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Announcement of Opportunity 2009
14 May 2009
Please note that this Announcement of Opportunity has been closed.
ESA's Directorate of Human Spaceflight has released a set of three coordinated Announcements of Opportunity. The announcements cover life sciences research on the International Space Station (ISS), or using bed rest as a spaceflight analogue or sounding rockets, as well as physical sciences using the ISS and/or sounding rockets. Letters of Intent are due on 15 June 2009. The deadline for submitting proposals is 14 September 2009.
ESA Announcement of Opportunity 2009
In 2008, several significant additions contributed by Europe and Japan were made to the already existing infrastructure of the International Space Station.
These events marked the start of a new phase of the utilisation of the ISS by all the International Partners and by ESA in particular. Research facilities were commissioned and first series of experiments started. Further facilities and series of experiments are already scheduled for flight in the coming years.
In the framework of the Utilisation Programme of ESA, the ELIPS programme (European Life and Physical Sciences in Space) projects that have been selected from previous research announcements constitute the basis of the current research plan are now in their flight implementation phase and will make use of the different facilities available as appropriate, mainly between 2009 to 2013 but also beyond these dates. In parallel, other ESA research activities, independent of the ISS, are still being pursued.
By the very nature of ESA’s ELIPS programme and owing also to coordination initiatives jointly with the International Partners to the ISS project (Russia, the United States, Canada and Japan) the vast majority of the projects that are implemented have a distinctive international dimension. This approach prevents the duplication of instruments and serves a larger scientific and industrial research community. The level of effectiveness that could already be demonstrated has encouraged the ISS International Partners to promote the further development of international teams to propose projects and coordinate the implementation of selected projects between the ISS partners.
The full range of ISS and other research facilities are proposed for utilisation in a set of coordinated Announcements of Opportunity as outlined below:
- AO-2009-ILSRA - Life Sciences themes using the ISS are addressed in the International Life Science Research Announcement (ILSRA) coordinated between the ISS partners and released in parallel with them.
- AO-2009-PHYS-BIOSR - Research in biology using sounding rockets and research in physical sciences using either the ISS or sounding rockets is subject of an ESA specific Announcement of Opportunity.
- AO-2009-BR - The utilisation of the bed rest facilities in Europe, often to prepare for human physiology projects on the ISS, is subject of a third specific Announcement of Opportunity that can be found here.
- CORA - In contrast, the utilisation of ground based facilities, the drop tower and the parabolic flight campaigns is the subject of a Continuously Open Research Announcement (CORA) by ESA and independent of the present announcement. Proposals can be submitted to the CORA at any time.
- A call for proposals for projects utilising the specific environment and living conditions of the Concordia Station in Antarctic may be released later this year.
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