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| DARWIN Mission Summary Status |
| Darwin is one of the most challenging space projects ever considered by the European Space Agency. Its principal objectives are to detect Earth-like planets around nearby stars, to analyze the composition of their atmospheres and to assess their ability to sustain life as we know it. The Darwin mission is conceived as a nulling interferometer operating in L2 which makes use of on-axis destructive interferences to extinguish the stellar light while keeping the off-axis signal of the orbiting planet.
The objective of this document is to summarize the status of the activities related to Darwin that have been recently completed by ESA. Most activities have been performed under ESA contracts in European Industries and Scientific Institutes. These activities cover the development of core technologies, the design and manufacture of critical payload subsystems, tests of technology demonstration breadboards, the development of software simulators, studies of candidate Darwin payload and spacecraft architectures, and definitions of guidance, navigation and control systems for multi-spacecraft missions. |
| Publication date: 19 Feb 2007 |
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| DARWIN System Assessment Study - Alcatel Summary Report |
This report is the summary of the work done in the DARWIN System Assessment Study and presents its main results: selected concept and architecture, preliminary design, main performance at functional and interface levels.
This study has spanned around 12 months, featuring:
- a Phase 1 devoted to requirements review and architecture trade-of: it has led to the selection
of the non planar arrangement
- a Phase 2 devoted to preliminary design: together with the consolidation of the selected
arrangement, it has produced the payload and spacecraft preliminary design, including
performance budgets
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| Publication date: 15 Feb 2007 |
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| DARWIN System Assessment Study - Alcatel Summary Report |
This report is the summary of the work done in the DARWIN System Assessment Study and presents its main results: selected concept and architecture, preliminary design, main performance at functional and interface levels.
This study has spanned around 12 months, featuring:
-
a Phase 1 devoted to requirements review and architecture trade-of: it has led to the selection of the non planar arrangement
- a Phase 2 devoted to preliminary design: together with the consolidation of the selected arrangement, it has produced the payload and spacecraft preliminary design, including performance budgets
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| Publication date: 15 Feb 2007 |
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| DARWIN System Assessment Study - Astrium Summary Report |
| The objective of the DARWIN System Assessment Study is the definition of the overall architecture and the preliminary design of the DARWIN mission. This includes an operational orbit at the Second Lagrange Point of the Sun-Earth system (L2), a launch and transfer scenario, and a spacecraft and payload design which ensure that the mission requirements can be fulfilled. The specifications of the subsystems have to be derived, critical items and drivers have to be identified, and required technology development activities have to be proposed in order to allow for establishing a roadmap towards the verification of the science performance feasibility.
The DARWIN System Assessment Study is divided into two phases. Phase 1 is concerned with a review and trade-off of different concepts concerning the payload, the space segment, and the mission. Phase 2 is devoted to a detailed design of the payload and the space segment, as well with a consolidated mission design. A third phase is foreseen for design consolidation. |
| Publication date: 12 Dec 2006 |
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| DARWIN System Assessment Study - Astrium Summary Report |
| The objective of the DARWIN System Assessment Study is the definition of the overall architecture and the preliminary design of the DARWIN mission. This includes an operational orbit at the Second Lagrange Point of the Sun-Earth system (L2), a launch and transfer scenario, and a spacecraft and payload design which ensure that the mission requirements can be fulfilled. The specifications of the subsystems have to be derived, critical items and drivers have to be identified, and required technology development activities have to be proposed in order to allow for establishing a roadmap towards the verification of the science performance feasibility.
The DARWIN System Assessment Study is divided into two phases. Phase 1 is concerned with a review and trade-off of different concepts concerning the payload, the space segment, and the mission. Phase 2 is devoted to a detailed design of the payload and the space segment, as well with a consolidated mission design. A third phase is foreseen for design consolidation. |
| Publication date: 12 Dec 2006 |
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| ESA SP-1296: ESA's Report to the 36th COSPAR Meeting |
Scientific editor: R. Marsden
Editor: A. Wilson
The report for the 36th COSPAR Meeting covers, as in previous issues, the missions of the Scientific Programme of ESA in the areas of astronomy, Solar System science and fundamental physics. This year's COSPAR meeting will take place only weeks before the end of the SMART-1 mission to the Moon, a technology project that provided the first European look at our natural satellite from lunar orbit.In October of this year, a new mission will be launched: COROT. ESA, together with a number of countries, is contributing to this unique, French-led project that will provide an insight into the interior of the stars, by means of the asteroseismology technique successfully applied by SOHO. COROT will also perform a systematic search for new extrasolar planets using photometric transits.
The record number of ESA Science Programme missions in operation established at the time of the last report was maintained in 2006 (Huygens having been replaced in the list by Venus Express). Eleven different missions, involving 14 operating spacecraft, are providing excellent science to the worldwide scientific community. The Research and Scientific Support Department (RSSD) is responsible for the science operations of these missions and makes every effort to ensure the best possible science return. The Department also supports the realisation of approved projects in all phases of their development. |
| Publication date: 15 Jun 2006 |
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| ESA SP-1276: ESA's Report to the 35th COSPAR Meeting |
Scientific editor: A. Gimenez
Editor: A. Wilson
The report for the 35th COSPAR Meeting covers, as in previous issues, the missions
of the Scientific Programme of ESA in the areas of astronomy, Solar System
exploration and fundamental physics. This year's COSPAR Meeting occurs only
weeks after the Saturn-orbit insertion of the Cassini spacecraft - carrying Europe's
Huygens probe to explore the atmosphere of Titan - and at the same time as the
launch of the second satellite of the Double Star project. |
| Publication date: 15 Jun 2004 |
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| ESA SP-1259: ESA's Report to the 34th COSPAR Meeting |
Scientific editor: B. Foing
Editor: A. Wilson
The report to the 34th COSPAR Meeting covers the missions of the Scientific Programme of ESA in the areas of astronomy, Solar System exploration and fundamental physics. |
| Publication date: 01 Oct 2002 |
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| Darwin: Peering Through the Interplanetary Dust Cloud |
| ESA has identified interferometry as one of the major goals of the Horizon 2000+ Programme. Infrared interferometers are highly sensitive astronomical instruments that enable us to observe
terrestrial planets around nearby stars. It is in this context that the infrared space-interferometry mission IRSI/Darwin is being studied. The current design calls for a constellation of six free-flying telescopes using 1.5 metre mirrors, plus one hub and one master spacecraft. As the baseline trajectory, an orbit about the second colinear libration point of the Earth-Sun system has been selected. |
| Publication date: 01 Feb 2001 |
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| Darwin - The Infrared Space Interferometry Mission |
| Darwin is a suggested ESA Cornerstone mission, with the express purpose of achieving an precedented spatial resolution in the infrared
wavelength region, leading to new astrophysics discoveries and the carrying out of the first direct search for terrestrial exoplanets. The detection and study of the latter promises to usher in a new era in
science and will have an impact on a broad spectrum of science and technology. |
| Publication date: 01 Aug 2000 |
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| Could We Search for Primitive Life on Extrasolar Planets in the Near Future? |
| We revisit the idea of R. Bracewell* and R. Angel et al.*, that exoplanets around nearby stars could be detected in the IR (6-17 micron) and their spectra analyzed, searching for CO2, H2O, O3, CH4, and NH3 spectral features. The presence, or absence, of CO2 would be the indication of a deep similarity, or difference, with the atmospheres of telluric planets in the Solar System. That of H2O would indicate a habitable planet and O3 would reveal a large photosynthetic activity, indicating the presence of life based on carbon chemistry. As do these authors, we suggest an IR nulling interferometer pointing to the star and working as a coronograph. Our main contribution is to propose an observatory made of four to five 1-m class telescopes observing from 4-5 AU to avoid the solar zodiacal light (ZL) background at 10 micron instead of four 8-m telescopes observing from the vicinity of Earth. This allows the mission to be feasible in the near future. The discovery of ozone on an extrasolar planet would be a major scientific event. The concept, named DARWIN, is under consideration by the European Space Agency for its Horizon 2000 Plus program. * Angel, J.R. et al. 1986. "A space telescope for IR spectroscopy of Earth-like planets", Nature 322, 341-343
Bracewell, R.N. 1978. "Detecting nonsolar planets by spinning IR interferometer", Nature 274, 780-781 |
| Publication date: 15 Oct 1996 |
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