Workshop Overview:
The surface and subsurface of any worlds beyond Mars still remain unexplored or underexplored. Yet it is these worlds that hold the key to some of the greatest questions in planetary science. While NASA has been tremendously successful in robotic Mars exploration, it hinged on incrementalism through 15 progressively sophisticated missions spanning over four decades. It started with flyby and orbiter missions, followed by simple robotic landers, and ultimately resulted in the highly complex Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. As we set our sights on exploring a multitude of unvisited worlds beyond Mars, we must face a subtle but profound problem: We will not enjoy the luxury of sending many missions to each of the destinations due to the extensive cruise time to the Outer Solar System and beyond (e.g., ~10 years to Saturn’s moons) unless we are willing to wait for many centuries. We envision a new planetary exploration paradigm, which we call Planetary Exploration 3.0, that explores unvisited worlds in one shot with a radically adaptive space system. The incremental sophistication over many missions in the conventional paradigm will be replaced by the adaptation of the functional behaviors of a single robotic system in Planetary Exploration 3.0.
In the first workshop, we formulated the vision of Planetary Exploration 3.0 and 1) started developing systems engineering approaches for defining, designing, testing, and operating such highly adaptive missions, 2) identified major technology gaps and brainstormed future technologies for enabling Planetary Exploration 3.0 missions, and 3) started developing three ultimate Planetary Exploration 3.0 mission concepts: Neptune-Triton orbiter, Icy Moon orbi-land-rover, and Oort Cloud Explorer.
The goal of the second workshop is to chart a clear pathway to realize this vision. It will center around the development of an R&D roadmap, which will include tangible steps in the research and development of instrumentation, hardware and software, and systems engineering approaches, as well as a plan for funding the R&D approaches. Objectives of the second workshop include:
- Develop R&D programs for realizing the key building blocks of Planetary Exploration 3.0, including, but not limited to, science instruments, robotics, AI, and systems engineering.
- Develop a funding strategy to implement the R&D programs. Formulate concrete ideas to be proposed to multiple funding programs based on Phase 1 outcomes. Potential targets include the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program for proposing a mission concept demonstrating the value of adaptive systems, and the NSF Engineering Research Center program for new methods to design extremely adaptive systems.
- Develop publishable design principles for adaptive one-shot missions that could be adapted by NASA, JPL, industry, and/or academia.
- Formulate ideas of near-term technology demonstration missions that can fly in 5-10 years and demonstrate key building components of Planetary Exploration 3.0.
- Develop a R&D Roadmap that includes concrete near-term, mid-term, and long-term actions for realizing Planetary Exploration 3.0
The 1-week workshop will start with a recap of the first workshop, followed by reports on activities between the two workshops. There will be plenary and breakout discussions to draft the R&D roadmap, brainstorm the plan for research programs and advocacy, and formulate near-term demo mission ideas. Every participant will have opportunities to present their ideas through lightning talks and the poster session. A public lecture will be hosted during the workshop week. Finally, as in the first workshop, we will have focused writing sessions to produce the deliverables.