Space instrumentation

02/12/2016
Trace Gas Orbiter at Mars. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

The ExoMars (ESA) mission has been in orbit around Mars since 19 October.

01/03/2016
Thales Alenia Space concept, from assessment phase. Copyright: Thales Alenia Space

Selected in 2014 as M3 mission of the ESA, the international consortium of this mission has recently passed the first requirements review (SRR its acronym in English).

25/02/2016
Copyright: TAS-F/Yannick Le Marchand

NOMAD (Nadir and Occultation for MArs Discovery), one of the the instrument aboard the ExoMars-TGO mission, will be launched together with Schiaparelli 14-25 March 2016  on a Proton rocket and will

PLATO2.0 (Planetary Transits and Oscillations of stars)

PLATO2.0 (Planetary Transits and Oscillations of stars)

Mission: PLATO2.0 - M3 in Cosmic Vision Programme (ESA)
Target: Exoplanetary systems
Description: 

The main objective is the discovery and characterisation of exoplanetary systems  like the solar system. More specifically, PLATO2.0 aims at detecting terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zone of solar-type stars through the characterization of their bulk properties.

Status: Advanced B2 (April 2016)
Launch date: 2026-01
05/05/2014
Artist's illustration of Rosetta's GIADA instrument. Credits: ESA/AOES Medialab

Rosetta’s Grain Impact Analyser and Dust Accumulator is ready for monitoring dust at comet 67P/CG, say the instrument’s Principal Investigator Alessandra Rotundi and Deputy Principal Investigator V

ESA-Anneke Le Floc'h

Members of ESA’s Solar Orbiter team watch expectantly as an essential part of the spacecraft is lowered into Europe’s largest vacuum chamber: the multi-layered shield that will protect their probe

JANUS (Jovis, Amorum ac Natorum Undique Scrutator)

Mission: JUICE (ESA)
Target: Ganymede, Europa, Callisto and the Jovian System
Description: 

Camera to Investigate Ganymede, Europa, Callisto and the Jovian System.                                                        

Status: Phase B2; Instrument Preliminary Design Review at end of 2016.
Launch date: 2022-01

OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System)

Mission: Rosetta (ESA)
Target: Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Description: 

OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System) is the scientific imaging system on the orbiter of ESA's Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Status: ESA’s historic Rosetta mission has concluded as planned, with the controlled impact onto the comet it had been investigating for more than two years.
Launch date: 2004-03

PHI (Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager)

Mission: Solar Orbiter (ESA)
Target: The Sun
Description: 

PHI is aimed at mapping the vector magnetic field and the line-of-sight velocity of the solar photospheric plasma. It includes two telescopes (a full disk telescope and a high resolution one) to image the Sun, a Fabry-Pérot interferometer to do spectroscopy and liquid-crystal, variable retarders to do polarimetry.

Status: Phase C/D; testing of the QM (Qualified Model) and building of FM (Flight model) and FS (space) models.
Launch date: 2019-02

IMaX (Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment)

Mission: Sunrise
Target: The Sun
Description: 

IMaX is aimed at obtaining quasi-monochromatic images of all four Stokes parameters at several wavelengths in order to study the magnetic field and the velocity of the solar photosphere.
Launches: Jun/2009 and Jun/2013. 

Status: A second Sunrise flight successfully took place on June, 2013.

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