To make these lander missions happen, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory team has been working on a robot that could handle the search for life and already tested it on the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska. ...

"Data from the lander's sampling devices, thermal drill, and the orbiter's remote sensing will provide comprehensive insights into the composition and formation of Enceladus's subsurface ocean.

Enceladus is still frigid, but has lower radiation and better access windows than Europa. Whether the ice-walker gets a new lease on its semi-autonomous life remains to be seen.

Saturn’s moon Enceladus is shrouded in a thick layer of snow. In some places, the downy stuff is 700 meters deep, new research suggests. “It’s like Buffalo, but worse,” says planetary ...

A key chemical building block of life has been found on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Phosphorus was detected in salty ice grains that were released into space by plumes that erupt between the cracks ...

Europa and Enceladus, icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn respectively, have evidence of oceans beneath their crusts. A NASA experiment suggests -- if these oceans support life -- signatures of that ...

Now, a recent NASA experiment found that, if life does exist on these moons, signs of it, such as organic molecules like amino or nucleic acids, could be detected far closer to the surface than ...

The soccer ball-size robot could use its thrusters to leap across hazardous terrain, like blades of ice and crevasses, on Europa and Enceladus. A lander would support the robot and supply SPARROW ...

What’s next — When Arevalo and his team began work on the LDMS instrument in 2014, NASA was still planning on sending a lander mission to Europa, the Jovian moon which scientists believe hosts ...

Undaunted, the team is now pushing for it to be used instead on Enceladus. More information: J. J. Bowkett et al, Autonomous surface sampling for the Europa Lander mission concept, Science ...

For many years, scientists at NASA have been investigating the possibility of sending a lander of some type to either Enceladus or Europa—both have icy crusts that cover a liquid-water ocean.