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| ESA SP-1323: ESA's Report to the 39th COSPAR Meeting |
The 39th meeting of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) was held 14-22 July 2012 in Mysore, India.
This report to COSPAR on the scientific activities of the European Space Agency was written by members of the Directorate of Earth Observation, the Directorate of Human Spaceflight and Operations and the Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration.
Contents:
- Foreword by Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General, ESA
- Earth Observation
- Introduction
- The Living Planet Programme
- The Earth Explorer Missions
- ERS and Envisat
- Human Spaceflight and Operations
- Introduction
- Overview: Columbus and ISS Facilities
- Funding Europe's ISS Research: ELIPS
- Research on the ISS
- Ongoing Research Using Other Platforms
- Projects under Development
- Science and Robotic Exploration
- Introduction
- Missions in Operation
- Missions in the Post-Operations and Archiving Phases
- Projects under Development
- Missions under Study
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| Publication date: 30 Jun 2012 |
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| BepiColombo-Comprehensive exploration of Mercury: Mission overview and science goals |
| BepiColombo is an interdisciplinary mission to explore Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, carried out jointly between the European Space Agency and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. From dedicated orbits two spacecraft will be studying the planet and its environment. The scientific payload of both spacecraft will provide the detailed information necessary to understand the origin and evolution of the planet itself and its surrounding environment. The scientific objectives focus on a global characterization of Mercury through the investigation of its interior, surface, exosphere and magnetosphere. In addition, instrumentation onboard BepiColombo will be used to test Einstein's theory of general relativity. Major effort was put into optimizing the scientific return of the mission by defining a payload complement such that individual measurements can be interrelated and complement each other. This paper gives an in-depth overview of BepiColombo spacecraft composite and the mission profile. It describes the suite of scientific instruments on board of the two BepiColombo spacecraft and the science goals of the mission. |
| Publication date: 15 Jan 2010 |
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| Missions to Mercury |
| Mercury is a very difficult planet to observe from the Earth, and space missions that target Mercury are essential for a comprehensive understanding of the planet. At the same time, it is also difficult to orbit because it is deep inside the Sun's gravitational well. Only one mission has visited Mercury; that was Mariner 10 in the 1970s. This paper provides a brief history of Mariner 10 and the numerous imaginative but unsuccessful mission proposals since the 1970s for another Mercury mission. In the late 1990s, two missions - MESSENGER and BepiColombo - received the go-ahead; MESSENGER is on its way to its first encounter with Mercury in January 2008. The history, scientific objectives, mission designs, and payloads of both these missions are described in detail. |
| Publication date: 07 Nov 2007 |
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| BepiColombo - The Mercury Challenge |
| BepiColombo is an interdisciplinary mission to the planet Mercury that has been selected as the 5th cornerstone in the Cosmic Vision programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). Owing to the high scientific potential related to the planet and its environment the mission will open a new frontier in the study of our solar system. Planned for launch in 2013, BepiColombo is a collaboration between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). It consists of two scientific orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), which will study the origin and evolution of the planet, Mercury's interior dynamics and the origin of the magnetic field. The interplanetary trajectory includes flybys at the Moon, Earth, Venus (twice) and Mercury (twice), as well as several long thrust arcs provided by solar electric propulsion. The Mercury orbit capture and lowering to the operational orbits will be done with chemical propulsion. The launch configuration consists of a stack of the two spacecraft and the chemical and electrical propulsion modules. |
| Publication date: 02 Jul 2006 |
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| BepiColombo: Navigation Challenges on the Way to Mercury |
| BepiColombo is the name of an ESA cornerstone mission to Mercury with a launch scheduled for 2013. After a journey of 6 years, two probes, the Magnetospheric Orbiter (JAXA) and the Planetary Orbiter (ESA), will reach their target orbits. The interplanetary trajectory includes multiple planetary flybys as well as several low-thrust arcs provided by the solar electric propulsion module.
The navigation analysis of such a trajectory requires the implementation of complex guidance laws for the low thrust arcs, and the inclusion of trim manoeuvres near each planet encounter. Further challenges are imposed by the occurrence of solar conjunctions, noise introduced by the thrust, limited range and Doppler availability, stringent solar aspect angle constraints, and the definition of recovery solutions in case of thrust outages.
A baseline trajectory taking into account all these operational constraints is here presented. The software tools LOTNAV and INTNAV were used to perfom a navigation analysis for the interplanetary trajectory. |
| Publication date: 02 Jul 2006 |
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| ESA SP-1296: ESA's Report to the 36th COSPAR Meeting |
Scientific editor: R. Marsden
Editor: A. Wilson
The report for the 36th COSPAR Meeting covers, as in previous issues, the missions of the Scientific Programme of ESA in the areas of astronomy, Solar System science and fundamental physics. This year's COSPAR meeting will take place only weeks before the end of the SMART-1 mission to the Moon, a technology project that provided the first European look at our natural satellite from lunar orbit.In October of this year, a new mission will be launched: COROT. ESA, together with a number of countries, is contributing to this unique, French-led project that will provide an insight into the interior of the stars, by means of the asteroseismology technique successfully applied by SOHO. COROT will also perform a systematic search for new extrasolar planets using photometric transits.
The record number of ESA Science Programme missions in operation established at the time of the last report was maintained in 2006 (Huygens having been replaced in the list by Venus Express). Eleven different missions, involving 14 operating spacecraft, are providing excellent science to the worldwide scientific community. The Research and Scientific Support Department (RSSD) is responsible for the science operations of these missions and makes every effort to ensure the best possible science return. The Department also supports the realisation of approved projects in all phases of their development. |
| Publication date: 15 Jun 2006 |
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| ESA SP-1276: ESA's Report to the 35th COSPAR Meeting |
Scientific editor: A. Gimenez
Editor: A. Wilson
The report for the 35th COSPAR Meeting covers, as in previous issues, the missions
of the Scientific Programme of ESA in the areas of astronomy, Solar System
exploration and fundamental physics. This year's COSPAR Meeting occurs only
weeks after the Saturn-orbit insertion of the Cassini spacecraft - carrying Europe's
Huygens probe to explore the atmosphere of Titan - and at the same time as the
launch of the second satellite of the Double Star project. |
| Publication date: 15 Jun 2004 |
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| An international program for Mercury exploration: synergy of MESSENGER and BepiColombo |
| Mariner 10 has been the only spacecraft to visit the innermost planet Mercury. Its three flybys, more than 25 years ago, yielded the first view of this little-understood world. With advances in spacecraft technology and a growing realization of how important Mercury is to our understanding of the solar system and its formation, two missions are now in development for more intensive Mercury exploration. The first is the MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) mission, competitively selected under the NASA Discovery Program, that will send a spacecraft to fly by Mercury in 2007 and 2008 and to orbit Mercury for one Earth year beginning in April 2009. The second is the more comprehensive BepiColombo mission, consisting of three elements: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), and the Mercury Surface Element (MSE). Still in final definition stage, BepiColombo is a partnership between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). With one or two launches (depending upon the final mission architecture) BepiColombo will use solar electric propulsion to send two orbiters (MPO from ESA and MMO from ISAS) and a lander (MSE) to Mercury as early as 2011. The BepiColombo orbiters, in orbits complementary to that of MESSENGER, will extend geochemical, spectral, and photometric mapping of the planet. With its factor-of-ten larger downlink, BepiColombo will complete the intensive study of Mercury begun with the exploration by MESSENGER. Synergistic strategies of exploration will enable efficient use of BepiColombo resources in a more detailed study of the planet than can be accomplished by MESSENGER alone. - Remainder of abstract is truncated - |
| Publication date: 20 Jan 2004 |
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| ESA SP-1259: ESA's Report to the 34th COSPAR Meeting |
Scientific editor: B. Foing
Editor: A. Wilson
The report to the 34th COSPAR Meeting covers the missions of the Scientific Programme of ESA in the areas of astronomy, Solar System exploration and fundamental physics. |
| Publication date: 01 Oct 2002 |
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| BepiColombo - A Multidisciplinary Mission to the Hot Planet |
| As the inner end-member of the planetary system, Mercury plays an important role in constraining and testing dynamical and compositional theories of planetary formation. The exploration of Mercury is of fundamental
importance for answering questions of astrophysical and
philosophical significance, such as: 'Are terrestrial bodies a common
feature of most planetary systems in the Galaxy?'. |
| Publication date: 01 Aug 2000 |
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