological Cave and Internal habitability Explorer
astro-ph.IM

Martian subsurface habitability and astrobiology can be evaluated via a lava tube cave, without drilling. MACIE addresses two key goals of the Decadal Survey (2013-2022) and three MEPAG goals.

New advances in robotic architectures, autonomous navigation, target sample selection, and analysis will enable MACIE to explore the Martian subsurface.

Charity M. Phillips-Lander, Ali Agha-Mohammadi, J. J. Wynne, Timothy N. Titus, Nancy Chanover, Cansu Demirel-Floyd, Kyle Uckert, Kaj Williams, Danielle Wyrick, Jen Blank, Penelope Boston, Karl Mitchell, Akos Kereszturi, Javier Martin-Torres, Svetlana Shkolyar, Nicole Bardebelias, Saugata Datta, Kurt Retherford, Lydia Sam, Anshuman Bhardwaj, Alberto Fairen, David Flannery, Roger Weins

Comments: This paper was submitted to the Planetary and Astrobiology Decadal Survey in August 2020
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2105.05281 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2105.05281v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
Submission history
From: Charity Phillips-Lander
[v1] Tue, 11 May 2021 18:27:20 UTC (2,240 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.05281

Astrobiology

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻