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| Solar Orbiter Announcement of Opportunity for Members of the SPICE Science Steering Committee |
| This Announcement of Opportunity (AO) solicits proposals for members of the Solar Orbiter SPICE Science Steering Committee. The AO is open to scientists of any nationality. The deadline for submission of proposals is 15 September 2012, 12:00 CEST. |
| Date: 20 Jul 2012 |
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| ESA contracts Astrium UK to build Solar Orbiter |
| ESA has awarded the contract to build its next-generation Sun explorer to Astrium UK. Solar Orbiter will investigate how the Sun creates and controls the heliosphere, the extended atmosphere of the Sun. |
| Date: 26 Apr 2012 |
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| Dark and bright: ESA chooses next two science missions |
ESA PR 25 2011
The powerful influence of the Sun and the nature of the mysterious 'dark energy' motivate ESA's next two science missions. Solar Orbiter and Euclid were selected today by ESA's Science Programme Committee for implementation, with launches planned for 2017 and 2019. |
| Date: 04 Oct 2011 |
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| ESA chooses three scientific missions for further study |
| Dark energy, habitable planets around other stars, and the mysterious nature of our own Sun, have been chosen by ESA as candidates for two medium-class missions to be launched no earlier than 2017. |
| Date: 19 Feb 2010 |
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| Details of M-class Cosmic Vision candidates now available |
| A series of formal presentations on the 6 medium-class candidate missions in the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 plan was made to a large gathering of Europe's scientific community on 1 December. This meeting marks the end of the assessment phase and the start of the down-selection process. The assessment study reports are now available. |
| Date: 02 Dec 2009 |
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| ESA announces preliminary payload selection for Solar Orbiter |
| A suite of 10 instruments has been selected as the scientific payload for the ESA Solar Orbiter mission. The payload complement will support scientific investigations ranging from near-Sun and out-of-ecliptic in-situ measurements to remote-sensing observations of the Sun and its environs. |
| Date: 20 Mar 2009 |
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| Important Notice: Revised Science Management Plan for Solar Orbiter |
| As already stated in the Announcement of Opportunity for the Solar Orbiter payload,
the draft Science Management Plan for Solar Orbiter had not formally been approved
by the Science Programme Committee at the time of the AO release. |
| Date: 20 Dec 2007 |
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| Announcement of Opportunity for the Solar Orbiter Payload |
| Note - Deadline for submission has passed
This Announcement of Opportunity (AO) solicits proposals of scientific investigations for the Solar Orbiter mission. Solar Orbiter is the next solar-heliospheric mission in the Science Programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). It has recently been redefined as part of a joint ESA-NASA programme called Heliophysical Explorers that comprises ESA's Solar Orbiter and NASA's Solar Sentinels as a highly synergetic programme. The Solar Orbiter mission is devoted to solar and heliospheric physics. It will be carried out as an ESA-led mission open to the worldwide science community. |
| Date: 18 Oct 2007 |
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| Second Solar Orbiter Workshop Report |
| The Second Workshop devoted to ESA's Solar Orbiter Mission was held at the Divani Palace Acropolis in Athens, Greece, on 16-20 October 2006. The workshop attracted almost 200 registered participants, with many young scientists and non-Europeans, a clear demonstration of the strong international support for Solar Orbiter within the solar-heliospheric science community. The meeting was an unqualified success, both from a scientific point of view, and - perhaps even more importantly - from a programmatic one. |
| Date: 17 Nov 2006 |
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| Call for Submission of Letters of Intent to Propose Instruments for the Solar Orbiter Mission |
| Note - Deadline for submission has passed
Subject to resource availability and schedule viability, Solar Orbiter is under consideration to be the next mission in the Science Directorate's planning for the current Cosmic Vision Programme. The Science Programme Committee (SPC) of the European Space Agency has requested that Solar Orbiter remain targeted to a May 2015 launch date, even though current constraints on financial planning can accommodate a launch no earlier than 2017. |
| Date: 11 Jul 2006 |
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| The Current Status of Solar Orbiter |
| The Science Programme Committee of ESA met on 15/16 May 2006 and reviewed the status of Solar Orbiter. There is little doubt on the scientific priority of the Solar Orbiter mission, a mission to go inside the orbit of Mercury to get close to the Sun and will climb out of the ecliptic plane to peek at the polar regions.
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| Date: 31 May 2006 |
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| Assessment Phase Final Report |
| The assessment study of the Solar Orbiter has addressed all mission areas, from the scientific
requirements to the payload complement, the space and ground segments, and the respective
technology readiness, including all corresponding programmatic aspects.
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| Date: 17 Jan 2006 |
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| Payload Definition Document V4.1 |
| The Payload Definition Document (PDD) has been reissued as version 4.1. |
| Date: 26 Aug 2005 |
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| Solar Orbiter Executive Report |
| The Science Payloads and Advanced Concepts Office has undertaken a detailed assessment of the Solar Orbiter mission. Its recently published findings are summarised here. |
| Date: 29 Jun 2005 |
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| News Update - Assessment Phase |
| The Solar Orbiter project is now well into the Assessment Phase. Work on development of possible mission scenarios and payload definition is currently being undertaken by various ESA bodies and industrial partners. |
| Date: 14 Jun 2004 |
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| Solar Orbiter Payload Studies: Call for Letters of Interest |
| The Solar Orbiter mission was approved in October 2000
by ESA's Science
Programme Committee as a flexi-mission for launch in the
2008-2013 time-frame.
ESA intends to set up one or more Working Groups to
support studies of
instrumentation of the kind envisaged for Solar Orbiter,
and now invites members
of the scientific community wishing to participate in
this activity to submit 'Letters of
Interest'. The deadline for receipt of these Letters
is 15 December 2001. |
| Date: 01 Nov 2001 |
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| ESA's next solar mission attracts Sun followers to Tenerife |
| The launch date of Solar Orbiter, ESA's next mission to study the Sun, should be no later than 2010. This was one of the key messages to emerge from the first Solar Orbiter workshop which was held in Tenerife last month. |
| Date: 26 Jun 2001 |
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| Solar encounter: the first Solar Orbiter workshop |
| The Solar Orbiter was selected three months ago as an ESA F-mission for the time frame 2008 - 2013. It is now up to the solar/heliospheric community to exploit this excellent opportunity to the full. To that effect, the first Solar Orbiter workshop is now being organised. |
| Date: 24 Jan 2001 |
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| Let's go! ESA's Future Science missions get full approval |
| At its 92nd meeting, on 11-12 October 2000, ESA's Science Programme Committee took the final
step to consolidate the future of the science programme by unanimously endorsing the
recommendations of the Space Science Advisory Committee of 15 September, which proposed a
package to be implemented in the years 2008-2013. |
| Date: 13 Oct 2000 |
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