Cross-NASA divisional relevance of an Ice Giant mission

Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2020 Dec 25;378(2187):20200222. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2020.0222. Epub 2020 Nov 9.

Abstract

Robotic space exploration to the outer solar system is difficult and expensive and the space science community works inventively and collaboratively to maximize the scientific return of missions. A mission to either of our solar system Ice Giants, Uranus and Neptune, will provide numerous opportunities to address high-level science objectives relevant to multiple disciplines and deliberate cross-disciplinary mission planning should ideally be woven in from the start. In this review, we recount past successes as well as (NASA-focused) challenges in performing cross-disciplinary science from robotic space exploration missions and detail the opportunities for broad-reaching science objectives from potential future missions to the Ice Giants. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Future exploration of ice giant systems'.

Keywords: Ice Giants; NASA science; Uranus and Neptune; cross-disciplinary space science; future missions; robotic space exploration.