The quest to find extraterrestrial life is a critical scientific endeavor with civilization-level implications. Icy moons in our solar system are promising targets for exploration because their liquid oceans make them potential habitats for microscopic life. However, the lack of a precise definition of life poses a fundamental challenge to formulating detection strategies. To increase the chances of unambiguous detection, a suite of complementary instruments must sample multiple independent biosignatures (e.g., composition, motility/behavior, and visible structure). Such an instrument suite could generate 10,000x more raw data than is possible to transmit from distant ocean worlds like Enceladus or Europa. To address this bandwidth limitation, Onboard Science Instrument Autonomy (OSIA) is an emerging discipline of flight systems capable of evaluating, summarizing, and prioritizing observational instrument data to maximize science return. We describe two OSIA implementations developed as part of the Ocean Worlds Life Surveyor (OWLS) prototype instrument suite at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The first identifies life-like motion in digital holographic microscopy videos, and the second identifies cellular structure and composition via innate and dye-induced fluorescence. Flight-like requirements and computational constraints were used to lower barriers to infusion, similar to those available on the Mars helicopter, "Ingenuity." We evaluated the OSIA's performance using simulated and laboratory data and conducted a live field test at the hypersaline Mono Lake planetary analog site. Our study demonstrates the potential of OSIA for enabling biosignature detection and provides insights and lessons learned for future mission concepts aimed at exploring the outer solar system.

翻译：寻找地外生命是一项具有文明层面意义的重大科学探索。太阳系中的冰卫星因其液态海洋而成为潜在微生物栖息地，是值得优先探索的目标。然而，生命缺乏精确的定义对制定检测策略构成了根本性挑战。为增加明确检测的概率，需通过一套互补仪器对多个独立生物特征（如物质组成、运动/行为特征及可见结构）进行采样。此类仪器套件产生的原始数据量可能比土卫二或木卫二等遥远海洋世界可传输的数据量高出10000倍。为解决带宽限制问题，星载科学仪器自主系统（OSIA）应运而生——这是一门新兴的飞行系统学科，能够评估、总结并优先处理观测仪器数据，以最大化科学回报。本文描述了喷气推进实验室在海洋世界生命探测器（OWLS）原型仪器套件中开发的两套OSIA实现方案：第一套用于识别数字全息显微镜视频中的类生命运动，第二套则通过固有荧光和染料诱导荧光识别细胞结构与成分。我们采用类似火星直升机"机智号"的飞行级要求和计算约束，以降低技术转化门槛。通过模拟与实验数据评估OSIA性能后，我们在高盐度莫诺湖行星模拟现场进行了实地测试。本研究展示了OSIA在实现生物特征检测方面的潜力，并为未来探索外太阳系的使命概念提供了见解与经验教训。