Enceladus Orbilander
nasa mission concept for enceladus combining an orbital phase (sampling the south polar plumes from above) with a surface landing phase. Ranked as a top priority by the 2022 NASA planetary science decadal survey for development in the late 2030s. (src-cassini-huygens-ocean-worlds-2026-04)
The mission’s engineering brief was partially revised by Xu et al.’s 2026 Nature Communications finding that Enceladus-supplied plasma reshapes Saturn’s magnetosphere, changing the radiation environment a future orbiter must design against.
Distinct from but adjacent to the esa Voyage 2050 Enceladus mission concept (src-esa-enceladus-life-mission-2025).