Piggyback Mission Opportunities and Technology Challenges for Astrobiology Payloads 1999-01-2208

This paper will summarize the goals and key findings of a workshop held at the NASA Ames Research Center in June 1998 on the subject of piggyback mission opportunities and Technology challenges for Astrobiology missions. The first goal of the workshop was to identify and characterize piggyback mission opportunities in the years 2000 to 2006. The opportunities were to include the various planetary spacecraft that are slated to be launched within our solar system with special emphasis on Mars and Europa, the opportunities that exist in Low Earth Orbit with emphasis on the STS missions and Space Station, ground based opportunities, and commercial flight opportunities. The second goal was to identify the technology needs for Astrobiology, catalog the state of the art technologies and their adequacy to answer the critical questions, and list the key areas that would require immediate technological investment and development.