Call for submission of Intents to Propose experiments for the BepiColombo mission to Mercury
3 July 2001
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of Japan announce a call for submission of Intents to Propose for experiments for the BepiColombo mission to Mercury. The deadline for the submission of Intents to Propose (ITP) experiments for the BepiColombo cornerstone mission is 23 July 2001.BepiColombo, the fifth cornerstone mission of ESA's Horizon 2000 science programme, is devoted to the thorough exploration of Mercury and its environment, with the aim of understanding the processes of planetary formation and evolution in the hottest part of the protoplanetary nebula.
BepiColombo consists of three spacecraft science elements: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) and the Mercury Surface Element (MSE). ESA is responsible for MPO and MSE, whereas MMO is expected to be contributed by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of Japan.
By means of this letter, we intend to probe the interest of the European and Japanese science communities in proposing and providing scientific instrumentation for any element of the mission. We are also interested in ascertaining the readiness level of the instruments and understanding the amount of technical development needed to transform a concept into an experiment. We earnestly ask for an honest assessment of your needs. It will underpin our assessment of the needs for advanced technical development in critical areas.
This exercise is preliminary to the payload instruments proposal and the competitive selection, which are scheduled to take place in Europe and in Japan, in the course of 2002 (MPO and MSE) and 2003 (MMO), respectively.
The deadline for the submission of Intents to Propose (ITP) experiments for the BepiColombo cornerstone mission is 23 July 2001.
European scientists should address their letters to:
Dr Marcello Coradini
Solar System missions coordinator, ESA HQ
Email:Marcello.Coradini
esa.int
with copy to:
Dr Rejean Grard
BepiColombo project scientist, ESTEC
Email:Rejean.Grardesa.int
Japanese scientists should address their letters to:
Prof. Hitoshi Mizutani
ISAS
Email:mizutaniplaneta.sci.isas.ac.jp
with copy to:
Prof. Toshifumi Mukai
ISAS
Email:mukaistp.isas.ac.jp
For further details please consult the document: Call for submission of Intents to Propose experiments for the BepiColombo mission to Mercury