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The Comet Interceptor Mission

2024; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 220; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/s11214-023-01035-0

1572-9672

G. H. Jones, C. Snodgrass, C. Tubiana, M. Küppers, Hideyo Kawakita, L. M. Lara, Jessica Agarwal, Nicolás André, N. Attree, U. Auster, S. Bagnulo, Michele T. Bannister, Arnaud Beth, Neil E. Bowles, A. J. Coates, L. Colangelí, C. Corral van Damme, V. Da Deppo, Johan De Keyser, Vincenzo Della Corte, N. J. T. Edberg, M. R. El‐Maarry, Sara Faggi, M. Fulle, Ryu Funase, M. Galand, Charlotte Goetz, O. Groussin, Aurélie Guilbert-Lepoutre, Pierre Henri, Satoshi Kasahara, Ákos Keresztúri, M. Kidger, Matthew M. Knight, Rosita Kokotanekova, Ivana Kolmašová, Konrad J. Kossacki, E. Kührt, Yuna G. Kwon, F. La Forgia, A. C. Levasseur-Regourd, M. Lippi, A. Longobardo, Raphael Marschall, Marek Morawski, Olga Muñoz, Antti Näsilä, H. Nilsson, Cyrielle Opitom, Mihkel Pajusalu, A. Pommerol, Lubomír Přech, N. Rando, F. Ratti, Hanna Rothkaehl, A. Rotundi, M. Rubı́n, Naoya Sakatani, Joan-Pau Sanchez Cuartielles, Cyril Simon Wedlund, A. Stankov, N. Thomas, I. Tóth, Gerónimo Villanueva, Jean‐Baptiste Vincent, M. Volwerk, P. Wurz, Arno Wielders, Kazuo Yoshioka, Konrad Aleksiejuk, F. Álvarez, C. Amoros, Shahid Aslam, B. Atamaniuk, Jędrzej Baran, Tomasz Barciński, T. Beck, Thomas Behnke, M. Berglund, Ivano Bertini, Marcin Bieda, Piotr Bińczyk, Martin-Diego Busch, Andrei Cacovean, M. T. Capria, C. Carr, J. M. Castro, Matteo Ceriotti, Paolo Chioetto, Agata Chuchra-Konrad, Lorenzo Cocola, Fabrice Colin, Chiaki Crews, V. Cripps, E. Cupido, Alberto Dassatti, B. Davidsson, Thierry De Roche, Jan Deca, Simone Del Togno, Frederik Dhooghe, K. L. Donaldson Hanna, A. I. Eriksson, A. Fedorov, E. Fernández-Valenzuela, Stefano Ferretti, Johan Floriot, Fabio Frassetto, Jesper Fredriksson, Philippe Garnier, Dorota Gaweł, V. Génot, T. Gerber, Karl‐Heinz Glaßmeier, Mikael Granvik, B. Grison, H. Gunell, Tedjani Hachemi, Christian Hagen, Rajkumar Hajra, Yuki Harada, J. Hasiba, Nico Haslebacher, Miguel Luis Herranz De La Revilla, Daniel Hestroffer, T. Hewagama, Carrie E. Holt, S. F. Hviid, Iaroslav Iakubivskyi, L. Inno, P. G. J. Irwin, Stavro Ivanovski, Jiri Jansky, I. Jernej, H. Jeszenszky, J. A. Juárez Jiménez, L. Jordá, Mihkel Kama, Shingo Kameda, Michael S. P. Kelley, K. Klepacki, T. Kohout, Hirotsugu Kojima, Tomasz Kowalski, Masaki Kuwabara, Michał Ładno, Gunter Laky, H. Lämmer, Radek Lán, B. Lavraud, M. Lazzarin, Olivier Le Duff, Qiu-Mei Lee, Cezary Lesniak, Zoe Lewis, Zhong-Yi Lin, Tim Lister, S. C. Lowry, W. Magnes, Johannes Markkanen, Ignacio Martinez Navajas, Zita Martins, Ayako Matsuoka, Barbara Matyjasiak, C. Mazelle, E. Mazzotta Epifani, Mirko Meier, H. Michaelis, M. Micheli, A. Migliorini, Aude-Lyse Millet, F. Moreno, S. Mottola, Bruno Moutounaick, K. Muinonen, Daniel Müller, Go Murakami, Naofumi Murata, Kamil Myszka, S. Nakajima, Zoltán Németh, Artiom Nikolajev, Simone Nordera, D. Ohlsson, Aire Olesk, H. Öttacher, Naoya Ozaki, C. Oziol, Manish Patel, Aditya Savio Paul, Antti Penttilä, Claudio Pernechele, Joakim Peterson, Enrico Petraglio, Alice Maria Piccirillo, Ferdinand Plaschke, Szymon Polak, Frank Postberg, Herman Proosa, S. Protopapa, W. Puccio, Sylvain Ranvier, Sean N. Raymond, Ingo Richter, Martin Rieder, Roberto Rigamonti, Irene Ruiz-Rodriguez, O. Santolı́k, Takahiro Sasaki, R. Schrödter, K. A. Shirley, Andris Slavinskis, Bálint Sódor, J. Souček, Peter Stephenson, Linus Leo Stöckli, Paweł Szewczyk, Gabor Troznai, Luděk Uhlíř, Naoto Usami, Aris Valavanoglou, Jakub Vaverka, Wei Wang, Xiao-Dong Wang, Gaëtan Wattieaux, Martin Wieser, Sebastián Wolf, Hajime Yano, Ichiro Yoshikawa, Vladimir Zakharov, Tomasz Zawistowski, Paola Zuppella, G. Rinaldi, Hantao Ji,

Planetary Science and Exploration

Abstract Here we describe the novel, multi-point Comet Interceptor mission. It is dedicated to the exploration of a little-processed long-period comet, possibly entering the inner Solar System for the first time, or to encounter an interstellar object originating at another star. The objectives of the mission are to address the following questions: What are the surface composition, shape, morphology, and structure of the target object? What is the composition of the gas and dust in the coma, its connection to the nucleus, and the nature of its interaction with the solar wind? The mission was proposed to the European Space Agency in 2018, and formally adopted by the agency in June 2022, for launch in 2029 together with the Ariel mission. Comet Interceptor will take advantage of the opportunity presented by ESA’s F-Class call for fast, flexible, low-cost missions to which it was proposed. The call required a launch to a halo orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point. The mission can take advantage of this placement to wait for the discovery of a suitable comet reachable with its minimum $\varDelta $ Δ V capability of $600\text{ ms}^{-1}$ 600 ms − 1 . Comet Interceptor will be unique in encountering and studying, at a nominal closest approach distance of 1000 km, a comet that represents a near-pristine sample of material from the formation of the Solar System. It will also add a capability that no previous cometary mission has had, which is to deploy two sub-probes – B1, provided by the Japanese space agency, JAXA, and B2 – that will follow different trajectories through the coma. While the main probe passes at a nominal 1000 km distance, probes B1 and B2 will follow different chords through the coma at distances of 850 km and 400 km, respectively. The result will be unique, simultaneous, spatially resolved information of the 3-dimensional properties of the target comet and its interaction with the space environment. We present the mission’s science background leading to these objectives, as well as an overview of the scientific instruments, mission design, and schedule.