After the recent success on sending a rover on Mars, the American and European scientists proposed a new plan of floating a boat on Titan, the the largest moon of Saturn. NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ISA) revealed that they have worked on a plan to float a boat on a lake in Titan as part of the mission of the Cassini-Huygens.
In order to commence the unprecedented plan on this methane lake, SENER, a space company co-working with the Spanish Astrobiology Center, submitted a proposal (Talise Titan Lake In-situ Sampling Propelled Explorer) to the European Planetary Science Congress last week. The Congress is reviewing the proposal.
The SENER announced that the purpose of this plan after the success of the landing of the Cassini-Huygens in 2005 is to explore the Titan lake that is consisted of liquid methane and gather precise data. The proposal contains the information about the various designs of the boat that the scientists deem suitable for the extreme environment of Saturn.
“The main innovation in TALISE is the propulsion system,” says Igone Urdampilleta, a scientist of SENER. “The displacement capability would achieve the obtaining of liquid and solid samples from several scientific interesting locations on Titan’s surface such as the landing place.”
The scientists discovered that with the thick atmosphere and the connection of the rivers and lakes to the ocean, Saturn has the most similar environment with Earth out of all the planets in the solar system. Nevertheless, compared to our knowledge of the environment for organisms, Titan is too cold.
Still, the atmosphere of Titan grabs attention of the scientists because of its richness of nitrogen as well as hydrogen cyanide like that of the Earth.
This mission currently remains only in the form of the proposal and the decision for the launch will take about six months to twelve months.
