CAB as seen by ESDM

In this section, the “Design for Science” team of the Madrid School of Design has reinterpreted with illustrations the CAB’s research projects and environments, highlighting the missions involving NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope; the RLS (Raman Laser Spectrometer) from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars mission; the PLATO (ESA) mission and research projects in terrestrial environments as potential analogues of other planets and solar system moons, such as the Atacama Desert (Chile), Rio Tinto or Dallol (Ethiopia).
CAB
An excellent transdisciplinary research centre to tackle astrobiology CAB currently has more than 150 employees organised into four departments: Astrophysics, Molecular Evolution, Planetology and Habitability and Advanced instrumentation. In 2017, CAB was distinguished by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities as a “María de Maeztu” Unit of Excellence to develop the strategic research programme “Assessing the feasibility of life as a universal phenomenon through planetary exploration” for a duration of four years (1 July 2018 – 30 June 2022).
RESEARCH AT CAB – JAMES WEBB
Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC-INTA) is the only Spanish centre, and one of the few worldwide, participating in two of the four instruments on board the James Webb Space Telescope, NIRSpec and MIRI, which will be launched in December 2021 and will allow us to explore regions and epochs in the history of the universe that are inaccessible today.
RESEARCH AT CAB- RAMAN LASER SPECTROMETER
CAB will contribute to the science and operation of the Raman Laser Spectrometer (RLS) that will be taken to Mars on board the Rosalind Franklin rover on ESA’s ExoMars mission after its launch in 2022.
RESEARCH AT CAB – PLATO
Particularly relevant will be the PLATO mission (ESA), which will search for and characterise Earth-like planets and their atmospheres.
RESEARCH AT CAB – ANALOGOUS ENVIRONMENTS AND PROCESSES ON EARTH
The CAB is also developing research projects in environments and processes analogous here on Earth to other planets and moons in the solar system, such as the Atacama Desert, Rio Tinto or Dallol in Ethiopia, to improve our understanding of how life can exist and interact in both surface and deep subsurface environments.