Titan Saturn System Mission
Tandem ( Titan and Enceladus mission, working title by NASA: Titan Saturn System Mission - TSSM ) is a first regardless proposed by ESA and in similar form by NASA Mission to Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus. The plan, according to the abbreviated acronym for Mission name, an orbiter spacecraft, a lander and a balloon which leads, among other experiments with it, which is to float freely in the atmosphere of Titan. The start of the mission is proposed for the period after 2020, with the arrival of the lander and balloon missions are planned a year later in the Saturn system about nine years later and.
The balloon
Motivation
The Cassini -Huygens space probe, which is pivoted on 1 July 2004 into an orbit around Saturn, has found surprising details in the following years. So the lander Huygens on a parachute on the second largest moon in our solar system, Saturn's moon Titan and descended photographed and analyzed the surface. There were other lakes of hydrocarbons, cryovolcanoes ( volcanoes, the ice instead of hot lava eject ), high clouds, dunes, discovered mountain ranges, water ice and much more.
About the relatively small moon Enceladus, Cassini found that its surface is made of water and revealed the existence of geysers, the water ice and water vapor spewing hundreds of kilometers into space. Puzzling is also a system of blue grooves or canyons, so-called tiger stripes.
These findings suggested that both moons change continuously and the presence of water ice and perhaps even liquid water and organic molecules that make them the best candidates for the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.
There is also the by the discovery of the Cassini spacecraft that ethyne and hydrogen content of the atmosphere is very low, researchers believe that these gases are absorbed by or at the surface. The cause came next chemical processes in question also creatures that live of these substances and thereby convert it into methane. The Lander tandem could explore these reactions or to find out if there is life on Titan.
The tandem mission was designed in the context of the ESA Cosmic Vision program, developed in the goals and projects for the space of the next 20 years.
Mission
The first of the two spacecraft is planned as an orbiter, which pivots into orbit around Titan and previously completed several close flybys of Enceladus. About Enceladus to the orbiter and lander penetrators deposed, then gently put on Enceladus or penetrate deep into the surface to find out as to whether under the crust of ice, liquid water exists and whether primitive life could exist there. Furthermore, he shall take of the orbit of Enceladus more closely. Hereinafter the orbiter web is controlled in a stable titanium, from where it examines them and serves as a transfer station for the further spacecraft.
The second spacecraft is planned as an equipment rack, which brings a lander and a balloon on Titan. The Lander is scheduled to land on the Kraken Mare, an ethane / methane lake near the north pole of Titan and determine its composition, depth, and many other things. Due to the smog in Titan's atmosphere and its great distance from the Sun the lander can not be operated by solar panels but only by a radionuclide. However, the centerpiece is the balloon that moves freely in the atmosphere. He will study at the equator at mid-height the atmosphere as well as explore the different regions of the surface and sink to allow further exploration. After the two balloons of Vega 1 and Vega 2 in the atmosphere of Venus would be the third research balloon in the gaseous envelope of another celestial body.
The mission is planned and developed in collaboration of more than eleven European nations and the USA, Japan, the People's Republic of China and Taiwan. It is expected to cost up to five billion euros, but with the perspective, perhaps for the first time demonstrate organic molecules and primitive forms of life outside Earth, could be very rewarding.
Status
The project is designed and developed by Tandem Consortium and is in competition with other projects of the ESA Cosmic Vision program. In the ESA Ministerial Council 2008, no final reservations have been made. In February 2009 it was decided by NASA and ESA that both the TSSM / tandem as well as the Jupiter Mission Europa Jupiter System Mission / Laplace be studied further based on a jointly implemented by NASA and ESA assessment study, with one of Europe Jupiter System Mission, the original start date in 2020 and thus zusprach the temporal precedence.