The European Space Agency (ESA) plans to launch a unique comet hunting mission in 2029.
The assignment, called Comet Interceptor, was approved on Wednesday (June 8) at ESA’s Science Program Committee meeting. It will be a collaboration between ESA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The mission will consist of three probes – the main spacecraft and two smaller satellites – which will be launched into space together with the European exoplanet hunter Ariel.
The unusual thing about Comet Interceptor is that it will not know its target before launch. The probe will travel to Lagrange Point 2 (L2), a gravitationally stable point 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth in the direction away from Solar.
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L2 is one of five points between the earth and the sun where the gravitational pulls of the two bodies create balanced conditions. A spacecraft in this region orbits the sun in sync with the earth while being protected from the sun’s glare, making this region a sought-after destination for astronomy missions. (NASAs James Webb Space Telescope is one of the residents on L2.)
For Comet Interceptor, L2 will only be a temporary destination. The spacecraft will be waiting there for a unique target to arrive in the interior Solar systemeither and comet from the edges of the solar system, or an object from even further away, from interstellar space, such as the famous ‘Oumuamuawhich passed 15 million miles (24 million km) away from Earth in 2017.
ESA created headlines in 2014 with its Rosetta missionwho placed Philae lands on the surface of Comet 67P. In 1986, ESA’s Giotto probe made the first close observations of a comet as it flew past the famous Haleys comet. However, these comets are so-called short-period comets that visit the inner solar system regularly and have flown close to the sun many times before. Every encounter with the sun changes the comet’s chemistry, ESA said in a statement yesterday, making it less and less representative of the chemical state of the young solar system.
“A comet in its first orbit around the sun would contain unprocessed material from the dawn of the solar system,” said Michael Küppers, a researcher at Comet Interceptor at ESA. in the statement (opens in new tab). “Studying such an object and taking samples of this material will help us understand not only more about comets, but also how the solar system was formed and developed over time.”
ESA expects that the Comet Interceptor will not have to wait too long for an exciting target to emerge, as new comets are currently being detected at a rate of at least one per year. Such a time frame would be too short to build and launch a dedicated spacecraft. However, Comet Interceptor will be able to meet the visitor immediately.
When the Comet Interceptor reaches its goal, the three spacecraft will separate and image the body synchronized from several angles to create a three-dimensional profile, ESA says in the statement.
ESA will build the main spacecraft and one of the auxiliary probes, while JAXA, which has landed spacecraft on two separate asteroids with Hayabusa 1 and Hayabusa 2 mission, will be responsible for the other smaller satellite.
Each of the probes will be equipped with different instruments to analyze the comet’s surface composition, shape and structure as well as the dust and gas from its coma, the tail-like cloud coming from the surface.
The three satellites together will weigh less than 2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms), ESA said.
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