posted 11-14-2017 05:32 PM               

"We formed a sort of little workshop around this idea: Can we design a low-cost, privately funded mission to Enceladus which can be launched relatively soon and that can look more thoroughly at those plumes and try to see what's going there ahead of a more expensive mission that NASA is considering right now, which might take maybe 10 years to launch?" Milner said.

That possible NASA mission would be an effort under the agency's New Frontiers program with a cost cap of approximately $1 billion. Two of the 12 candidates the space agency is mulling for the next New Frontiers project, which will launch in the mid-2020s, are Enceladus-focused.

NASA is expected to pare this list down to a few finalists by the end of the year and announce the selected mission in 2019.