- Email: [email protected]
‘Cosmic vision’: the new ESA science programme
be used as a forum for open discussion of the nature of the IHY, and to solicit suggestions and ideas from the broader community. Results from the COSPAR session will be used to organize a broader, more comprehensive programme for the joint EGS/AGU meeting in Nice, France in the spring of 2003. This session will provide a second opportunity for community input. After this, it is hoped that topic leaders will be selected and that work will begin in planning a broad programme of coordinated observations and in defining special observational periods for the IHY. It is intended that a complete working plan will be developed. Further information on the IHY, and the history of International Years is available at the IHY Web site (http://ihy.gsfc.nasa.gov). The 50 th anniversary of the International Geophysical Year is a tremendous opportunity to advance our understanding of the Sun-Earth system, and to demonstrate the beauty, relevance and significance of Earth science to the world at large.
Bibliography Chapman, S. (ed.) 1959 Annals of the International Geophysical Year. New York: Pergamon Press, Vol 1. Sullivan, Walter 1961 Assault on the Unknown, McGraw-Hill, New York. Hyde, Margaret O. 1957 Exploring Earth and Space, McGraw-Hill, New York.
1.2
'Cosmic Vision': the New ESA Science Programme
[From ESA Press Release, 27 May 2002] Following the meeting of the ESA Council of Ministers in Edinburgh in November 2001, the Director of Science undertook a complete reassessment of the ESA Science Programme, in close collaboration with the science community, represented by the Space Science Advisory Committee, industry and delegations of Member States. The results of this exercise were presented as a proposal to the 99th meeting of the ESA Science Programme Committee, held in Andenes (Norway), 22-23 May. While noting the withdrawal by the Ex-
ecutive, during the meeting itself, of the Venus Express mission, the Committee strongly endorsed the plan proposed by the Executive and encouraged it to proceed vigorously with its implementation. The outcome of the ESA Council of Ministers meeting in Edinburgh was not as positive as expected for the Agency's Science Programme. It appeared that the money to be made available would not be sufficient to carry out the Long Term Programme that had been approved by the Science Programme Committee in October 2000, based on the financial assumptions approved by the same Committee in Bern in May 1999. Taken at their face value, the resources granted in Edinburgh meant the cancellation of at least one mission (e.g., Gala). At the conclusion of the exercise, following extensive consultations with all its partners, the Executive was able to propose a revised plan, which not only maintained the missions approved in October 2000, but also added the Eddington mission. The new plan, strongly endorsed by the Science Programme Committee on the occasion of its 99th meeting, contains the following missions, listed by production groups:
(i) Astrophysics Group 1 : XMM-Newton (1999), Integral (2002): X- and Gamma-Ray Observatories to study the 'violent' universe Group 2: Herschel, to explore the infrared and microwave universe; Planck, to study the cosmic microwave background; Eddington, to search for extra-solar planets and to study the stellar seismology. (The three missions to be launched in the 2007-2008 time frame.) Group 3: Gala, the ultimate galaxy mapper (to be launched no later than 2012). Missions will follow in the same group after 2012.
(ii) Solar System Science Group 1: Rosetta, a trip to a comet (2003); Mars Express, a Mars orbiter carrying the Beagle 2 lander (2003); (Venus Express, a Venus orbiter, would have been in this group.) Group 2: SMART-l, which will demonstrate
solar propulsion technology while on its way to the Moon (2003); BepiColombo, a mission to Mercury; Solar Orbiter, a mission to take a closer look at the Sun (missions to be launched in 2011-2012).
(iii) Fundamental Physics (one group only) STEP (2005) - the 'equivalence principle' test mission mission to test the nature of mass and the basis of mechanics, the mission being reliant on a decision by NASA, the major partner; SMART-2- a technology demonstration mission (2008) for L/SA, a joint mission with NASA, to search for gravitational waves (2011 ). In addition, ESA is committed to cooperate with NASA in the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), the successor to the Hubb/e Space Te/escope, with a launch in 2010. The production groups listed are more than scientific groupings as missions within each will be built synergistically using common technologies and engineering teams where possible. Such a scenario is going to rely on a specific commitment to new ways of working. Thus: • The implementation of BepiColombo and Solar Orbiter with international partners; both missions will be implemented as a single activity, leading to significant savings. • The implementation of Herschel/Planck and Eddington in a single project, reusing the same bus. This implies a launch of Eddington not later than 2008. • Major technical changes to reduce the cost of Gala without losing scientific content. Gala will be launched no later than 2012, the date agreed in Bern. • Significant gains from new technology to improve the cost effectiveness of spacecraft development and procurement. • The timely availability of payloads, one of the current pressing problems. • Acceptance of increased managerial complexity and overall 'programmatic' risk. Obviously, the implementation of such an ambitious programme will require the full commitment of all the involved parties, namely
industry, the Executive, the national funding agencies and the scientific community from the start. Initially the Executive had also included Venus Express in its proposal, work on which would have started immediately. However, the Director of the Science Programme felt that the necessary preconditions had not been met and therefore decided to withdraw the proposal. The Executive is going to have to maintain such a pragmatic attitude in the future if it is to implement the programme successfully. Increased 'programmatic' risk means that the programme will be less resilient in the face of events such as the Cluster mission loss in 1996 where a recovery was instituted within 4 years. The approved scenario, stretching over ten years, naturally includes some uncertainties. These will be exploited to the best advantage of the overall programme in a flexible way. Within each combined set of missions (Herschel/Planck/Eddington; BepiColombo~Solar Orbiter), the launch sequence will be optimized. Work will start immediately on Gala to ensure that the earlier launch dates remain a possibility. Launch dates of some major collaborative elements of the programme (e.g., STEP, NGST, LISA) are outside the control of ESA. Parallel (ESA-controlled) activities need to be carried out in a flexible way to adjust to the workload. Further international collaboration on missions and payloads could be beneficial. Specifically, a significant contribution from NASA on Solar Orbiter as part of the International Living with a Star (ILWS) programme may be linked to European participation in other elements of the American LWS/STP programmes. Speaking about the new plan, the Director of Science, David Southwood commented "Apparent miracles or no, one should realize that much of this is simply our building on the legacy of my predecessor, Roger Bonnet. Of course, we are pushing further. However, his culture of welcoming change and demanding commitment to science from everyone involved lies at the base of what we are doing." While the name for the new scientific programme 'Cosmic Vision' refers to the universe, the programme also provides for vision in technological and managerial innovation down here
on Earth. The overall funding assumption underlying the new plan is that the buying power will be preserved in the years following 2005, though this may be unduly optimistic. The Executive considers that no more proofs are needed that the science programme is an extremely good investment. More resources can only improve the leverage. Should they become available, the heavens would be ESA's limit - literally.
1.3 The Response of the Atmosphere to Recent Solar Storms [From NASA News, 28 May 2002] Data on the Sun's activities during a recent series of strong solar storms were gathered by the entire fleet of NASA's Sun-Earth Connection spacecraft. The atmospheric data from NASA's newest solar spacecraft, TIMED (Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics), is providing important new information on the final link in the chain of physical processes that connect the Sun and Earth. "Several NASA spacecraft observed this strong activity as it came from the Sun. Now TIMED provides the critical link between what happened on the Sun and Earth's response" said Sam Yee, leader of TIMELTs science team, at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "TIMED allows us to observe the global reaction of our upper atmosphere to solar activity" said Mary Mellott, TIMED programme scientist, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. "One of the important current puzzles for the SunEarth Connection (SEC) community is determining why some solar activity has significant geospace impact and some does not. Being able to monitor the impact so well with TIMED should allow the scientific community to make significant progress toward solving this SEC mystery" A fleet of observatories in space and on the ground observed a powerful flare on 21 April, as did TIMED, as part of the Max Millennium programme. This programme, which is sponsored :by NASA as part of the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSl) mission, focuses on solar active regions with the potential to produce storm
activity. Every 24 hours, an e-mail message with the current target is sent to participating observatories so that coordinated observations can be made. The Transition Region and Coronal Explorer spacecraft managed to secure a close-up look at the flare and its aftermath, while RHESSI recorded X-ray flashes that revealed impulsive energy-release processes in solar flares and SOHO acquired the 'big-picture' view which showed the ejection of electrified gas clouds into space. Several ground observatories are participating in the programme such as the Nobeyama Radio Observatory (Nagano, Japan) which tracked radio emission from the flare of 21 April and its aftermath. The observations by other spacecraft near Earth, like the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), the Imager for Magnetopause to Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE), and the Polarand Windspacecraft, will be examined to determine the effects of the solar flare on the Earth. "Detailed modelling using data from the many instruments will take a long time, but it may help us in understanding the basic processes at play during a solar explosion, called a solar flare" said Stein Vidar Hagfors Haugan, a SOHO scientist based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The idea is that observing more pieces of the same picture is a lot better than observing the same number of pieces of different pictures at different times." Preliminary TIMED data were featured in a special session at the Spring 2002 AGU meeting in Washington, DC. TIMED, the first of NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probe missions, began its science mission in January 2002 and studies the influences of both the Sun and of human beings on one of the Earth's least understood atmospheric regions, namely the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere/Ionosphere (MLTI) - the boundary or gateway between the Earth's environment and space - which is located approximately between 40 to 110 miles (60-180 kin) above the surface of the Earth. Space weather in the Earth's upper atmospheric regions can affect satellite communications and orbital tracking, spacecraft life times and the re-entry of manned vehicles. Yee commented: "When a change occurs in one re-
Bibliography Chapman, S. (ed.) 1959 Annals of the International Geophysical Year. New York: Pergamon Press, Vol 1. Sullivan, Walter 1961 Assault on the Unknown, McGraw-Hill, New York. Hyde, Margaret O. 1957 Exploring Earth and Space, McGraw-Hill, New York.
1.2
'Cosmic Vision': the New ESA Science Programme
[From ESA Press Release, 27 May 2002] Following the meeting of the ESA Council of Ministers in Edinburgh in November 2001, the Director of Science undertook a complete reassessment of the ESA Science Programme, in close collaboration with the science community, represented by the Space Science Advisory Committee, industry and delegations of Member States. The results of this exercise were presented as a proposal to the 99th meeting of the ESA Science Programme Committee, held in Andenes (Norway), 22-23 May. While noting the withdrawal by the Ex-
ecutive, during the meeting itself, of the Venus Express mission, the Committee strongly endorsed the plan proposed by the Executive and encouraged it to proceed vigorously with its implementation. The outcome of the ESA Council of Ministers meeting in Edinburgh was not as positive as expected for the Agency's Science Programme. It appeared that the money to be made available would not be sufficient to carry out the Long Term Programme that had been approved by the Science Programme Committee in October 2000, based on the financial assumptions approved by the same Committee in Bern in May 1999. Taken at their face value, the resources granted in Edinburgh meant the cancellation of at least one mission (e.g., Gala). At the conclusion of the exercise, following extensive consultations with all its partners, the Executive was able to propose a revised plan, which not only maintained the missions approved in October 2000, but also added the Eddington mission. The new plan, strongly endorsed by the Science Programme Committee on the occasion of its 99th meeting, contains the following missions, listed by production groups:
(i) Astrophysics Group 1 : XMM-Newton (1999), Integral (2002): X- and Gamma-Ray Observatories to study the 'violent' universe Group 2: Herschel, to explore the infrared and microwave universe; Planck, to study the cosmic microwave background; Eddington, to search for extra-solar planets and to study the stellar seismology. (The three missions to be launched in the 2007-2008 time frame.) Group 3: Gala, the ultimate galaxy mapper (to be launched no later than 2012). Missions will follow in the same group after 2012.
(ii) Solar System Science Group 1: Rosetta, a trip to a comet (2003); Mars Express, a Mars orbiter carrying the Beagle 2 lander (2003); (Venus Express, a Venus orbiter, would have been in this group.) Group 2: SMART-l, which will demonstrate
solar propulsion technology while on its way to the Moon (2003); BepiColombo, a mission to Mercury; Solar Orbiter, a mission to take a closer look at the Sun (missions to be launched in 2011-2012).
(iii) Fundamental Physics (one group only) STEP (2005) - the 'equivalence principle' test mission mission to test the nature of mass and the basis of mechanics, the mission being reliant on a decision by NASA, the major partner; SMART-2- a technology demonstration mission (2008) for L/SA, a joint mission with NASA, to search for gravitational waves (2011 ). In addition, ESA is committed to cooperate with NASA in the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), the successor to the Hubb/e Space Te/escope, with a launch in 2010. The production groups listed are more than scientific groupings as missions within each will be built synergistically using common technologies and engineering teams where possible. Such a scenario is going to rely on a specific commitment to new ways of working. Thus: • The implementation of BepiColombo and Solar Orbiter with international partners; both missions will be implemented as a single activity, leading to significant savings. • The implementation of Herschel/Planck and Eddington in a single project, reusing the same bus. This implies a launch of Eddington not later than 2008. • Major technical changes to reduce the cost of Gala without losing scientific content. Gala will be launched no later than 2012, the date agreed in Bern. • Significant gains from new technology to improve the cost effectiveness of spacecraft development and procurement. • The timely availability of payloads, one of the current pressing problems. • Acceptance of increased managerial complexity and overall 'programmatic' risk. Obviously, the implementation of such an ambitious programme will require the full commitment of all the involved parties, namely
industry, the Executive, the national funding agencies and the scientific community from the start. Initially the Executive had also included Venus Express in its proposal, work on which would have started immediately. However, the Director of the Science Programme felt that the necessary preconditions had not been met and therefore decided to withdraw the proposal. The Executive is going to have to maintain such a pragmatic attitude in the future if it is to implement the programme successfully. Increased 'programmatic' risk means that the programme will be less resilient in the face of events such as the Cluster mission loss in 1996 where a recovery was instituted within 4 years. The approved scenario, stretching over ten years, naturally includes some uncertainties. These will be exploited to the best advantage of the overall programme in a flexible way. Within each combined set of missions (Herschel/Planck/Eddington; BepiColombo~Solar Orbiter), the launch sequence will be optimized. Work will start immediately on Gala to ensure that the earlier launch dates remain a possibility. Launch dates of some major collaborative elements of the programme (e.g., STEP, NGST, LISA) are outside the control of ESA. Parallel (ESA-controlled) activities need to be carried out in a flexible way to adjust to the workload. Further international collaboration on missions and payloads could be beneficial. Specifically, a significant contribution from NASA on Solar Orbiter as part of the International Living with a Star (ILWS) programme may be linked to European participation in other elements of the American LWS/STP programmes. Speaking about the new plan, the Director of Science, David Southwood commented "Apparent miracles or no, one should realize that much of this is simply our building on the legacy of my predecessor, Roger Bonnet. Of course, we are pushing further. However, his culture of welcoming change and demanding commitment to science from everyone involved lies at the base of what we are doing." While the name for the new scientific programme 'Cosmic Vision' refers to the universe, the programme also provides for vision in technological and managerial innovation down here
on Earth. The overall funding assumption underlying the new plan is that the buying power will be preserved in the years following 2005, though this may be unduly optimistic. The Executive considers that no more proofs are needed that the science programme is an extremely good investment. More resources can only improve the leverage. Should they become available, the heavens would be ESA's limit - literally.
1.3 The Response of the Atmosphere to Recent Solar Storms [From NASA News, 28 May 2002] Data on the Sun's activities during a recent series of strong solar storms were gathered by the entire fleet of NASA's Sun-Earth Connection spacecraft. The atmospheric data from NASA's newest solar spacecraft, TIMED (Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics), is providing important new information on the final link in the chain of physical processes that connect the Sun and Earth. "Several NASA spacecraft observed this strong activity as it came from the Sun. Now TIMED provides the critical link between what happened on the Sun and Earth's response" said Sam Yee, leader of TIMELTs science team, at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "TIMED allows us to observe the global reaction of our upper atmosphere to solar activity" said Mary Mellott, TIMED programme scientist, at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. "One of the important current puzzles for the SunEarth Connection (SEC) community is determining why some solar activity has significant geospace impact and some does not. Being able to monitor the impact so well with TIMED should allow the scientific community to make significant progress toward solving this SEC mystery" A fleet of observatories in space and on the ground observed a powerful flare on 21 April, as did TIMED, as part of the Max Millennium programme. This programme, which is sponsored :by NASA as part of the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSl) mission, focuses on solar active regions with the potential to produce storm
activity. Every 24 hours, an e-mail message with the current target is sent to participating observatories so that coordinated observations can be made. The Transition Region and Coronal Explorer spacecraft managed to secure a close-up look at the flare and its aftermath, while RHESSI recorded X-ray flashes that revealed impulsive energy-release processes in solar flares and SOHO acquired the 'big-picture' view which showed the ejection of electrified gas clouds into space. Several ground observatories are participating in the programme such as the Nobeyama Radio Observatory (Nagano, Japan) which tracked radio emission from the flare of 21 April and its aftermath. The observations by other spacecraft near Earth, like the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), the Imager for Magnetopause to Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE), and the Polarand Windspacecraft, will be examined to determine the effects of the solar flare on the Earth. "Detailed modelling using data from the many instruments will take a long time, but it may help us in understanding the basic processes at play during a solar explosion, called a solar flare" said Stein Vidar Hagfors Haugan, a SOHO scientist based at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The idea is that observing more pieces of the same picture is a lot better than observing the same number of pieces of different pictures at different times." Preliminary TIMED data were featured in a special session at the Spring 2002 AGU meeting in Washington, DC. TIMED, the first of NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probe missions, began its science mission in January 2002 and studies the influences of both the Sun and of human beings on one of the Earth's least understood atmospheric regions, namely the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere/Ionosphere (MLTI) - the boundary or gateway between the Earth's environment and space - which is located approximately between 40 to 110 miles (60-180 kin) above the surface of the Earth. Space weather in the Earth's upper atmospheric regions can affect satellite communications and orbital tracking, spacecraft life times and the re-entry of manned vehicles. Yee commented: "When a change occurs in one re-