Author name: Perry A. Gerakines

Icy materials are dispersed throughout the Solar System, from the planets, to their moons, and to asteroids and comets. The volatiles contained within these icy reservoirs could provide vital insights into the origin and evolution of their parent bodies, as well as details of conditions in the early Solar System. Development of the technologies needed for volatile sample return missions has therefore been given a high priority for the current decade. In this chapter, we describe volatile materials and ices in the Solar System, with a focus on comets. We summarize the history of cometary exploration, describe the results of NASA’s Stardust mission to comet 81P/Wild 2, and discuss the future of comet sample return.