Related papers: Odyssey: a Solar System Mission
Odyssey 2 will be proposed in December 2010 for the next call of M3 missions for Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. This mission, under a Phase 0 study performed by CNES, will aim at Neptune and Triton. Two sets of objectives will be pursued. The…
The laws of gravitation have been tested for a long time with steadily improving precision, leading at some moment of time to paradigmatic evolutions. Pursuing this continual effort is of great importance for science. In this communication,…
The POLAR Investigation of the Sun (POLARIS) mission uses a combination of a gravity assist and solar sail propulsion to place a spacecraft in a 0.48 AU circular orbit around the Sun with an inclination of 75 degrees with respect to solar…
Solar Orbiter, the first mission of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme and a mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA, will explore the Sun and heliosphere from close up and out of the ecliptic plane. It was launched…
Voyager 3 is a concept mission that sends a space telescope to the interstellar medium in a reasonable amount of time. Voyager 3 would take a direct image of an exoplanet using the solar gravitational lensing at the distance of 550…
We propose the concept of a space mission to probe the so called flyby anomaly, an unexpected velocity change experienced by some deep-space probes using earth gravity assists. The key feature of this proposal is the use of GNSS systems to…
The present OSS mission continues a long and bright tradition by associating the communities of fundamental physics and planetary sciences in a single mission with ambitious goals in both domains. OSS is an M-class mission to explore the…
The discovery of extra-solar planets is one of the greatest achievements of modern astronomy. The detection of planets with a wide range of masses demonstrates that extra-solar planets of low mass exist. In this paper we describe a mission,…
Solar Ring (SOR) is a proposed space science mission to monitor and study the Sun and inner heliosphere from a full 360{\deg} perspective in the ecliptic plane. It will deploy three 120{\deg}-separated spacecraft on the 1-AU orbit. The…
The Solar Close Observations and Proximity Experiments (SCOPE) mission will send a spacecraft into the solar atmosphere at a low altitude of just 5 R_sun from the solar center. It aims to elucidate the mechanisms behind solar eruptions and…
We summarise the scientific and technological aspects of the SAGAS (Search for Anomalous Gravitation using Atomic Sensors) project, submitted to ESA in June 2007 in response to the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 call for proposals. The proposed…
We present initial results of an ongoing engineering study on the feasibility of a space mission to the focal region of the solar gravitational lens (SGL). The mission goal is to conduct exoplanet imaging operations at heliocentric…
The trajectory of an interplanetary spacecraft can be used to test gravitation in the Solar System. Its determination relies on radio tracking and is limited by the uncertainty on the spacecraft non-gravitational acceleration. The addition…
NASA's Kepler mission will fly a photometer based on a wide-field Schmidt camera with a 0.95 m aperture, staring at a single field continuously for at least 4 years. Although the mission's principal aim is to locate transiting extrasolar…
The Doppler-tracking data of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft show an unmodelled constant acceleration in the direction of the inner Solar System. Serious efforts have been undertaken to find a conventional explanation for this effect, all…
In this paper, we present an overview of ASTROD (Astrodynamical Space Test of Relativity using Optical Devices) and ASTROD I mission concepts and studies. The missions employ deep-space laser ranging using drag-free spacecraft to map the…
The High Inclination Solar Mission (HISM) is a concept for an out-of-the-ecliptic mission for observing the Sun and the heliosphere. The mission profile is largely based on the Solar Polar Imager concept: initially spiraling in to a 0.48 AU…
Kepler's primary mission is a search for earth-size exoplanets in the habitable zone of late-type stars using the transit method. To effectively accomplish this mission, Kepler orbits the Sun and stares nearly continuously at one…
Solar Orbiter is the first space mission observing the solar plasma both in situ and remotely, from a close distance, in and out of the ecliptic. The ultimate goal is to understand how the Sun produces and controls the heliosphere, filling…
CASTAway is a mission concept to explore our Solar System's main asteroid belt. Asteroids and comets provide a window into the formation and evolution of our Solar System and the composition of these objects can be inferred from space-based…