Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability

Enceladus Life Signatures and Habitability (ELSAH) is an astrobiology concept mission proposed in 2017 to NASA's New Frontiers program to send a spacecraft to Enceladus to search for biosignatures and assess its habitability.

[1][2] The Principal Investigator is Christopher P. McKay, an astrobiologist at NASA Ames Research Center,[3] and the managing NASA center is Goddard Space Flight Center.

[4] The two finalists, announced on 20 December 2017, are Dragonfly to Titan, and CAESAR (Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return) which is a sample-return mission from comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

[5] Although ELSAH was not selected for launch in this instance, it received technology development funds to prepare it for future mission competitions.

[6] The funds are meant to develop techniques that limit spacecraft contamination and thereby enable life detection measurements on cost-capped missions.