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