Although technically challenging, space experiments are a scientifically important aspect of astrobiology and astrochemistry investigations. The international space station (ISS) offers an excellent example of a long-term research platform orbiting the Earth, with highly successful advances to implement experiments in space, which has contributed to a wealth of scientific data in the past few decades. Future space platforms present additional opportunities for experiments in astrobiology and astrochemistry.
In a new report, now published in npj Microgravity, Andreas Elsaesser and a team of international, interdisciplinary scientists in physics, biology and astrobiology, the NASA Ames Research center and the German Aerospace Center examined a few key topics. These analyses included the European Space Agency (ESA) Topical Team Astrobiology and Astrochemistry community key themes, summarized by the “ESA Scispace Science Community” white paper.
The researchers emphasized recommendations to develop and implement future experiments and filled in gaps in knowledge and advance scientific concepts for future space-exposure platforms currently in development at an advanced stage of planning. Aside from the ISS, research platforms also include CubeSats and SmallSats and the Lunar orbital gateway. This work highlighted in situ experiments conducted on the moon and Mars to support the search for exoplanets and extraterrestrial biosignatures within and beyond the solar system.
Approximately two decades of experiments on the International Space Station have provided researchers with evolving insights to establish a long-lasting impact on life sciences. The fields of astrobiology and astrochemistry are fundamental to exploring the origin of life on Earth and understanding the presence of life within this universe, while exploring and colonizing extraterrestrial planets. Although in-lab facilities can simulate space environments, it is challenging to faithfully replicate such environments on land. The ISS and other satellites provide an excellent platform to conduct irradiation experiments beyond Earth’s atmosphere. The navigational capacity of the platform relies on machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence for on-the-fly repair of hardware.
The astrobiology and astrochemistry science community in Europe developed an up-to-date scientific roadmap in 2020 for use on current and future space platforms. To identify the best use of space platforms, they explored several top science objectives to highlight the interdisciplinarity of this field. The preliminary themes included:
2023-06-30 03:30:04
Link from phys.org