The purpose of our mission is to build a rover capable of exploration of the Galilean moon of Jupiter Callisto. Our rover will be able to take terrain samples and other readings from Callisto. We hope to find evidence of life on Callisto. There is already evidence that Callisto would support life, and we wish to find further confirmation.
Instruments included on our rover include an ice drill/water sampler, a soil sampler, and an infrared camera. The drill would have holes on its sides to absorb liquid samples, the soil sampler would remove soil from the Callistoan land and then analyse it for the presence of signs of life (as detailed below), and the infrared camera would be mounted on top of the rover to get a wider variety of images of the Callistoan landscape.
Signs of life, or biosignatures, that we will use to ascertain life's presence on Callisto include complex chemical structures, biogenic products like coal or chalk, and biological molecules.
What will you do with the soil samples? Taking samples is one thing but don't they need to be analyzed? How will you do that?
ReplyDeleteAlso you state your mission is to find evidence of life...how will you know if you find evidence...what are you looking for? Check out the NASA Curiousity Mission.
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