ROSES-16 Amendment 10: New Opportunity in Program Element C.20 Concepts for Ocean worlds Life Detection Technology (COLDTech)

The Concepts for Ocean worlds Life Detection Technology (COLDTech) Program supports the development of spacecraft-based instruments and technology for surface and subsurface exploration of ocean worlds such as Europa, Enceladus, and Titan. The goal of the program is to develop and reduce the technical risk of instruments and technology for potential future missions so that they may eventually be proposed in response to future Announcements of Opportunity (AOs) for flight missions. Note that the COLDTech Program itself does not solicit instruments or technology for a flight opportunity.

Specifically, COLDTech seeks to a) develop and advance the maturity of science instruments, especially those focused on the detection of evidence of life, especially extant life, in the ocean worlds of the outer Solar System (e.g., Enceladus, Europa, and Titan); b) sample acquisition, delivery and analysis systems for such missions, and c) spacecraft technologies required to access the oceans.

Mandatory Step-1 proposals are due by June 17, 2016, and Step-2 proposals are due by     August 12, 2016.

On or about May 10, 2016, this Amendment to the NASA Research Announcement “Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) 2016” (NNH16ZDA001N) will be posted on the NASA research opportunity homepage at http://nspires.nasaprs.com/ and will appear on the RSS feed at: http://nasascience.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/grant-solicitations/roses-2016.

Questions concerning this program element may be directed to Curt Niebur at [email protected].