TY  - CHAP
A1  - Jean-Pierre P., de Vera
A1  - Baque, Mickael
A1  - Billi, Daniela
A1  - Böttger, Ute
A1  - Bulat, Sergey
A1  - Czupalla, Markus
A1  - Dachwald, Bernd
A1  - de la Torre, Rosa
A1  - Elsaesser, Andreas
A1  - Foucher, Frédéric
A1  - Korsitzky, Hartmut
A1  - Kozyrovska, Natalia
A1  - Läufer, Andreas
A1  - Moeller, Ralf
A1  - Olsson-Francis, Karen
A1  - Onofri, Silvano
A1  - Sommer, Stefan
A1  - Wagner, Dirk
A1  - Westall, Frances
T1  - The search for life on Mars and in the Solar System - strategies, logistics and infrastructures
T2  - 69th International Astronautical Congress (IAC)
N2  - The question "Are we alone in the Universe?" is perhaps the most fundamental one that affects mankind. How can we address the search for life in our Solar System? Mars, Enceladus and Europa are the focus of the search for life outside the terrestrial biosphere. While it is more likely to find remnants of life (fossils of extinct life) on Mars because of its past short time window of the surface habitability, it is probably more likely to find traces of extant life on the icy moons and ocean worlds of Jupiter and Saturn. Nevertheless, even on Mars there could still be a chance to find extant life in niches near to the surface or in just discovered subglacial lakes beneath the South Pole ice cap. Here, the different approaches for the detection of traces of life in the form of biosignatures including pre-biotic molecules will be presented. We will outline the required infrastructure for this enterprise and give examples of future mission concepts to investigate the presence of life on other planets and moons. Finally, we will provide suggestions on methods, techniques, operations and strategies for preparation and realization of future life detection missions.
KW  - life detection
KW  - Mars
KW  - icy moons
KW  - habitability
KW  - space missions
Y1  - 2018
N1  - 69th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Bremen, Germany, 1-5 October 2018.
SP  - 1
EP  - 8
ER  -