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The Ceres Autonomous Lander Into Crater Occator (CALICO) was proposed in response to ESAs M7-call for future space missions. CALICO is a mission to study the surface and interior of dwarf planet Ceres, the closest ocean world to Earth. Ceres accessible location in the main belt makes it a compelling target for exploration since it was classified as an ocean world in the wake of NASAs Dawn mission, which provided a wealth of data. DAWN also left open many questions, such as whether the interior of Ceres ever had the potential for habitability.CALICOs space segment consists of two components: the CALICO surface element is to land in Occator crater to analyse the salt- and organic-rich deposits of Vinalia Faculae, where building blocks of life might be accessible on the surface. The CALICO orbital element will characterize Ceres magnetic and particle environment to establish the presence of subsurface volatile reservoirs.We present an overview of CALICOs science objectives, instrument payload and a possible mission scenario. Although not selected to go forward into Phase A, CALICO - or any CALICO-like mission - has great potential to answer such fundamental questions about our place in the Solar System. The CALICO consortium will continue its efforts to realize a mission to Ceres.
Hagermann et al. (Wed,) studied this question.