Airbus wins contract for major European space telescope mission

10th December 2021

By: Rebecca Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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Airbus Defence and Space, a division of the Europe-based global major aerospace group Airbus, has been contracted by the European Space Agency (ESA) to build the spacecraft for the agency’s latest mission in its Cosmic Vision programme. That mission, which is the fourth medium-class mission within Cosmic Vision, is designated ‘Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey’ (Ariel). The contract is worth some €200-million.

Exoplanets are planets found outside our Solar System, and more than 5 000 are now known. The purpose of Ariel is to study the formation, composition and evolution of exoplanets, by means of surveying some 1 000 of these worlds, in both visible and infrared wavelengths. Its survey will concentrate on warm and hot planets and is the first mission focused on precisely measuring the thermal structures and chemical composition of ‘transiting’ exoplanets, that is, exoplanets which pass across the face of their own star, as seen from ground-based or space-based telescopes.     

“In our Toulouse [France] facilities, the largest space site in Europe, we have all the resources, facilities and expertise to design, manufacture and integrate the spacecraft and actively support ESA with payload development,” highlighted Airbus head of space systems Jean-Marc Nasr. “Airbus Stevenage [UK] is fully integrated in the prime team for the engineering of the avionics, Radio Frequency communication and electrical design of the platform, as successfully proven for the development of [ESA Milky Way star survey mission] Gaia.”

“With this milestone for the Ariel mission we celebrate the continuation of the outstanding relationship with our industry partners to keep Europe at the forefront of excellence in the field of exoplanet research well into the next decade and beyond,” affirmed ESA science director Günther Hasiinger. The development and manufacture of the spacecraft and its payload module will involve a consortium of more than 60 companies, led by Airbus.

Ariel is scheduled to be launched in 2029, by an Ariane 6 rocket. It will be positioned at Lagrangian point L2, which lies some 1.5-million kilometres away, or about four times further away from the Earth than the Moon is. L2 is away from the Sun, not towards the Sun.

A Lagrangian point is a point in space where gravitational forces and orbital motions of bodies balance each other, allowing spacecraft located at them to, so-to-speak, hover in position. Consequently, Ariel will not have to orbit the Earth and so will be able to carry out continuous observations of an exoplanet over a period of at least ten hours up to three days. Ariel will have a mission duration of four years, which could be extended by at least another two years.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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