The European Space Agency selected, October 12, 6 space missions for the period 2008-2012: BepiColombo, GAIA, LISA, NGST, Solar Orbiter and Eddington ("in reserve").
Detailed information, in English, is available on the ESA site
at this address
or, in French
at AFP
Contacts:
Jean-Louis Bougeret , for BepiColombo and for Solar Orbiter,
Catherine Turon , for GAIA,
Jean Schneider for Eddington.
The Paris Observatory is implied in several of these
missions, in particular in
BepiColombo ,
GAIA ,
Solar Orbiter ,
Eddington .
Short description of these 4 missions:
BepiColombo
Mercury is certainly the telluric planet most badly known
(telluric = having a solid surface like Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars),
while at the same time it poses several fundamental problems. Less
than half of its surface was observed by the mission Mariner-10 in
1974, the only space exploration to date. One of the great surprises, at the
time of the three meetings carried out in 1974, was the discovery of a
magnetic field certainly weak (1/100 that of the Earth), but
sufficient to create a significant obstacle to the solar
wind flow and to form the strangest magnetosphere of the solar system.
How Mercury was formed? Why is it so dense? Is its core
solidified? Where does its magnetic field come from? Which was its
geological evolution? Which are the nature and the dynamics of its
magnetosphere? Many questions defy a number of current
models and require an intensive exploration.
The multidisciplinary and mainly interdisciplinary aspect
appears very clearly in this mission; this is the main issue
and extreme interest: for example the couplings between
surface, exosphere (a variety of atmosphere in permanent reformation)
and surrounding plasma must be understood perfectly, and this
involves several scientific disciplines.
The precise knowledge of the orbital parameters of the
Mercury orbitor will make it possible to carry out new tests of
general relativity, and to measure with precision the quadrupolar
moment of the sun as well as the temporal variation of the
gravitational constant.
More informations here
and there
GAIA
The very precise determination of distances in the
Universe is one of the major challenges of modern astronomy. GAIA
will make it possible to reach an accuracy of 10 microseconds of
degree on the trigonometrical parallaxes (the parallax is the reverse
of the distance) for stars of apparent magnitude 15, that is to say the
diameter of a hair seen from a distance of 1000 km. Distances of
stars located far from the galactic center, up to the Large Magellanic
Cloud for the brightest of them, will be determined
with a precision better than ten percent.
These distances together with the systematic observation of the
motions (tangent and radial), and of 15-color photometry for all
objects up to apparent magnitude 20, will make it possible to
irrigate many fields of astronomy and astrophysics:
- detailed analysis of the composition, formation and evolution of
our Galaxy, characterization of the various stellar populations and
identification of the vestiges of possible encounters with other
galaxies
- detailed analysis of allphases of the stellar
evolution
- calibration of the absolute luminosities of all distance
indicators
- systematic detection, and characterization, of a few tens
of thousands of large exo-planets, orbiting around all stars up to 200- 500 PC
- systematic observation of the small bodies of the solar
system
- dynamical study of the galaxies of the Local Group,
systematic observation of a few million galaxies and some 500 000
quasars
- new constraining tests of general relativity.
More informations here
and there
Solar Orbiter
Atmosphere of the sun and its environment - the heliosphere
constitutes a unique field where can be directly observed and studied
processes of fundamental physics common to the solar, stellar and
astrophysical mediums, and with laboratory plasmas, under
conditions impossible to reproduce in the terrestrial laboratories.
Using the techniques of propulsion and technology developed
for BepiColombo, the mission Solar Orbiter will have an entirely new
orbit, approaching the sun inside the Mercury orbit (up to 0,21
Astronomical Units of the sun), and getting out of the plane of the
ecliptic, thus making it possible to explore unknown areas of the
environment of our star.
In addition to a close and 'in situ' exploration of
the sun and of its atmosphere, the mission Solar Orbiter has the
originality to be able to follow the Co-rotation' sun ', a little like
the geostationary satellites do it for the Earth, in order to observe
continuously and closer the active areas of the sun:
spots, etc, for a long period of time, much longer than what is
possible from the Earth.
More informations here
Eddington
Eddington is a mission `in reserve' whose planning will be a
function of the calendars of the NGST and LISA. The purpose of
Eddington is:
- to probe the interior of stars through a kind of echography.
One can deduce their evolution, their age to compare with
the age of the Universe
- to detect a few hundreds of planets exterior to the solar
system, of which a few tens similar to the Earth. The method used
(`planetary transits') is the same one as that of the Corot
satellite and makes it possible to measure the diameter of planets.
More informations here