Mem. S.A.It. Vol. 81, 467 c SAIt 2010 Memorie della Cosmic Vision 2015-2025: ESA's long term programme in space sciences J. Clavel ESTEC/SRE-SA Postbus 299, 2200 AG - Noordwijk, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] Abstract. ESA’s space science programme is briefly reviewed, with a particular emphasis on its long term plan, “Cosmic Vision 2015-2025”. The mission selection process is pre- sented together with the current status of the different projects selected and currently under assessment. The strategy for implementing the plan is outlined, as well as the programmatic and international context. Key words. Space vehicles: instruments – Telescopes 1. Introduction European member states globally spend on av- erage 250 to 300 MEuros/year on space sci- The Science Programme is a mandatory pro- ence (in addition to their mandatory contri- gramme of the European Space Agency to bution to ESA). The content of the science which all 18 member states must contribute programme is defined by the European scien- in proportion to their Gross National Product tific community through open calls for mission (GNP). Every three years, the Council of concepts followed by peer review and the even- Ministers decides by unanimity the Level of tual selection of future missions to be devel- Resources (LoR) for the next 5 years. The oped and launched 10 to 15 years later. The council of ministers met in November 2008 cycle is repeated every 10 years or so. Two pre- and allocated a total budget of 2.327 billion vious cycles established the Horizon 2000 and Euros for the 5-year period 2009-2013. This Horizon 2000+ science programmes, in 1984 corresponds to a LoR of 465 MEuros/year at and 1994-1995, respectively. The current cy- 2008 Economic Conditions. Since payloads cle, Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 (CV in short) are generally built and funded nationally, to was initiated in 2004. be exhaustive one should add to this figure ESA is currently operating 12 scientific the space science expenditures of ESA mem- satellites which were selected and developed as ber states. Because of different accountabil- part of the Horizon 2000+ programme. ity systems, the latter is not straightforward to establish. Furthermore, it varies substan- – The X-Ray observatory XMM-Newton, tially from year to year. Nevertheless, a re- launched in December 1999 continues to cent study commissioned by the European collect 0.1-10 keV images and spectra of Science Foundation shows that in recent years all kind of celestial sources, from planets Send offprint requests to: J. Clavel to the most distant quasars. 468 Clavel: Cosmic Vision – The Integral observatory has been gath- satellite to map the Cosmic Microwave ering hard X-ray and gamma-ray im- Background (CMB) radiation tempera- ages and spectra from celestial sources ture and polarisation with µK sensitivity. since its launch in October 2002. Both Compared to WMAP, Planck features a XMM-Newton and Integral are observato- much better angular resolution (up to 5 ries opened to the world-wide astronomical arcmin), a greater sensitivity and 9 fre- community via calls for proposals and the quency channels which will vastly im- usual peer review selection process. prove the control of systematics and re- – In exchange for ESA’s contribution moval of foreground parasitic emission. to NASA’S Hubble Space Telescope, Planck will pin down cosmological param- European astronomers have access to at eters to a 1 percent accuracy and stands least 15% of HST observing time. a good chance of detecting inflation di- – Since its launch in December 1995, the rectly through the imprint left by gravita- ESA-NASA SOHO observatory has been tional waves on the CMB polarisation sig- collecting a wealth of data on the Sun, from nal. Through the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, its deep core interior to the outer corona, it will discover thousands of distant galaxy the solar wind and its interaction with the clusters and thereby tighten the constraints interplanetary medium. on the dark energy equation of state. – The 4 Cluster spacecrafts have been pro- – Finally, the Rosetta spacecraft, launched viding vital 3D in-situ measurements of in March 2004, is on its way to comet the earth magnetosphere and its interaction 67P. It will rendezvous the comet in May with the solar wind since their launches in 2014 and land a probe on its surface in July and August 2000. November 2014 for in situ measurements. – Launched in June 2003, Mars Express is On September 5, 2008, Rosetta collected in orbit around the red planet and provides spectacular images and a wealth of mea- a wealth of scientific data, including high surements while it flew-by asteroid 2867 resolution stereo images. Steins from a distance of 800 km. In July – Venus-Express was launched in November 2010, Rosetta will encounter a second as- 2005. The probe collects data on the teroid, 21 Lutetia Venusian surface and atmosphere from the vantage point of its polar orbit around the All above Horizon 2000+ missions are in planet. good health and their operations are funded – With its 3.5 m diameter telescope feed- through 31 December 2012. For complete- ing 3 cryogenically cooled instruments, ness, ESA is also partner on 4 nationally-led Herschel is the most sensitive far-IR to sub- projects currently in operation: millimeter (100 − 800µm) observatory in – CoRoT, a CNES mission to detect exo- operations to date. It will revolutionize our planets via the transit method and perform understanding of the interstellar medium astro-seismologic measurements of several and in particular of the early stages of the tens of thousands of stars. CoRoT was process by which stars and planetary sys- launched in December 2006. tems form. Its vastly improved sensitiv- – Chandrayan, a lunar Orbiter developed ity will permit deep cosmological surveys by the Indian space agency, ISRO and and shed light on the formation process to which Europe through ESA con- of galaxies and large scale structures of tributes several instruments. Chandrayan the Universe. Launched on May 14, 2009, was launched in October 2008. Herschel is currently en route toward its fi- – Double Star, a collaborative project nal Lissajous orbit around the second Sun- with the Chinese National Space Earth Lagrange point L2. Administration, consists of 2 satellites – Launched together with Herschel in a sin- in earth orbit that study the earth mag- gle Ariane-V rocket, Planck is also on its way to L2. Planck is a third generation netosphere. Launched in December 2003 Clavel: Cosmic Vision 469 and July 2004, the two spacecrafts nicely – Bepi-Colombo is a collaborative ven- complement the Cluster flotilla. ture with the Japanese Space Agency – Cassini-Huygens, is a collaborative mis- JAXA whereby ESA provides the Mercury sion with NASA and the Italian space Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA devel- agency ASI to study the Saturnian system ops the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter and in particular its Titan moon. Launched (MMO). Thanks to its sophisticated pay- in October 1997, the mission consisted of load and relatively low orbit, Bepi- a Saturn orbiter developed and operated Colombo will provide high resolution im- by NASA plus the ESA probe Huygens, ages of Mercury and in situ measurements which successfully landed on Titan surface that will vastly improve our knowledge on January 14, 2005. After obtaining the of the mysterious planet. The two Bepi- first in-situ measurements and images of Colombo probes will be launched together Titan, Huygens ceased functioning. Cassini by a single Ariane-V rocket in August 2014 continues to orbit Saturn and collect data and arrive at Mercury in 2020. on the planet and its many satellites. – ESA is also collaborating with the French space agency CNES to develop Several other H2000+ missions are still under Microscope, a mission that will provide a development: stringent test of the Equivalence Principle, – LISA Pathfinder is a technology demon- one of the founding pillars of General strator for the ambitious LISA mission. Relativity. Specifically, ESA is developing When launched in mid-2011, it will the Field Emission Electric Propulsion demonstrate the feasibility of putting two (FEEP) technology, a low thrust low-noise free-floating test masses in purely geodesic propulsion system that has 0.1 micro- motion, free from electromagnetic, solar Newton accuracy. Microscope is currently wind or any other perturbations. LISA slated for launch in 2012. Pathfinder will also validate the technology required to measure the relative positions Two projects that were initially envisaged in of the two test masses to picometer accu- the framework of the H2000+ programme but racy. never formally approved have been put back – Gaia is the successor of the success- into competition with the new Cosmic Vision ful Hipparcos Astrometric mission. When missions. These are: launched in December 2011, it will mea- – LISA, a very ambitious collaborative mis- sure the parallax and proper motions of a sion with NASA the purpose of which is billion stars down to micro-arcsec accu- to detect and measure gravitational waves racy as well as their radial velocity and en- in the astrophysically interesting 0:1−10−4 ergy distributions over the 320-1000 nm Hz frequency range, inaccessible from the range. This will allow the reconstruction ground. LISA features a constellation of 3 of the formation and accretion history of identical spacecrafts in a 1 AU orbit around the milky-way. Among other things, Gaia the sun. Separated by 5 million kilome- will also detect tens of thousand of Jupiter- tres, the 3 S/C form an equilateral trian- size exo-planets as well as comets, aster- gle that is inclined by 60 degrees with re- oids and trans-neptunian objects in our own spect to the ecliptic plane and trails the solar system.