Call for Experiment Ideas 2013

pre-announcement.

ESA is preparing the release early in 2013 of a Call for Experiment Ideas in relation to the ¨AIDA¨ joint asteroid impact mission concept. Both European and non-European institutions with partners in Europe will be invited to participate. The Call will help ESA map the interests of the different communities (asteroid risk assessment, hypervelocity impacts and debris, and detector technology among others) that are addressed by the ¨AIDA¨ project.

The Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA) concept consists of two independent but mutually supporting missions, one of which is the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) an asteroid ¨kinetic impactor¨, and the second the Asteroid Impact Monitoring (AIM) mission, a in-depth asteroid and debris characterization spacecraft.
The project work is led by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), and the European Space Agency. It is supported by members of NASA centers -including Goddard Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory-, by the Côte d’Azur Observatory (OCA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
Theories and tools developed to understand collisional and impact physics are extensively used in an industrial context and constitute a field of major interest for space-related activities such as Solar System science, exploration, space debris mitigation and resource utilisation.  The AIDA mission, therefore, has the potential to address many technological and research goals serving several communities.  ESA´s Director General strategic plan, Agenda 2015, mandates ESA to investigate such opportunities.
In this context, the forecoming Call for Experiment will be looking at (ground or space-based) experiments, tests and payload ideas from different domains including hypervelocity impact and collisional physics, planetary defense, planetary science, human exploration and spacecraft operations related to the goals of the AIDA concept

This Call for Experiment Ideas will be released by ESA (www.esa.int/neo) on 1st February 2013 and be open for one month.  The received outline proposals will be used to map the communities interests and priorities.
More information on the current ¨Mission Options¨ will be provided on 15th January i.e. two weeks before the Call is opened.