Credits: ESA

26 February 2007
Within a few weeks, ESA will invite the scientific community to propose the first missions for Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. The first medium-class mission should be launched in the 2016-2017 timeframe at the latest. The first large mission is targeted to launch in autumn 2018.

The European desire to perform space science is stronger than ever. The recent consultative exercise led by the Agency's Space Science Advisory Committee showed this clearly.

The call to the community for science themes led to a rich diversity of destinations being presented: from the icy moons of the outer solar system to the traditional planets, the asteroids and comets, and of course the Solar System's fiery heart, the Sun. Similarly, there is no end of exciting ways to view the more distant Universe. Searching for Earth-like worlds, charting the formation of stars and peering into the hearts of violent galaxies, are all at the top of the astronomical agenda.

There is so much good science that can be done. "The hardest thing in the world is going to be choosing between the various missions," says Professor David Southwood, ESA's Director of Science.


LISA will be the first space-based mission to attempt the detection of gravitational waves.
These are ripples in space that are emitted by exotic objects such as black holes.

Credits: ESA

To remain successful, ESA must work within a tight budget. That is a challenge because scientific missions by their very nature always try to do things that have never been done before.

Recently, a better understanding of the technical challenges faced by two missions has tested ESA Science. Both Solar Orbiter and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) are proving more demanding than even their original assessments suggested. So the prospective cost of the missions has risen.

Cancelling a mission would be a drastic solution but would hardly advance science. Thankfully, there is another way. "By shuffling the missions and looking for partnerships, we have a route to performing everything we have committed to," says Southwood. The shuffle will give the project teams more opportunities to make these missions successful.


Artist's impression of ESA's Solar Orbiter satellite.

Credits: ESA

For Solar Orbiter, there is a natural fit with NASA's Solar Sentinels programme. By joining forces, the projects can become a strong co-ordinated mission in the tradition of previous collaborations such as Ulysses and SOHO. Negotiations with NASA are going well. Solar Orbiter will be cost-capped at 300M€ and is scheduled for launch in mid-2015.

For LISA, the extra time needed for technical development and implementation of the present pre-cursor Pathfinder mission means that it must move from Cosmic Vision 2005-2015 and become a contender for the first large mission in Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. At the same time, the move could open up more money for the project.


These steps come at an unprecedented time of success for ESA Science. More missions are flying than ever before: Mars Express, Venus Express, CoRoT, Cassini, HST, SOHO, Cluster, Double Star, Ulysses, XMM-Newton, Integral, Rosetta, Hinode, Akari. More are on the way: Herschel and Planck will launch in July 2008, followed by LISA Pathfinder, Gaia and JWST.

Keeping all these operational is expensive and cannot be sustained in the long run. "We have to face financial reality and come down smoothly from this peak of activity," says Southwood, "To do otherwise would not only mean delaying the start of Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 but also lead to a crunch because we are not building spacecraft fast enough to replace them." As operations scale down naturally, they will save 60 M€. To further keep the programme on schedule, there will be internal savings of 20M€ within the Science Directorate, although these will not come from the science projects themselves.

"In the last ten years, we have developed faster and better ways of doing things. By using all that we have learned, we will be able to face financial reality and perform the world-leading science ESA is known for," says Southwood.

Source: ESA - News

17 April 2007


An inspiring Hubble mosaic of Stephan's Quintet

Credits: NASA/ESA, J. English (U. of Manitoba), S. Hunsberger (PSU), Z. Levay ( STSI),
S. Gallagher (PSU) and J. Charlton (PSU)

Enthusiasm and a large number of responses from the European scientific community marked the first step in defining ESA’s scientific programme for the period 2015-2025.

“The future starts today”, said ESA’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain, addressing the community on 11 April 2007.

At the end of March 2007, following the call for proposals issued early March this year, ESA received more than 60 ‘Letters Of Intent’. Through these, European space-science research teams expressed their intention to submit proposals for new scientific missions and provided their preliminary concepts. The amount of responses is 50 percent more than at the previous call in October 1999.

“These concepts will now have to be consolidated into detailed proposals and submitted to ESA by 29 June 2007,” said Sergio Volonte, head of ESA’s Science Planning and Community Coordination Office. “The future starts today”, said ESA’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain, addressing the community on 11 April 2007.

The mission concepts range from the exploration of Jupiter and its satellite Europa, to satellites studying radiation from the Big Bang and testing theories concerning the inflation of the Universe. The concepts also include missions studying near-Earth asteroids, satellites looking for liquid water on Saturn’s moon Enceladus and spacecraft to verify the truth about gravity as one of the fundamental forces of Nature.

“Since the moment we consulted the scientific community to define the big scientific themes of our programme in 2004, it was clear that ESA – with its wealth of missions that came or are about to come to fruition – has been creating an incredibly positive momentum for space science in Europe and world-wide,” commented David Southwood, ESA Director of Science.

“We are now at a turning point where the legacy of the past embraces the challenges of the future,” Southwood continued. “The success we have achieved so far is stimulating the well-known creativity of European scientists. It is reinforcing the general feeling that what we thought impossible may actually become possible. We are proud to give a flagship to Europe in the field of space science.”


ESA's Director General, Mr. Jean-Jacques Dordain.

Credits: ESA - A. Le Floc'h

“Successful scientific missions such as those we flew so far have increased ESA’s overall recognition and inspired the public. As such, they have made ESA a symbol of Europe’s achievements,” said ESA’s Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain on 11 April 2007, during the opening of the briefing to the large group of scientists who submitted their preliminary concepts.

“The future of European science is the result of successful alchemy between your ideas and competence, and ESA’s ability to deliver within resources, space projects that make your ideas come true,” he continued. “Not only have we demonstrated that we are a reliable partner that always sticks to its commitments, but also we have become an example for the world through the European and international dimension we give to our projects.”

“The future we are looking at also includes an ever improving relationship with you -European scientists - and with national and international agencies. We are also trying to convince our Member States to capitalise on the success of the scientific programme – the Agency’s only mandatory programme – by creating new synergies with other ESA activities, such as technology and exploration.”

“This very future starts today,” the Director General concluded.

The next steps

On 29 June 2007, ESA will receive detailed missions proposals. Starting in October 2007, until mid-2009, ESA’s Space Science Advisory committee and scientific working groups will assess the proposals and pre-select three ‘class-M’ missions and three ‘class-L’ missions.

Class-M missions are medium-size projects, where the costs to ESA do not exceed 300 million euros. Class-L missions are larger projects, with cost envelopes not exceeding 650 million euros.

By the end of 2009, out of these three class-M and three class-L missions (plus LISA), two class-M and two class-L missions will further be short-listed for the definition phase (or mission ‘phase A’). This phase will be run by European industries on a competitive basis between the beginning of 2010 and mid-2011.

By the end of 2011, one class-M and one class-L mission each will be adopted for implementation with launch foreseen in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

Source: ESA - News

ESA has some brilliant people in its fold....the Venus Express is an example of just how prepared this agency is to contribute to space exploration even more in the decades to come, a reason for enthusiasm indeed!.........b

6 July 2007


Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 is the future scientific programme of ESA.

Credits: NASA/ESA/Hubble

A wealth of new mission concepts were submitted by the European scientific community on 29 June, following the ESA Call for Proposals issued in March this year.

These 50 proposals represent more than a 50 percent increase in response by the science community, compared to the previous ESA Call in October 1999.

The proposed missions cover a wide variety of scientific objectives, spanning from the search for extrasolar planets, to the study of Jupiter and its icy satellite Europa, testing the laws of gravity, and more.

The missions' objectives fit well with the founding pillars of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 plan, which cover four major themes:

• the conditions for life and planetary formation
• the origin and formation of the Solar System
• the fundamental laws of our cosmos
• the origin, structure and evolution of the Universe.

Many of the proposed missions foresee collaboration with other space agencies worldwide, matching the international spirit of ESA and of its scientific programme.

Out of these 50 concepts, three medium-class missions (with costs to ESA not exceeding 300 million euros) and three large-class missions (with costs to ESA not exceeding 650 million euros) will be selected for assessment (or feasibility) studies starting in October this year.

The selection will follow a careful evaluation process, taking into account the scientific value and novelty of the proposal as main criteria, together with its technological maturity and its estimated cost.

At the end of the full assessment cycle in 2011, one medium- and one large-class mission will be adopted for implementation by ESA's Science Programme Committee. Their launches are currently foreseen for 2017 and 2018 respectively.

Source: ESA - News

6 July 2007


This view of nearly 10 000 galaxies was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and it is called the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The snapshot includes galaxies of various ages, sizes, shapes, and colours. The smallest, reddest galaxies (about 100) may be among the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old. The nearest galaxies - the larger, brighter, well-defined spirals and ellipticals - thrived about 1 thousand million years ago, when the cosmos was 13 thousand million years old.

The image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400 Hubble orbits around Earth. The total amount of exposure time was 11.3 days, taken between 24 September 2003 and 16 January 2004.

Credits: NASA/ ESA/ STScI (S. Beckwith)/ HUDF Team

The first steps of the next great phase of European space science have been taken! At its meeting held on 17-18 October 2007 in Paris, ESA’s Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) selected the new candidates for possible future scientific missions.

"It has been an arduous process both inside ESA and in the community to get these winning groups into what I suppose can be said to be the quarterfinals of one of the ultimate competitions in world space science,” said ESA’s Director of Science, David Southwood. “We can now get glimpses of the future and it is going to be exciting!"

From a list of 50 proposals submitted by the scientific community last summer, the candidates which have made it to the next phase of selection are:


Solar System


Laplace, studying the Jovian system


While hunting for volcanic plumes on Io, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the volatile moon sweeping across the giant face of Jupiter.

Credits: J. Spencer (Lowell Observatory) and NASA

The Jovian System, with Jupiter and its moons, is a small planetary system in its own right. Unique among the moons, Europa is believed to shelter an ocean between its geodynamically active icy crust and its silicate mantle. The proposed mission would answer questions on habitability of Europa and of the Jovian system in relation to the formation of the Jovian satellites and to the workings of the Jovian system itself. The mission will deploy three orbiting platforms to perform coordinated observations of Europa, the Jovian satellites, Jupiter’s magnetosphere and its atmosphere and interior.

If finally approved, the mission would be implemented in collaboration with NASA.


Tandem, a new mission to Saturn, Titan and Enceladus


This Cassini-Huygens image shows the trailing hemisphere of Enceladus, which is the side opposite the moon's direction of motion in its orbit. Enceladus is 499 kilometres across.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 27 October 2004, at a distance of about 766 000 kilometres from Enceladus. The image scale is 4.6 kilometres per pixel.

Credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Tandem has been proposed to explore two of Saturn's satellites (Titan and Enceladus) in-situ and from orbit. Building on questions raised by Cassini, the mission would investigate the Titan Enceladus systems, their origins, interiors and evolution as well as their astrobiological potential. The mission would carry two spacecraft - an orbiter and a carrier to deliver a balloon and three probes onto Titan.

If approved, the mission would be implemented in collaboration with NASA.

It is expected that a first selection between Laplace or Tandem, i.e. Jupiter or Saturn targets will be made in consultation with foreign partners in the coming years.


Cross-scale, deeper study of near-earth space


This composite image shows a SOHO image of the Sun and an artist's impression of Earth's magnetosphere.

Credits: Magnetosphere: NASA, the Sun: ESA/NASA SOHO

Cross-Scale, proposed to employ 12 spacecraft, would make simultaneous measurements of plasma – the gas of charged particles surrounding Earth - on different scales at shocks, reconnection sites, and turbulent regions in near-Earth space. It will address fundamental questions such as how shocks accelerate and heat particles or how magnetic reconnection phenomena generate or convert energy.

If approved, the mission would be implemented in collaboration with JAXA, the Japanese Space and Exploration Agency.

Marco Polo, an asteroid sample-return mission


This picture of asteroid 951 Gaspra was obtained by the Galileo spacecraft during its approach to the asteroid on 29 October, 1991.

Credits: NASA

A sample-return mission to a near-earth object, Marco Polo would characterise a near-earth object at multiple scales and return a sample. If approved, the mission would study the origins and evolution of the Solar System, the role of minor bodies in the process, origins and evolution of Earth and of life itself. It would consist of a mother satellite which would carry a lander, sampling devices, reentry capsule as well as instruments.

If approved, the mission would be implemented in collaboration with JAXA.


Astronomy


A dark energy mission

Two proposals have been received (Dune, the dark universe investigator and SPACE, the new near-infrared all-sky cosmic explorer) addressing the study of dark matter and dark energy - a hot topic in astronomy. While they propose to use different techniques (Dune is proposed as a a wide-field imager, while Space is proposed as a near-Infrared all-sky surveyor), they address the same basic science goal. In the follow-up study phase a trade-off will be performed leading to the definition in the spring of next year of a proposal for a European dark energy mission to go forward in competition.


Plato, the new planet finder


An artist’s impression of a transiting exoplanet, named 'HD 189733b'.

Scientists have reported the first conclusive discovery of the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our Solar System.

Infrared analysis of this gas giant’s transit across its parent star provided the breakthrough. The planet HD 189733b lies 63 light-years away, in the constellation Vulpecula.

It was discovered in 2005 as it dimmed the light of its parent star by some three percent when transiting in front of it.

Credits: ESA - C.Carreau

The proposed next-generation planet finder is a photometry mission that will detect and characterise transiting exoplanets as well as measure the seismic oscillations of their parent stars. It will be capable of observing rocky exoplanets around brighter and better characterized stars than its predecessors. Observations of the mission will be complemented by ground- and space-based follow-up observations to derive the planet’s masses and study their atmospheres.

Spica, the next generation infrared observatory


This image shows the entire sky in infrared light at nine micrometres. The bright stripe extending from left to right is the disc of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Several bright regions corresponding to strong infrared radiation appear along or next to the Galactic Plane. These regions are sites of newly born stars. At the brightest region in the very centre of the image, towards the centre of our Galaxy, old stars crowd together. AKARI observed the infrared radiation emitted from the heated interstellar dust.

Credits: JAXA

Spica is a proposed medium- and far-infrared observatory with a large-aperture cryogenic telescope. The mission would address planetary formation, the way the solar system works and the origin of the universe. It would perform wide field, high sensitivity photometric mapping at high spatial resolution, spectral analysis as well as coronography of planets and planetary disks.

Spica is proposed in collaboration with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, with ESA providing the telescope and a contribution to the operations.

XEUS, X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy


XMM-Newton observations of the fossil galaxy cluster RX J1416.5+2315, show a cloud of hot gas emitting X-rays (in blue). The cloud, reaching temperatures of about 50 million degrees, extend over 3.5 million light years and surround a giant elliptical galaxy believed to have grown to its present size by cannibalising its neighbours.

Credits: Khosroshahi,Maughan, Ponman,Jones,ESA,ING.

XEUS is a next-generation X-ray space observatory to study the fundamental laws of the Universe and the origins of the universe. With unprecedented sensitivity to the hot, million-degree universe, XEUS would explore key areas of contemporary astrophysics: growth of supermassive black holes, cosmic feedback and galaxy evolution, evolution of large-scale structures, extreme gravity and matter under extreme conditions, the dynamical evolution of cosmic plasmas and cosmic chemistry. XEUS would be stationed in a halo orbit at L2, the second Lagrange point, with two satellites (one mirror satellite and the other a detector satellite) that would fly in formation.

Various international partners have expressed interest in cooperation in XEUS and discussions will start by the end of the year with the interested agencies to ensure the earliest involvement in study work.

All the candidate missions are now competing in an assessment cycle which ends in 2011. Before the end of the cycle, there will be an important selection foreseen in 2009. At the end of this process, two missions will be proposed for implementation to ESA's Science Programme Committee, with launches planned for 2017 and 2018 respectively.

The selected missions fit well within the themes of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 plan. The themes range from the conditions for life and planetary formation, to the origin and formation of the Solar System, the fundamental laws of our cosmos and the origin, structure and evolution of the Universe.

“The maturity of most of the proposals received demonstrates the excellence of the scientific community in Europe. This made the task of the SSAC very difficult but we believe that the set of selected missions will shape the future of European space scence,” said Tilman Spohn, chairperson of the SSAC (German Aerospace Center, Berlin). “The next decade will indeed be very exciting for the scientific exploration of space.”

According to the chair of the Astronomy Working Group (AWG), Tommaso Maccacaro, (INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera) “The chosen candidates for astronomy missions show very promising and broad scientific return and have received excellent recommendations also from external referees.”

“Technical feasibility and potential for successful cooperation with other agencies are two factors which are clearly evident in the Solar System missions that have been chosen,” added Nick Thomas at the Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bern, chair of the Solar System Working Group.


For more information:

Sergio Volonte
ESA Head of Science Planning and Community Coordination Office
Email : Sergio.Volonte @ esa.int

Source: ESA - News