The search for extra-terrestrial life has long fascinated humanity, with Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, emerging as a prime candidate due to hydrothermal activity and methane detected in its South Pole plumes by the Cassini mission. The ELMO orbiter is designed to explore Enceladus, searching for biosignatures, mapping its surface, and relaying data from two hopper vehicles deployed on the Saturnian moon. Carrying five scientific payload instruments, the orbiter must meet strict constraints, including a total mission cost of $750 million USD and compatibility with the Ariane 64 launcher. The spacecraft provides 6000 m/s Delta-V through a two-stage design: a main orbiter (3400 m/s) and a kick stage (2600 m/s). It also features an 85 m^2 solar array for power generation and a dual-band communication system to handle high data acquisition requirements (15% of operations time).

The lightweight truss structure, made of low-density composites, incorporates MLI for thermal regulation and multiple radiation-shielded electronics vaults. The fixed high-gain antenna ensures efficient Earth communication at Ka, X, and S bands. Weighing 13400 kg at launch, ELMO's innovative design cannot comply with the launch requirements, and it is therefore advised to perform further studies to re-evaluate the mission. ... Read more

The quality of life (QoL) of survivors of a myocardial infarction (MI) remains lower than that of their peers long after the acute event. Previous research on this subject has indicated, however, that this difference might lessen somewhat over time for the dimension 'emotional functioning' (as measured by the sickness impact profile (SIP): A generic instrument for QoL). The present study explores this phenomenon further using two instruments that specifically measure emotional functioning i.e. the hospital anxiety and depression scale (HAD) and the heart patients psychological questionnaire (HPPQ). Ninety-nine participants of a large population-based cohort (the Rotterdam study), who had been admitted to the hospital because of an MI in the previous 6-60 months, and 101 reference subjects, without a history of infarction of heart or brain, from the same age and gender-groups, were interviewed twice (at 1- to 3-year time intervals). The results of the present study confirm earlier findings that the emotional functioning (in terms of 'anxiety', 'depression', 'well-being', 'feeling disabled', and 'displeasure') of MI survivors is impaired when compared to their unaffected peers. Moreover, they did not show any improvement in 'anxiety', 'depression', 'well-being' and 'displeasure' over time in the MI survivors. The results did, however, show that the difference between MI survivors and referents became less in time in the dimension 'feeling disabled'. This decrease was partly because MI survivors improved and partly because referents felt more disabled over time. One explanation for this might be that referents (51% aged 70 years and over) had difficulties in adapting emotionally to decreasing levels of physical functioning with increasing age, while the MI survivors tended to adjust to and accept the impairments they had contracted several years earlier. ... Read more