The NASA Astrobiology Science & Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) program has announced a set of new projects to develop and test technologies that will enable the astrobiological exploration of the Solar System. From the Atacama desert in Chile to the Great Slave Lake in arctic Canada to southwest Greenland, the projects involve technologies that will be deployed in some of the most fascinating locations on Earth. As the teams seek to understand the potential for life elsewhere, they will also decipher links between life in extreme environments and the climate history of our own planet, Earth. The five projects include:

Mars Methane Plume Tracer, led by Principal Investigator Donald Banfield of Cornell University.

Shallow-Borehole Array for Measuring Greenland Emission of Trace Gases as an Analogue for Methane on Mars (GETGAMM), led by Principal Investigator Lisa Pratt of Indiana University.

Planetary Lake Lander, led by Principal Investigator Nathalie Cabrol of NASA Ames Research Center and the SETI Institute

VALKYRIE: Phase 2, led by Principal Investigator Bill Stone of Stone Aerospace.

Robotic Investigation of Subsurface Life in the Atacama Desert, led by Principal Investigator David Wettergreen of Carnegie Mellon University.

ASTEP field campaigns are conducted with complete systems, and the teams undertake their work as if they were conducting operations during actual planetary missions. By taking this approach, the ASTEP program gives astrobiologists real operational experience, providing a better understanding of how technologies will perform when conducting real science in extreme environments.

A news release discussing the new projects is available from the Astrobiology Magazine at www.astrobio.net. Project descriptions are available on the ASTEP Projects page here.