The Space Research Community Has Designated Sending A Probe To Uranus As Priority

Apr 20

The space research community believes the time is right to investigate Uranus in more detail – and they mean it. Sending an interplanetary mission to explore the ice giant planet should be regarded the top priority for planetary exploration over the next decade, according to a new paper collected by planetary experts from throughout the United States.

Scientists are specifically urging NASA to build the Uranus Orbiter and Probe, or UOP. A spacecraft would be sent into orbit above Uranus, accompanied with a probe that would dive into the planet's atmosphere, according to the mission idea. Scientists predict that such a mission will launch in the early 2030s if engineers go to work on it as soon as next year.

If it succeeds, the UOP mission might deliver the most detailed information ever about this mostly unknown planet. NASA's Voyager 2 mission, which passed past Uranus in 1986 and came within 50,700 miles of the planet's cloud tops, was the only spacecraft to ever visit the planet. Voyager 2 discovered additional moons and rings surrounding Uranus, revealing some fascinating insights about the planet. Voyager 2, on the other hand, didn't stop long; during its survey of the outer Solar System, it flew past and continued on, ultimately flying out into interstellar space.

A probe and an orbiter might deliver a plethora of new information. Most importantly, they may be able to tell us what Uranus is composed of. Scientists assume the planet is mostly made up of a mix of rock, ice, hydrogen, and helium, although this has yet to be proved. According to Jonathan Fortney, a professor at UC Santa Cruz who produced a paper regarding future trips to Uranus and Neptune, "our knowledge of the internal structure of the planet is so weak that we actually have very little clue what the ratio of those three things is to each other." "There's been a lengthy presumption that it's largely these ices, but it's just that. That is something we don't truly understand."

The space science community believes the time is right to investigate Uranus in more detail – and they mean it. Sending an interplanetary mission to explore the ice giant planet should be regarded the top priority for planetary exploration over the next decade, according to a new paper collected by planetary experts from throughout the United States.

"OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PLANET'S INTERIOR STRUCTURE IS SO LIMITED"
A probe and an orbiter might deliver a plethora of new information. Most importantly, they may be able to tell us what Uranus is composed of. Scientists assume the planet is mostly made up of a mix of rock, ice, hydrogen, and helium, although this has yet to be proved. According to Jonathan Fortney, a professor at UC Santa Cruz who produced a paper regarding future trips to Uranus and Neptune, "our knowledge of the internal structure of the planet is so weak that we actually have very little clue what the ratio of those three things is to each other." "There's been a lengthy presumption that it's largely these ices, but it's just that. That is something we don't truly understand."

Since those initiatives have been financed and planned, lower-priority missions from a decade ago have risen to the top of the priority list. A spacecraft to visit Saturn's tempting moon Enceladus, which is likewise expected to have a liquid water ocean under its crust, is now the second-highest priority on the list, behind the Uranus mission. The Decadal specifically asks for the construction of an Enceladus Orbilander, a spacecraft that would serve as both an orbiter and a lander. The spacecraft would first enter orbit around Enceladus, perhaps passing through plumes believed to erupt from the moon's surface. It would eventually seek for a landing site on Enceladus, where it would remain for a two-year mission. Its primary goal would be to look for evidence of life.

However, it will be some time before the Enceladus mission sets off. According to the Decadal, the mission should start planning in fiscal year 2029 at the earliest, with an arrival on Enceladus in the 2050s. And that's assuming that NASA's budget for the Uranus and Enceladus missions, each of which are expected to cost billions of dollars, is fully funded. Recognizing that financing is always a risk, the writers of the Decadal developed a backup plan in case the money didn't come through: they indicated that the Uranus mission might begin development in 2028 if the money didn't come through. However, this would most certainly delay the Enceladus expedition until the 2030s at the earliest.

While the Uranus and Enceladus projects are the writers' top new missions, they've also given a list of suggestions for ongoing space missions that they'd want to see continue. For example, they highly advise NASA to continue working on returning samples from Mars. The Perseverance rover was just the first step in a long-term plan to collect samples and send them to Earth, where they might be analyzed in a lab. NASA is making progress on the next phase of that plan, which requires developing a suite of spacecraft that would arrive on Mars, recover the samples Perseverance stored, launch them off Mars, and then return to Earth. It'll be a long and difficult process, and the Decadal knows that money is an issue. While the study advises completing the sample return as soon as feasible, it also warns against ballooning the budget to the point where it affects all of NASA's other planetary missions.

There are also other minor planetary missions that are advocated that would not cost nearly as much as the flagship missions to Uranus and Enceladus. Probes to Saturn and its moon Titan, a new Venus expedition, a mission to fly past Enceladus, missions to the Moon, and more would be among them. The Decadal isn't through with Mars, though; it wants to launch a new mission dubbed the Mars Life Explorer to search for indications of life on the Red Planet while evaluating its habitability. Additionally, the authors urge NASA to complete a planned mission dubbed the NEO Surveyor, which is set to launch in 2026, to continue the hunt for dangerous asteroids that might pose a threat to Earth.

It's a roughly 800-page study with a great deal of information. While the Decadal's primary emphasis is on researching the planets and rocks of our Solar System, the authors of this report underline a critical message: we must also safeguard and assist the people who labor on these missions. The study suggests encouraging students from underrepresented populations to pursue planetary science in order to develop a more diverse community of scientists and engineers working on these initiatives. The authors also advise NASA's planetary science division to seek to minimize prejudice and establish rules of conduct for its missions and conferences.

In a statement, Philip Christensen, a professor at Arizona State University and co-chair of the Decadal's steering committee, said, "While scientific understanding is the primary motivation for what our community does, we must also work to boldly address issues concerning our community's most important resource — the people who propel our community's planetary science and exploration missions."