Developing Ecospheres on Transiently Habitable Planets: The Genesis Project
This is a human panspermia project, for encouraging life on a planet that was sterilized early, but now in a livable phase.
and a paper on atmo detection, by looking for temperature albedo and whether tidal locking heat distribution is measurable. Looks like a yes, when JWST is up there.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.07345
and this one shows a thin atmo is enough to distribute heat to the darkside http://astrobiology.com/2016/08/tutorial-models-of-the-climate-and-habitability-of-proxima-centauri-b.html
This is from the foundation that put out the announcement, Pale Red Dot.
A lot of difficulties, but the best thing put forward, is that if an earthlike planet is circling the closest star, that they should be relatively common.
https://palereddot.org/opportunities-and-obstacles-for-life-on-proxima-b/
And the Breakthru Starshot meeting just over, and this system is still a good target, but not the only one.
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=36265
and they did some modeling of the dust abrasion on the wafer probes, most won't make it.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2102267-interstellar-probes-will-be-eroded-on-the-way-to-alpha-centauri/