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Microarcsecond astrometric observatory Theia: from dark matter to compact objects and nearby earths

2016; SPIE; Volume: 9904; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1117/12.2234425

1996-756X

F. Malbet, Alain Léger, G. Anglada‐Escudé, A. Sozzetti, Douglas Spolyar, Lucas Labadie, Mike Shao, B. Holl, Renaud Goullioud, Antoine Crouzier, Céline Bœhm, A. Krone-Martins,

Astro and Planetary Science

Theia is a logical successor to Gaia, as a focused, very high precision astrometry mission which addresses two key science objectives of the ESA Cosmic Vision program: the nature of dark matter and the search for habitable planets. Theia addresses a number of other science cases strongly synergistic with ongoing/planned missions, such as the nature of compact objects, motions of stars in young stellar clusters, follow-up of Gaia objects of interest. Theia s "point and stare" operational mode will enable us to answer some of the most profound questions that the results of the Gaias survey will ask. Extremely-high-precision astrometry at 1-μas level can only be reached from space. The Theia spacecraft, which will carry a 0.8-m telescope, is foreseen to operate at L2 for 3,5 years. The preliminary Theia mission assessment allowed us to identify a safe and robust mission architecture that demonstrates the mission feasibility within the Soyuz ST launch envelope and a small M-class mission cost cap. We present here these features of the mission that has been submitted to the last ESA M4 call in January 2015.