Science and Technology Facilities Council
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UK Space Agency to explore the Universe with Cosmic Vision

The UK Space Agency has awarded £3.65M to help UK scientists prepare for three new space missions designed to unlock the secrets of the Sun; seek out distant planets that could harbour life; and search for dark energy – the elusive constituent thought to make up 74% of the mass-energy in the Universe.

The missions – Euclid, PLATO and Solar Orbiter - are part of ESA’s Cosmic Vision programme and have been selected from more than 50 original ideas to go forward for detailed technical and cost assessments. In June 2011, ESA will decide which two of the three missions to build and launch between 2017 and 2020. The UK Space Agency helps fund the European Space Agency’s highly successful series of space science missions – which include Mars Express and the Herschel space telescope - through its subscription to the ESA club.

Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts said: “We are committed to supporting Britain's thriving space industry, and this money will help to ensure that UK scientists working on these ambitious projects maintain our country's position as leaders in space science within Europe. These exciting missions will help unlock some of the greatest mysteries of our Universe, and have huge potential in furthering our knowledge of space science.”

Euclid
Euclid would address key questions relevant to fundamental physics and cosmology, namely the nature of the mysterious dark energy and dark matter. Current theory suggests that these substances dominate the ordinary matter of stars and planets. In particular, dark energy has been proposed to explain the observation made by the Hubble Space telescope that – contrary to expectations - the expansion of the Universe seems to be faster now than it was billions of years ago. Euclid would effectively look back in time about 10 billion years, covering the period over which dark energy seems to have accelerated the expansion of the Universe, and map the distribution of galaxies to reveal the underlying ‘dark’ architecture of the cosmos.

As currently planned, Euclid would use two different methods to build its map. One of the methods - weak gravitational lensing - maps the dark matter and measures dark energy by measuring the distortions of galaxy images. The other method involves studying baryonic acoustic oscillations - wiggle patterns, imprinted in the clustering of galaxies, which provide a standard against which to measure dark energy and expansion in the Universe.

If selected for development, the UK and other national partners would fund the scientific instrument development and ground segment activities for Euclid. Nine UK institutions (University College London, Durham, the Institute for Astronomy in Edinburgh, UK ATC, Oxford, Portsmouth, Hertfordshire, the Open University and the University of Cambridge) have involvement in instrument development or data/processing/analysis activities. The UK Principal Investigator for Euclid is Prof Mark Cropper of UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory. The funding from the UK Space Agency will help the team prepare for next year’s competition.

PLATO (PLanetary Transits and Oscillations of Stars)

PLATO is designed to seek out planets far beyond our solar system, orbiting distant stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way. It would be powerful enough to detect rocky planets in the habitable zone - the region around a star where liquid water can exist: in other words, to find new earths if they are out there. Using a suite of space telescopes on a single spacecraft, PLATO would detect these planets as they pass in front of their stars, blocking the star light and causing a brief and tiny dimming. The mission would focus on solar systems close enough to be scanned for bio-signatures, or signs of life by later missions and ground-based telescopes.

If selected for development, the UK, together with other ESA member states, will design PLATO’s scientific instruments and finance their development while ESA would commission the spacecraft to be built in European industry. Seven UK Institutions (Queens University Belfast, Queen Mary University of London, University College London, University of Leicester, Open University, University of Cambridge and Warwick University) have involvement in PLATO and Prof Don Pollacco of Queens University Belfast is the Principal Investigator of the international PLATO Science Consortium. Don is already heavily involved in planet-hunting as he leads the highly successful Super WASP ground-based telescope arrays which have discovered twenty-six ‘exo-planets’ so far. The funding from the UK Space Agency will help prepare Plato for next year’s competitive decision.

Solar Orbiter

Solar Orbiter is designed to travel closer to our own star than any previous Sun-watching mission. It would use an elliptical orbit to take it up to the Sun’s higher latitudes to image, for the first time ever, the polar regions of our star. This special path would also allow Solar Orbiter to keep pace with the Sun’s rotation so that it could track specific features below it for several weeks at a time.

As it travels around the Sun, bombarded by the harsh solar wind, Solar Orbiter will carry out in-depth studies of the connections between the Sun and space and could provide major breakthroughs in our understanding of how the inner Solar System works and is driven by solar activity. The unique design of the spacecraft would allow it to withstand the scorching heat on the surface facing the Sun and the cold of space on the opposite surface which would always remain in shadow.

The UK is already playing a major role in the design of Solar Orbiter as EADS Astrium Limited - based in Stevenage, Hertfordshire - is leading the industrial study of the spacecraft under contract from ESA. Meanwhile, UK scientists (University College London, Imperial College London and STFC Rutherford Laboratory) are involved in four out of the ten possible instruments which the spacecraft would carry to study the Sun. Professor Chris Owen from UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory is the Principal Investigator for the proposed Solar Wind Analyser while Dr Tim Horbury from Imperial College London is the Principal Investigator for the spacecraft’s proposed Magnetometer.

Notes for editors

Images

Images are available from the UK Space Agency press office

Links

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMA7J2IU7E_index_0.html


UK and Cosmic Vision

PLATO (PLanetary Transits And Oscillations of Stars)

It is envisaged that the PLATO spacecraft would be launched between 2017-20, on a Russian Soyuz Fregat rocket, and would cost ESA 475M Euros. In addition, the UK, together with other member states, will design the scientific instruments and finance their development.

The Principal Investigator of the international PLATO Science Consortium is Professor Don Pollacco of Queens University Belfast. He is supported by Professor Ian Roxburgh of Queen Mary, University of London.

Professor Alan Smith, of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, will lead the Focal Plane Array development for the detection system, with support from Leicester and the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, as well as international support from Belgian and Spanish institutes.

Agreements with UK industry are being set up to maximise the ability of industry to exploit the new instrument technology. For example, ESA is funding the development of Charge-Coupled Devices for the detection system by Chelmsford company e2V, and e2V will retain the IP of the technologies developed.

The Ground System Exoplanet Analysis software development programme is being co-ordinated by Dr Nic Walton at the IoA in Cambridge. The PLATO mission will develop the skills of around 45 UK PhD students, mainly on data processing/analysis, and 20 technicians.

Contacts:

Professor Don Pollacco
Astrophysics Research Centre
Queens University Belfast
Email: d.pollacco@qub.ac.uk
 

Professor Alan Smith
Mullard Space Science Laboratory
UCL
Tel: 01483 204147
Email: as@mssl.ucl.ac.uk
 

Dr Nic Walton, Institute of Astronomy
University of Cambridge
Tel 01223 337548
Email naw@ast.cam.ac.uk
 


Prof Ian W Roxburgh
Astronomy Unit, Queen Mary University of London
Tel: 020 7882 5441 (office)
Mobile:07802 419567
Email: i.w.roxburgh@qmul.ac.uk
 

Solar Orbiter

The UK has leading roles on two of the four instruments it is supporting, one of which has three components. The UK instrument involvement is:

• SWA (Solar Wind Analyser) is an instrument suite with three components to measure the different elements of the solar wind by using in situ observations and characterising their behaviour under different solar conditions. Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL UCL), will lead the SWA suite, provide one of the instruments i.e. EAS, the Electrical Analyser System and contribute towards another. The consortium led by MSSL includes French, Italian and US partners.

•MAG (Magnetometer) will have two sensors located on a deployable boom in the shadow of the spacecraft, i.e. away from the Sun, enabling it to sample the magnetic field in situ and providing important diagnostic information. Imperial College London have responsibility for the provision of the MAG instrument

•SPICE (Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment) is a telescope with a grating spectrograph and two active pixel sensor detectors that will provide images of the solar disk and corona. SPICE will be able to study features both on the surface and out in the corona and to look at the connection between them. The SPICE instrument if being led by a team from the US (SWRI, Boulder) with STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory providing the active pixel sensors, front end electronics and thermal analysis work.

•EUI (Extreme Ultraviolet Imager) will be a suite of imaging telescopes that will provide images of the hot and cold layers of the solar atmosphere and of the solar corona showing the dynamics in fine detail and providing the link between the solar surface and outer corona. The EUI is being led Belgium with the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL UCL) providing the science lead and contributing to the common electronics box and software.

Contacts

SWA: Professor Chris Owen
MSSL
Tel: 01483 204281
Email: cjo@mssl.ucl.ac.uk
 
01483 204281

MAG: Dr Tim Horbury
Imperial College London
Tel: 0207 594 7676
Email: t.horbury@ic.ac.uk
 

SPICE: Dr Andrzej Fludra
Rutherford Appleton laboratory
Tel: 01235 445679
Email: andrzej.fludra@stfc.ac.uk


EUI: Professor Louise Harra,
MSSL
Tel: 01483 204141
Email: lkh@mssl.ucl.ac.uk


The funding totalling £2.7M is up to 30th September 2011 and will support the instrument developments through to the Instrument Preliminary Design Reviews.

Euclid
The planned launch is 2017-18, and the mission is estimated to cost ESA 500 million Euros. In addition the UK and other national partners will fund the scientific instrument development and ground segment activities. Nine UK institutions (University College London, Durham, the Institute for Astronomy in Edinburgh, UK ATC, Oxford, Portsmouth, Hertfordshire, the Open University and the University of Cambridge) have involvement in instrument development or data/processing/analysis activities.

The UK PI for Euclid is Professor Mark Cropper of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL. Professor Cropper is also a co-PI in the international Euclid Imaging Consortium, and the Consortium Project Manager is Richard Cole, also of MSSL.

Contacts:
Professor Mark Cropper
MSSL, UCL,
Email: msc@mssl.ucl.ac.uk 

UK Space Agency

The UK Space Agency is at the heart of UK efforts to explore and benefit from space. It is responsible for all strategic decisions on the UK civil space programme and provides a clear, single voice for UK space ambitions.

The UK civil space programme budget is currently in the order of £270m per year – about 76% of which is the UK’s contribution to European Space Agency (ESA) projects.

Second only to the USA in space science, the UK's thriving space sector contributes £6.5bn a year to the UK economy and supports 68,000 jobs.

The UK Space Agency:

•Co-ordinates UK civil space activity
•Encourages academic research
•Supports the UK space industry
•Raises the profile of UK space activities at home and abroad
•Increases understanding of space science and its practical benefits
•Inspires our next generation of UK scientists and engineers
•Licences the launch and operation of UK spacecraft
•Promotes co-operation and participation in the European Space programme

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