ESA Science & Technology - 2nd Workshop on planning for a joint scientific space mission - <br> An initiative of the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences

First announcement and call for papers for second workshop

2nd  Workshop
Planning for a joint scientific space mission
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) - European Space Agency (ESA)
Copenhagen (Denmark)
23-24 September 2014

http://sci.esa.int/esa-cas-workshop
http://jm.nssc.ac.cn

Update 17 March 2015: The list of participants is now available as a pdf file.

Update 19 November 2014: The presentations and posters are now available here.

Update 17 September 2014: Registration for the workshop is now closed.

Update 10 September 2014: The preliminary programme is available. See the right-hand menu.

Update 4 July 2014: Submission of abstracts for contributed presentations is closed. Registration to only attend the workshop and the visit to Lund University is still open.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration (ESA-SRE) and the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) have agreed to explore the possibility of identifying a scientific mission which could be jointly implemented by ESA-SRE and the Chinese National Space Science Centre (NSSC) under the CAS.

The scientific communities in Europe and China are invited to present their ideas about such joint scientific mission at the 2nd ESA-CAS workshop that will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 23-24 September, 2014.

Contents of this page

Purpose and Goals

The goal is to jointly define such a mission through cooperation between the European and Chinese scientific communities. Activities would follow a collaborative approach through all the phases of the mission: study, definition, implementation, operations and scientific exploitation.

ESA and CAS have agreed that the first step in this process is to promote the interaction between Chinese and European scientists who would be interested in responding to a joint call for proposals for such a mission. For this reason ESA and CAS are organising two workshops, one in China and one in Europe, separated by approximately 7 months.

The 1st workshop was hosted by NSSC in Chengdu, China, on 25-26 February 2014. During this workshop European and Chinese scientists presented ideas for possible cooperative missions, paving the way for potential partnerships; in addition, initial guidelines on the technical and programmatic constraints that need to be considered by potential proposers were provided to the community. After this first workshop, scientists were encouraged to start discussions with potential counterparts, looking for potential shared interests towards a joint mission proposal.

The 2nd workshop, to be organised by ESA with the support of the ESA Danish delegation in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 23-24 September 2014, will focus on:

• Presentations by joint European and Chinese teams on specific scientific objectives and early mission concepts for an ESA-CAS joint mission. These will allow ideas for potential joint missions to be further elaborated and scientific cooperation between European and Chinese teams to be extended;
• Provision of more detailed information on the technical and programmatic requirements that need to be fulfilled by the proposed missions and about the terms, conditions and planning for the forthcoming Call.

Following the 2nd workshop ESA and NSSC will decide upon the issue of a joint Call for Missions. Proposed missions would have to comply with a number of criteria (to be further refined by the time of the Call). These include:

• Proposals will have to be co-signed by two Co-PIs, one affiliated with an ESA Member State institution, the other with a Chinese institution;
• Proposals will have to explicitly demonstrate compliance with the joint mission profiles defined by ESA and NSSC (detailed definition of these profiles will be part of the proposal information package);
• Data policy will have to comply with ESA and NSSC rules;
• Joint scientific preparation and exploitation will be enforced: all stages (including the data exploitation) will have to be carried out by joint teams. Data rights will have to be in all cases shared;
• Payload provision has to be joint.

Format of the 2nd workshop

The 2nd workshop will be organised over 2 full days, 23 and 24 September 2014 in Copenhagen. Information about the 2nd Workshop is to be posted on the dedicated ESA based web page http://sci.esa.int/esa-cas-workshop and at http://jm.nssc.ac.cn. The workshop will include two main elements:

1. Presentations from ESA and CAS to introduce the draft joint call (including applicable technical and programmatic constraints)
2. Contributed talks on possible joint mission proposals by Chinese and European joint teams.

Participation will be open to the international community and will require registration (see below).

Contributed presentations

Compared with the 1st workshop, there will be a smaller number of oral presentations at this meeting, with more time given to the speakers to discuss their mission concepts.

Prospective speakers are requested to submit an extended abstract (2 pages maximum) of their intended contribution for the 2nd workshop according to the instructions given below. The abstract must be co-signed by both a European prospective speaker and a Chinese prospective speaker. It is assumed that, should they later decide to submit a proposal in response to the Call for Missions, the two co-signatories would also co-sign the related proposal.

Prospective speakers are also invited to consider carefully the “Information about the boundary conditions for the candidate missions” below. Ideas for missions clearly incompatible with these boundary conditions will not be considered for presentation at the workshop.

Oral presentations at the workshop will have to be conducted by both the European and the Chinese co-signatories of the abstract. Speakers can choose how to split the presentation, i.e. which part will be addressed by whom.

Abstracts not accepted for oral presentation can be presented at the workshop as posters.

Registration and submission of extended abstracts

Scientists interested in participating in the 2nd workshop must register electronically, by using the online form that is accessible below and from the right-hand menu (the form opens in a new window).

In addition, scientists interested in presenting a contribution should submit an extended abstract (2 pages maximum) in PDF format plus a two-page brief Curriculum Vitae (CV) of two Co-presenters (one page for each) in the same file. The extended abstract should include (at least) the following information:

• Overview
• Science objectives
• Suggested payload
• Mission concept
• Cooperation plan
• Heritage from previous studies/missions

Submissions of extended abstracts are accepted exclusively in electronic form, using the online form that is accessible below and from the right-hand menu (the form opens in a new window).
 

Selection of extended abstracts

The submitted extended abstracts will be scrutinized by the Programme Organising Committee (POC) of the workshop during July and the authors shall be informed about the POC decisions by mid-August.

Information about the boundary conditions for the candidate missions

To ensure that the Call will result in feasible, cost-constrained mission concepts that could be implemented within the pre-defined programmatic constraints, only candidate mission concepts that comply with the boundary conditions being defined by ESA and CAS will be considered.

Detailed information about constraints will be progressively defined in the coming months and will be consolidated by the time of the Call for Missions.

The size of the contribution from ESA is envisaged to be comparable to that of a small (S-class) mission in the Science Programme, with a similar sized contribution from the CAS.

As is usual for ESA science missions, the ESA Member States are assumed to provide the European contribution to the payload elements.

The mission's science objectives could be in astronomy, solar system science or fundamental physics, with no a priori restriction on the science areas covered, with the exception of missions to the Moon and Mars, which are, for both Agencies, covered under different programmes.

For planning purposes a launch in 2021 is envisaged.

The Call, once issued, will only solicit proposals that can be implemented within the constraints of the joint mission profiles defined by ESA and NSSC. Compliance with the constraints deriving from the joint mission profiles will be strictly enforced during the evaluation of the proposals.

Space segment requirements:

• Spacecraft launch mass < 300kg;
• Payload mass < 60kg;
• Payload power < 65W;
• Payload technology readiness: TRL ≥ 6 (ISO scale) for all payload elements;
• Platform technology readiness: TRL ≥ 7 (ISO scale) for platform equipment;
• Development schedule: < 4 years;
• Lifetime in orbit: 2-3 years;
• Potential launchers: From Kourou: Soyuz as passenger, VEGA as passenger or shared launch; From China: Long March 2C or 2D possibly as passenger;
• Orbit: No a priori limitation, provided compatibility with launchers and schedule constraints;
• Additional requirements: Compatible with the applicable debris regulations; Free from ITAR restrictions.

Timeline and deadlines

Workshop venue

The workshop will take place at Eigtveds Pakhus, a historical building complex located at the waterfront in downtown Copenhagen, next to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A warehouse built in the mid-1700s, the Eigtveds Pakhus was restored and reopened as a conference center in 1982.

Workshop venue address: Eigtveds Pakhus, Asiatisk Plads 2, indgang 6, 1448 København K

Hotel accomodation

A block booking has been made at the Scandic Hotel in Copenhagen for workshop attendees at a negotiated rate. The booking form is available in the links on the right; it includes the address and the hotel contact details. The hotel is located in the city centre and is 10 kilometres from the airport, and less than one kilometre from the Central Station.

Hotel address: Scandic Copenhagen Vester Søgade 6 DK-1601 København V

Directions

On each map link, switch mode of transport to see corresponding travel times.

To the workshop venue:
From the airport: https://goo.gl/maps/E8UfU
From Copenhagen Central Station: https://goo.gl/maps/S5zZn
From the hotel: https://goo.gl/maps/yDKrz

Visit to Lund University

A visit to Lund University on 25 September, notably to the Institute of Astronomy and Space Physics, will be organised by the Swedish Delegation to ESA for interested participants. The visiting group will leave Copenhagen early in the morning and return in the late afternoon. A more detailed programme will be provided at the end of June and interested participants can confirm their intention to join the visit at that time.

Contacts

Participants from Europe can contact Luigi Colangeli (Luigi.Colangeliesa.int) for further information.

Participants from China can contact Lilin Sun (sunllnssc.ac.cn) for further information.

Programme

Programme for the 2nd workshop, 23-24 September 2014