"A day can press down all human things, and a day can raise them up"

catdynamics — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 23:31:26 +0000

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious ship which will peer far and wide...

The European Space Agency is being very sensible and mapping out its schedule for large and medium science missions for the medium term, under the Cosmic Vision program.

In particular, the first of the large missions, L1, has been chosen and is JUICE, Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer - a Jovian orbiter scheduled for launch in 2022, to study the three outer Galilean Moons.

Athena

The other mission concepts which competed for the L1 mission slot were Athena, a reformulated large X-ray observatory - Athena is revisit of the IXO concept; and, LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, aka The Coolest Mission Concept Evah!

eLISA

LISA transmogrified into NGO, UGH, which then became eLISA [sic].

Much as Athena came from IXO which sprang from XEUS which was Con-X...

So, ESA has to decide what to do after JUICE, there are two more launch slots for large missions in the Cosmic Vision, L2 and L3, aimed for nominal launch dates in 2028 and 2034 respectively...

The Science Themes for the L2 and L3 missions meeting was last month in Paris.
White Papers for concepts were solicited in the spring of 2013 and some of the 30 submitted were selected for presentation at the meeting.
At this meeting were (some) members of the Senior Survey Committee, the ominously named SSC.

The SSC is to recommend to the ESA Science Programme Committee (SPC) two science themes for the L2 and L3 slots, by the end of October.
October ends tomorrow.
Then the SPC makes a choice next month.

I hope you are keeping track of the TLAs, there will be a quiz later.
There is a good summary of this process at the Planetary Society blog here.

High stakes stuff, whole careers hinge on these decisions.

Well... my fbiends are gossiping, and the word on the street is that Athena is the SSC recommendation for the L2 slot in 2028, and that eLISA is tentatively recommended for the L3 slot in 2034.

Or, to be specific, the themes of a high energy astrophysical observatory, and a low frequency gravitational radiation detector are recommended, respectively.

This is not official, and not final, and still has to go to ESA's Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC natch), the Director of Science (D/SRE - don't ask) and then the SPC.
Which implies none of the 28 new concepts were selected.

I was at the 1st International LISA Symposium at the Rutherford Lab outside Oxford, in 1997.
We thought there was a good chance LISA would have launched by now.
That was a good meeting.

"But the gods embrace men of sense and abhor the evil."

catdynamics Wed, 10/30/2013 - 19:31