Habitability on Early Mars and the Search for Biosignatures with the ExoMars Rover

Jorge L. Vago (1) , Frances Westall (2) , Andrew J. Coates (3) , Ralf Jaumann (4) , Oleg Korablev (5) , Valérie Ciarletti (6) , Igor Mitrofanov (5) , Jean-Luc Josset (7) , Maria Cristina de Sanctis (8) , Jean-Pierre Bibring (9) , Fernando Rull (10) , Fred Goesmann (11) , Harald Steininger (11) , Walter Goetz (11) , William Brinckerhoff (12) , Cyril Szopa (6, 13) , François Raulin (14) , Howell G.M. Edwards (15) , Lyle G. Whyte (16) , Alberto G. Fairen (17) , John Bridges (18) , Ernst Hauber (19) , Gian Gabriele Ori (20) , Stephanie Werner (21) , Damien Loizeau (22) , Ruslan O. Kuzmin (23) , Rebecca M. E. Williams (24) , Jessica Flahaut (25) , Francois, Forget (26) , Daniel Rodionov (5) , Håkan Svedhem (1) , Elliot Sefton-Nash (1) , Gerhard Kminek (1) , Leila Lorenzoni (1) , Luc Joudrier (1) , Viktor Mikhailov (27) , Alexander Zashchirinskiy (28) , Sergei Alexashkin (28) , Fabio Calantropio (29) , Andrea Merlo (29) , Pantelis Poulakis (1) , Olivier Witasse (1) , Olivier Bayle (1) , Silvia Bayón (1) , Uwe J. Meierhenrich (30) , John Carter (9) , Juan Manuel García-Ruiz (15) , Pietro Baglioni (1) , Albert Haldemann (1) , Andrew J. Ball (1) , André Debus (31) , Robert Lindner (1) , Frédéric Haessig (1) , David Monteiro (1) , Roland Trautner (1) , Christoph Voland (1) , Pierre Rebeyre (1) , Duncan Goulty (1) , Frédéric Didot (1) , Stephen Durrant (1) , Eric Zekri (1) , Detlef Koschny (1) , Andrea Toni (1) , Gianfranco Visentin (1) , Martin Zwick (1) , Michel van Winnendael (1) , Martín Azkarate (1) , Christophe Carreau (1)

1 ESTEC - European Space Research and Technology Centre
2 CBM - Centre de biophysique moléculaire
3 MSSL - Mullard Space Science Laboratory
4 DLR Institut für Planetenforschung
5 IKI - Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
6 PLANETO - LATMOS
7 SPACE - X - Space Exploration Institute [Neuchâtel]
8 IAPS - Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali - INAF
9 IAS - Institut d'astrophysique spatiale
10 UVa - Universidad de Valladolid [Valladolid]
11 MPS - Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung
12 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
13 IUF - Institut Universitaire de France
14 LISA (UMR_7583) - Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques
15 Chemical and Forensic Sciences [Bradford]
16 McGill University = Université McGill [Montréal, Canada]
17 CAB - Centro de Astrobiologia [Madrid]
18 Space Research Centre [Leicester]
19 Freie Universität Berlin
20 IRSPS - International Research School of Planetary Sciences [Pescara]
21 CEED - Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics [Oslo]
22 LGL-TPE - Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon - Terre, Planètes, Environnement
23 GEOKHI - Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry
24 PSI - Planetary Science Institute [Tucson]
25 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
26 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
27 TsNIIMASH - Central Scientific Research Institute for Machine Building [Korolev]
28 Khimki - NPO S. Lavochkin
29 Thales Alenia Space Italia
30 ICN - Institut de Chimie de Nice
31 CNES - Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse]

The second ExoMars mission will be launched in 2020 to target an ancient location interpreted to have strong potential for past habitability and for preserving physical and chemical biosignatures (as well as abiotic/prebiotic organics). The mission will deliver a lander with instruments for atmospheric and geophysical investigations and a rover tasked with searching for signs of extinct life. The ExoMars rover will be equipped with a drill to collect material from outcrops and at depth down to 2 m. This subsurface sampling capability will provide the best chance yet to gain access to chemical biosignatures. Using the powerful Pasteur payload instruments, the ExoMars science team will conduct a holistic search for traces of life and seek corroborating geological context information

Keywords: Astrobiology; Search for life; Landing sites; Mars rover; Biosignatures; ExoMars

Domains: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysic [astro-ph.IM]

Jorge L. Vago, Frances Westall, Andrew J. Coates, Ralf Jaumann, Oleg Korablev, et al.. Habitability on Early Mars and the Search for Biosignatures with the ExoMars Rover. Astrobiology, 2017, 17 (6-7), pp.471-510. ⟨10.1089/ast.2016.1533⟩. ⟨insu-01575233⟩