ESA to further develop three new mission concepts

The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected three mission concepts to further develop over the next few years from a group of 25 proposals provided by scientific communities.

SPace Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (Spica), EnVision mission to Venus, and the Transient High Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (Theseus) concepts will be developed as part of ESA’s fifth medium-class mission under its Cosmic Vision science programme.

After carrying out parallel studies, ESA expects to select a final concept by 2021 and intends to launch it in 2023.

ESA science director Günther Hasinger said: “Each of the selected proposals has high scientific value, and would ensure a continuation of Europe’s expertise in the fields of planetary science, astrophysics and cosmology.”

Theseus aims to monitor transient events in the high-energy universe across the whole sky and over the entire cosmic history.

It specifically seeks to make a complete census of gamma-ray bursts from the universe’s first billion years in order to provide insight on the lifecycle of the first stars.

Theseus also aims to follow up on gravitational wave observations by detecting and identifying radiation from sources identified by other detectors.

Spica has been developed by a European and Japanese collaboration with an aim to provide a significant improvement in far-infrared spectroscopic, as well as survey capabilities over Nasa’s Spitzer and ESA’s Herschel space observatories.

EnVision intends to discover why Earth and Venus evolved so differently, even with the various common characteristics.

It is based on ESA’s Venus Express mission that focused primarily on atmospheric research.

The concept is expected to be executed along with Nasa. It aims to determine the nature and present state of geological activity on Venus and its relationship with the atmosphere to better understand the different evolutionary pathways of the two planets.