The Science Case for a Titan Flagship-class Orbiter with Probes

Conor Nixon (1) , James Abshire (2) , Andrew Ashton (3) , Jason W. Barnes (4) , Nathalie Carrasco (5) , Mathieu Choukroun (6) , Athena Coustenis (7) , Louis-Alexandre Couston (8) , Niklas Edberg (9) , Alexander Gagnon (10) , Jason D. Hofgartner (6) , Luciano Iess (11) , Stéphane Le Mouélic (12) , Rosaly Lopes (6) , Juan Lora (13) , Ralph D. Lorenz (14) , Adrienn Luspay-Kuti (14) , Michael Malaska (6) , Kathleen Mandt (14) , Marco Mastrogiuseppe (11) , Erwan Mazarico (2) , Marc Neveu (15) , Taylor Perron (16) , Jani Radebaugh (17) , Sébastien Rodriguez (18) , Farid Salama (19) , Ashley Schoenfeld (20) , Jason M. Soderblom (16) , Anezina Solomonidou (21) , Darci Snowden (22) , Xioali Sun (2) , Nicholas Teanby (23) , Gabriel Tobie (12) , Melissa G. Trainer (2) , Orenthal J. Tucker (2) , Elizabeth P. Turtle (14) , Sandrine Vinatier (24) , Véronique Vuitton (25) , Xi Zhang (26)

1 GSFC Planetary Systems Laboratory
2 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
3 WHOI - Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
4 University of Idaho [Moscow, USA]
5 PLANETO - LATMOS
6 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
7 LESIA - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique = Laboratory of Space Studies and Instrumentation in Astrophysics
8 BAS - British Antarctic Survey
9 IRF - Swedish Institute of Space Physics [Uppsala / Kiruna]
10 School of Oceanography [Seattle]
11 UNIROMA - Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" = Sapienza University [Rome]
12 LPG - Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géosciences [UMR_C 6112]
13 Yale University [New Haven]
14 APL - Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory [Laurel, MD]
15 University of Maryland [Baltimore]
16 MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
17 BYU - Brigham Young University
18 IPGP (UMR_7154) - Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris
19 ARC - NASA Ames Research Center
20 UCLA - University of California [Los Angeles]
21 ESAC - European Space Astronomy Centre
22 Central Washington University
23 School of Earth Sciences [Bristol]
24 Observatoire de Paris
25 IPAG - Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
26 UC Santa Cruz - University of California [Santa Cruz]

This white paper describes a small flagship-class mission concept focused on studying Titan as a global system, with particular emphasis on the polar regions. The mission would accomplish comprehensive global mapping with an orbiter, and one or more small probes to directly investigate Titan's seas, making direct measurements of their composition.

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]

Conor Nixon, James Abshire, Andrew Ashton, Jason W. Barnes, Nathalie Carrasco, et al.. The Science Case for a Titan Flagship-class Orbiter with Probes. Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032. Whitepaper #325. BAAS Vol 53 n°4, 2021, ⟨10.3847/25c2cfeb.bc2b9583⟩. ⟨insu-03590060⟩