The Enceladus Orbilander is a proposed
NASAFlagship mission to Saturn's moon
Enceladus. The Enceladus Orbilander would spend a year and a half orbiting Enceladus and sampling its water plumes, which stretch into space, before landing on the surface for a two-year mission to study materials for evidence of life. The mission, with an estimated cost of $4.9 billion, could launch in the late 2030s on a
Space Launch System or
Falcon Heavy with a landing in the early 2050s. It was proposed in the
2023–2032 Planetary Science Decadal Survey as the third highest priority Flagship mission, after the
Uranus Orbiter and Probe and the
Mars Sample Return program.[1]
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