Cohen IJ, Rymer AM. Cross-NASA divisional relevance of an Ice Giant mission.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SERIES A, MATHEMATICAL, PHYSICAL, AND ENGINEERING SCIENCES 2020;
378:20200222. [PMID:
33161860 PMCID:
PMC7658787 DOI:
10.1098/rsta.2020.0222]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/04/2020] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
Robotic space exploration to the outer solar system is difficult and expensive and the space science community works inventively and collaboratively to maximize the scientific return of missions. A mission to either of our solar system Ice Giants, Uranus and Neptune, will provide numerous opportunities to address high-level science objectives relevant to multiple disciplines and deliberate cross-disciplinary mission planning should ideally be woven in from the start. In this review, we recount past successes as well as (NASA-focused) challenges in performing cross-disciplinary science from robotic space exploration missions and detail the opportunities for broad-reaching science objectives from potential future missions to the Ice Giants. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Future exploration of ice giant systems'.
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