Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, an icy world laden with organic molecules and shrouded in a thick auburn haze. This moon is unique in that it hosts two liquid environments: a subsurface, liquid water ocean, and multiple hydrocarbon lakes and seas on its surface in the polar regions. Given Titan’s massive organic chemical inventory, it can be considered a prebiotic chemical laboratory on a planetary scale, with exogenous and endogenous energy sources initiating chemical reactions throughout the atmosphere and likely on its surface and interior. While the Cassini-Huygens mission unveiled some of Titan’s mysteries, many significant questions remain, including the potential habitability of this ocean world’s various environments. What might a future mission discover, and what could that teach us about the uniqueness of life and prebiotic chemistry?

Titan’s polar lakes are the only places, aside from Earth’s lakes and oceans, where stable liquid exists on a planetary surface. But unlike Earth’s water-based bodies, the lakes on Titan are made of liquid hydrocarbons and dissolved nitrogen. Some of Titan’s lakes are larger than the largest of the Great Lakes here on Earth. Titan’s polar lakes have enigmatic formation processes. Some appear to be where liquid simply filled low-lying basins, while others appear to be either from cryovolcanic eruptions or possibly caused by dissolution from below. The lake may also tell about longer scale volatile transport and climate on Titan, as the lakes in the north appear to have back-flooded valleys, while those in the south appear to be remnants of larger bodies of liquid. The study of Titan’s lakes has blended data analysis spacecraft remote sensing from the Cassini-Huygens mission, to laboratory studies here on Earth to understand processes and interactions of cryogenic hydrocarbons with a thick substrate made of organic molecules. Geologists and hydrologists can then compare Titan lake processes with terrestrial lake processes to understand fundamental principles that operate on both worlds. With each new cycle of analysis, the lakes of Titan become a richer target for exploration.

We have analyzed a mission concept for Titan sample return in which we use propellants processed from surface and atmospheric resources on Titan to make a sample return possible using existing launch vehicles. ∆V was calculated for launch from titan and trans-Earth injection. We examined pumping liquid methane from the lakes of Titan, or condensing methane vapor from the atmosphere. Oxygen is produced from Titan water, available in the form of water-ice.

So far, half of all human attempts to land robots on Mars have ended in failure. In the past 20 years the success rate has improved to about 70% but even the experience gained from building on a string of successful US Mars missions in a row can’t prepare us enough to guarantee success. From the beginning, we have learned from both success and failure to “load the dice” to help improve the odds of success. The Mars2020 mission aimed for an even smaller landing area on Mars that is littered with exciting surface science but also with danger. Over the last several years, the Mars2020 team built on past Mars mission experiences and inventions to develop new tricks that improved the odds to stack the deck in favor of a safe landing and an exciting start for a Mars Sample Return mission. Manning will explain the challenges and some of the stories and lessons that have led to the Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) design of this latest successful Mars mission.

Lockheed Martin Deep Space Exploration has a rich heritage in space flight as well as amazing future opportunities. Join us for an overview of past, current and upcoming spaceflight missions flown by Deep Space Exploration!

Both student teams present the mission concept they developed during the week in collaboration with experts from NASA, academia and the aerospace industry. Each talk will outline one first order design of a mission to return a sample from Titan.