The Ariel exoplanetary mission seeks an industrial contractor to build the spacecraft

With the launch scheduled for 2029, ESA’s mission has moved from the study phase to the implementation phase

Ariel, an acronym for Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, will address one of the key themes of ESA’s Cosmic Vision program: what are the conditions for planet formation and the birth of life? The mission to investigate what exoplanets are made of, how they formed and how they evolve by studying a diverse sample of about a thousand planetary atmospheres in the visible and infrared wavelengths at the same time. With the launch scheduled for 2029, the mission has moved from the study phase to the implementation phase, so now an industrial contractor must be selected to build the ship.

Ariel is the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and thermal structure of exoplanets. Photo: ESA.

Ariel is the first mission dedicated to measuring the chemical composition and thermal structure of exoplanets, connecting them to the surroundings of the progenitor star. In this way, it will allow us to better understand how the planet’s chemistry is associated with the environment in which it was formed or if the type of star affects physics and chemistry in the evolution of the planet.

Observations of these worlds will provide information on the early stages of planetary and atmospheric formation, as well as their subsequent evolution, which will also help us place our solar system in the larger context of the cosmos.

In 2018, Ariel was the fourth middle-class science mission chosen in ESA’s Cosmic Vision program. Its adoption took place during the meeting of the Agency’s Scientific Program Committee, held on November 12, where the foundations for its construction were laid.

Ariel will be ESA’s third exclusively exoplanetary mission to be launched in ten years. Each of them faces a unique aspect of exoplanets. Cheops, the satellite for the characterization of exoplanets launched in December 2019, already offers first-rate scientific data. Plato, the Planetary Transits and Oscillations of Stars mission, will be launched in 2026 to locate and study extrasolar planetary systems, particularly rocky planets in the habitable zone of solar-type stars, at a distance where liquid water could exist on the surface of the planet. planet. Ariel, scheduled to launch in 2029, will focus on warm and temperate planets, ranging from super-Earths to gas giants, which orbit near their parent stars, using their well-blended atmospheres to decipher their global composition.

In the coming months, the industry will be invited to submit bids to supply the ship’s hardware for Ariel. By the summer of next year the industrial contractor will be selected for construction.

Ariel will be ESA’s third exclusively exoplanetary mission to be launched in ten years. Photo: ESA.

The mission’s payload module, which includes a one-meter cryogenic telescope and associated scientific instruments, will be provided by the mission consortium, which includes more than 50 institutes from 17 European countries. NASA will also contribute to the payload.

Ariel will be able to detect the signs of known components of the atmospheres of planets, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide or methane. It will also detect more exotic metal compounds to decipher the global chemical environment of the distant solar system. In the case of a number of planets, Ariel will also carry out a detailed study of their cloud systems and analyze atmospheric variations, both daily and seasonal.

Ariel is expected to be launched aboard ESA’s new Ariane 6 rocket from the European spaceport of Kur in French Guiana. Operate from an orbit around the second Lagrange point, L2, 1.5 million kilometers behind the Earth as seen from the Sun, in an initial four-year mission. Share your journey into space with the Comet Interceptor mission.