Endurance: The Origin of a New Planetary Mission to the Farside of the Moon
When
Where
Dr. James Keane
Scientist
California Institute of Technology
Every ten years, the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey sets the goals for NASA’s exploration of the Solar System. The recent Decadal Survey—“Origins, Worlds, and Life”—included a lot of exciting missions, but few were as surprising as Endurance: a concept for a long-range rover to traverse over 2,000 kilometers across the gigantic South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin that dominates the farside of the Moon. Along its traverse, Endurance would collect a large mass of high-priority samples necessary to address long-standing questions about Solar System chronology, planetary evolution, and more. Endurance would deliver these samples to Artemis astronauts for return to Earth. In this presentation, I’ll share how this concept came to be, my role as an early career “science champion” for the concept, and the prospects for this mission.
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