Enceladus Sample Handling System for SCHAN Life Detection Instrument

Flybys of the Saturn’s moon Enceladus by instruments onboard the Cassini spacecraft have revealed extensive water jets with macromolecular organics signatures emanating from the cracks at the south polar surface. The National Academies Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey, covering mission priorities for the next decade, recently identified an Enceladus mission which collects plume material as a high priority both as a flagship mission and for a New Frontiers program mission. A primary objective of an Enceladus mission would be to analyze plume material to detect evidence of life in the subsurface ocean if it exists there. The Supercritical CO2 and Subcritical H2O Analysis instrument (SCHAN) is a candidate instrument to perform the life detection analysis. In this paper we will present the development of a sample handling system for the SCHAN instrument for Enceladus mission applications and preliminary testing results of the sample handling system. The sample handling system would receive a sample from a separate sample acquisition and transfer system in cryogenic vacuum conditions, transform the samples to liquid form and deliver the liquid to the SCHAN instrument. The sample handling and SCHAN instrument would reside on the spacecraft in a thermally controlled vacuum environment.