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Published January 24, 2024 | Version Published
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The Comet Interceptor Mission

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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 𝛥V capability of 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.

Copyright and License

© The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Acknowledgement

We dedicate this work to the memory of Prof. Anny-Chantal Levasseur-Regourd (1945–2022) and Dr. Maria Teresa Capria (1954–2022). Both were unfailing supporters of the Comet Interceptor mission.

Funding

GHJ and CS acknowledge the support of the UK Space Agency; GHJ and AJC are grateful to STFC for partial support through consolidated grant ST/S000240/1. GHJ was supported for part of this work through the Visiting Scientist program of the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern. This work was supported by the Italian Space Agency (Contracts ASI-INAF n. 2020-4-HH.0, Addendum n. 2020-4-HH.1-2020 and 2020-4-HH.2-2021, and ASI-INAF agreement I/024/12/0) and by the European Space Agency (Contracts ESA-CNR n. 4000136673/21/NL/IB/ig and 3-17164/21/NL/GP/pbe COMET INTERCEPTOR-IT-3 – Comet Interceptor Dust Impact Effect Study. Work in Japan was supported by MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI Grants 21H04509, 22H01280, and 17KK0097. Co-authors in France acknowledge the support of CNES for the Comet Interceptor mission. Work in Germany was financially supported by the German Ministerium fuer Wirtschaft und Energie and the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt under contract 50OW2101. Support by the Swedish National Space Agency through Grant 108/18 is acknowledged. Work at IRF-Uppsala is supported by the Swedish National Space Agency, DNr 2021-00047. Work at BIRA-IASB acknowledges BELSPO funding via PRODEX PEA 4000133230. Work at BIRA-IASB acknowledges BELSPO funding via PRODEX PEA 4000133230 and via B2/191/P1/SeVoCo. MRELM is partly supported by the internal grant 8474000336-KU-SPSC. The work at Imperial College London was supported by the UK Space Agency [grant numbers ST/W002604/1, ST/V002767/1 and ST/X002349/1] and by ESA [4000130837/20/NL/IB/ig]. ZL acknowledges support by STFC [ST/W507519/1]. Work at the Open University, UK was supported by ESA [4000134679/21/NL/GP/pbe]. CG acknowledges the Research Fellowship Programme at the European Space Agency (ESA) for support. AGL has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No 802699). The work of AK was supported by the PRODEX 4000132506 project of ESA and the KKM of Hungary. Work at IAA is supported by project PGC2018-099425-B-I00 (MCI/AEI/FEDER, UE). Work in Switzerland was supported by SSO/SNF (200020_207312)/ State of Bern/ ESA. CSW and MV thank the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) P32035-N36 and P35954-N. This work was supported by NASA HQ, Washington DC USA, and JPL/NASA. The work of RH is funded by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB, grant no. SB/S2/RJN-080/2018), a statutory body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India through the Ramanujan Fellowship. KM’s research supported by the Academy of Finland grants No. 1345115 and 1336546, and AP by their grant no. 325805. TK’s work was supported by ESA EXPRO funds, the Academy of Finland project No. 335595, the NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science, and it was conducted within institutional support RVO 67985831 of the Institute of Geology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. MTB appreciates support by the Rutherford Discovery Fellowships from New Zealand Government funding, administered by the Royal Society Te Apārangi. Centro de Química Estrutural acknowledges the financial support of FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (UIDB/00100/2020 and UIDP/00100/2020), and Institute of Molecular Sciences acknowledges the financial support of FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (LA/P/0056/2020). MRELM acknowledges funding from the KU internal grant (8474000336-KU-SPSC). MK gratefully acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101079231 (EXOHOST), and from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee (grant number 10051045).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Additional details

Identifiers

ISSN
1572-9672
PMCID
PMC10808369
DOI
10.1007/s11214-023-01035-0

Funding

United Kingdom Space Agency
ST/W002604/1
Science and Technology Facilities Council
ST/S000240/1
Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
ASI-INAF 2020-4-HH.0
European Space Agency
ESA-CNR 4000136673/21/NL/IB/ig
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
21H04509
Centre National d'Études Spatiales
Ministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR)
50OW2101
Swedish National Space Board
108/18
Belgian Federal Science Policy Office
4000133230
European Research Council
Külgazdasági és Külügyminisztérium
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
Swiss Space Office
FWF Austrian Science Fund
P32035-N36
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Science and Engineering Research Board
SB/S2/RJN-080/2018
Research Council of Finland
1345115
Czech Academy of Sciences
RVO 67985831
Royal Society Te Apārangi
Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
ASI-INAF 2020-4-HH.1-2020
Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
ASI-INAF 2020-4-HH.2-2021
Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
ASI-INAF I/024/12/0
National Institute for Astrophysics
European Space Agency
ESA-CNR 3-17164/21/NL/GP/pbe COMET INTERCEPTOR-IT-3
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
22H01280
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
17KK0097
Swedish National Space Board
2021-00047.
Belgian Federal Science Policy Office
B2/191/P1/SeVoCo
Khalifa University of Science and Technology
8474000336-KU-SPSC
United Kingdom Space Agency
ST/V002767/1
United Kingdom Space Agency
ST/X002349/1
European Space Agency
4000130837/20/NL/IB/ig
Science and Technology Facilities Council
ST/W507519/1
European Space Agency
4000134679/21/NL/GP/pbe
European Research Council
802699
United Kingdom Space Agency
4000132506
European Space Agency
4000132506
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
PGC2018-099425-B-I00
FWF Austrian Science Fund
P35954-N
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Research Council of Finland
1336546
Research Council of Finland
325805
Research Council of Finland
335595
Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
UIDB/00100/2020
Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
UIDP/00100/2020
European Research Council
101079231
UK Research and Innovation
10051045

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Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)