NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI)

Astrobiotechnology Focus Group

Gregory Bearman, Co-Chair
Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
California Institute of Technology
gbearman@jpl.nasa.gov

Bruce Jakosky, Co-Chair
University of Colorado
bruce.jakosky@lasp.colorado.edu

Andrew Steele, Co-Chair
Carnegie Institution of Washington
a.steele@gl.ciw.edu

NASA’s plans for exploration of the solar system increasingly emphasize the search for signatures of extraterrestrial life. To accomplish this goal will require advances in in-situ science capabilities, including landed instruments to acquire samples, prepare them, and analyze their physical and chemical properties. Instrument technologies for in situ planetary exploration are also relevant to the study of extreme environments on Earth such as deep-sea vents, high altitude environments and Arctic/Antarctic locations. Study of extreme environments on earth will help in the definition of origin of life issues, aid evaluation of strategies for characterizing habitable zones on other worlds, and characterization of the envelope of terrestrial life as a guide to detecting life elsewhere.

To address these exploration challenges, the NAI has established the Astrobiotechnology Focus Group . The purpose of this Focus Group is identify technology gaps for post Mars Science Laboratory missions and to transition methodologies and technologies from earth-based experiments to other planets, highlighting instrument technologies and sample handling. Participation from areas such as analytical chemistry, biomedical instruments and methods, down-hole sensing, ultra-sensitive clinical instruments, biology, MEMS ( Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems) and micro-fluidics are key to this effort.

In recent years, astrobiologists have proposed numerous biosignatures of extraterrestrial life, including chirality, elemental, chemical and isotopic differentiation, non-equilibrium redox products and ion concentrations, microscopic structures, and the presence of prebiotic and biotic molecules such as amino acids, long chain hydrocarbons and other complex biomolecules. Instrumentation to detect these signatures has tended to come from the worlds of physics and chemistry as well as from biology: mass spectrometers, atomic force microscopes, Raman spectrometers and capillary electrophoresis systems are all detection technologies that have been either proposed or selected for flight missions

Some of the relevant technology areas are:

• Biologically-inspired devices, e.g., ion-pore channel
• Detectors that incorporate receptor specificity
• Ultra-sensitive clinical technologies and instruments for detection of biological material on spacecraft and fossil biological molecules
• Analytical chemistry and instruments
• MEMS devices, e.g., micro-machined capillary
• Electrophoresis systems/microfluidics
• Micro-array technology to create multiple-analyte sensors
• MEMS devices that focus on mechanical motion
• Combinatorial chemistry and chip technology to constrain possible extraterrestrial biochemistries
• Microphotonics for detectors, integrated systems
• Chem/bio warfare agent detectors
• Downhole sensing, oil well logging
• Biomedical instruments and methods
• Sampling techniques from extreme environments
• Deep-sea studies
• Haptic actuators