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The past was indeed bright when it comes to the exploration of Saturn as Pioneer 11, the Voyager twins, and Cassini can attest to, but budget constraints have the future of Saturn exploration fighting for its very existence. As it stands right now, the top three space agencies in the world, the ESA, NASA, and the Russian Federal Space Agency, have no set-in-stone plans to explore Saturn in the near future.

The same goes for the up-and-coming space agencies such as those in China and Japan. So all one can really look forward to in the future is for continued support to the space agencies in general, so possibly the plans that are on the table now can actually gain approval and then hopefully implementation sometime in the next twenty years.

As it stands right now NASA does have a project known as "Saturn Flyby with Probes' that continues to be left out from its funding budget each year, but continues to move higher and higher up on the list of projects waiting for approval. The basic premise of this mission is for a large spacecraft to streak past the Saturn system while jettisoning multiple probes to Saturn, Titan, and a few of Saturn's other moons that have shown promise from data compiled during the Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and Cassini missions. NASA administrators hope to get the project into the budget so that it can hopefully reach space around 2015 but in today's economic market, we shouldn't hold our breath.

The Russians on the other hand, facing a much worse economic turn-down then the United States, are finding it hard to find the money to even plan projects never mind actually developing them. With that said, any project that gets approved by the Russian government must have a long mission timeline, explore multiple targets, and cost as little as possible.

Every scientist and mission planner within the Federal Space Agency has strove to conform to these restraints and have preliminary plans for a mission known as Gipersat that will explore multiple extraterrestrial bodies to include two of Saturn's moons, Hyperion and Iapetus. The chances of this project getting approved before 2015 are slim to none, but possibly the plans for Gipersat can be included in other deep space probe projects that the Russians will approve in the next couple of years.

The Europeans on the other hand are in the final stages of choosing between a mission to explore Jupiter or Tandem which would be a mission that enters the Saturn system and explores Titan and Enceladus while taking some detailed readings of Saturn itself. If chosen, Tandem will be sent to answer questions raised by the Cassini mission and would be a collaborative effort between the ESA and NASA.

Tandem will specifically investigate the moons, their origins, interiors, evolution, and their astrobiological potential while also sending a balloon and three probes into Titan as to date it has shown the most promise of harboring primitive life on or beneath its surface. Of all the missions listed above, Tandem has the highest chance of actual approval so combined with Cassini Equinox, Tandem is where space scientists and Saturn enthusiasts need to throw their money and support into in order to ensure a continued flow of knowledge streams from Saturn to us here on Earth.

Learn more about this author, Robert Freeman.
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