Titan Mare Explorer
Artist's impression of TiME lake lander | |
| Mission type | Titan lander |
|---|---|
| Operator | NASA |
| Mission duration | 7.5 years Cruise: 7 years; 3–6 months at Titan |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Dry mass | 700 kg ("representative value" landed mass) |
| Power | 140 W |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 2016 (proposed) Not taken beyond proposal |
| Rocket | Atlas V 411 |
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral SLC-41 |
| Contractor | United Launch Alliance |
Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) is a proposed design for a lander for Saturn's moon Titan. TiME is a relatively low-cost, outer-planet mission designed to measure the organic constituents on Titan and would have performed the first nautical exploration of an extraterrestrial sea, analyze its nature and, possibly, observe its shoreline. As a Discovery-class mission it was designed to be cost-capped at US$425 million, not counting launch vehicle funding. It was proposed to NASA in 2009 by Proxemy Research as a scout-like pioneering mission, originally as part of NASA's Discovery Program. The TiME mission design reached the finalist stage during that Discovery mission selection, but was not selected, and despite attempts in the U.S. Senate failed to get earmark funding in 2013. A related Titan Submarine has also been proposed.