Heterogeneous solid/gas chemistry of organic compounds related to comets, meteorites, Titan, and Mars: Laboratory and in lower Earth orbit experiments

To understand the evolution of organic molecules involved in extraterrestrial environments and with exobiological implications, many experimental programs in the laboratory are devoted to photochemical studies in the gaseous phase as well as in the solid state. The validity of such studies and their applications to extraterrestrial environments can be questioned as long as experiments conducted in space conditions, with the full solar spectrum, especially in the short wavelength domain, have not been implemented. The experiments that are described here will be carried out oil a FOTON capsule, using the BIOPAN facility, and oil the International Space Station, using the EXPOSE facility. Vented and sealed exposition cells will be used, which will allow us to study the chemical evolution in the gaseous phase as well as heterogeneous processes, such as the degradation of solid compounds and the release of gaseous fragments. Four kinds of experiments will be carried out. The first deal with comets and are related to the Rosetta mission, the second with Titan and are related to the Cassini-Huygens mission, the third with the search for life-related organic compounds on Mars and, finally, the fourth are a continuation of previous studies concerning the behavior of amino acids in space. (C) 2007 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.