Increase in ESA funding to back launch of ambitious space projects
The European Space Agency is to benefit from a larger funding allocation as it prepares for the launch of several new projects. ESA's space science programs suffered a three per cent dip in funding following a conference of the ESA's ministerial council in 1995. But although the ESA's total science budget is only about 12.5 per cent of NASA's science spending, a series of developments in recent months have freed up additional funds which are expected to go towards a number of ambitious space programmes and projects. One of the initiatives currently underway is the launch of the SMART-1 moon orbiter in 2002, the 2003 Mars Express orbiter, which will carry a small Mars lander, and the Rosetta mission, which will launch in 2003 and aims to become the first spacecraft to dispatch a lander to a comet nucleus. This decade will also see the launch of three astronomy satellites - INTEGRAL in 2002 and Herschel and Planck in 2007 - which will which will use gamma and infrared rays to survey the universe and map radiation left over from the Big Bang in unprecedented detail. The ESA also plans the launch of two 'cornerstone' missions from 2008-2013, each of which has a budget of up to 550 million euro. The first of these projects is Bepi Colombo. The mission, planned for 2009, aims to explore the planet Mercury using three different spacecraft, a large and small orbiter and a small lander which will touch down on the planet in order to analyse its surface composition and internal structure. The ESA has collaborated with the Japanese space agency ISAS on the development of the smaller orbiter, the Mercury magnetospheric orbiter, which will study the planet's complex magnetic field. GAIA, an astronomy satellite scheduled for launch in 2012 to carry out astrometric mapping of the heavens with unprecedented accuracy, will follow the Bepi Colombo cornerstone mission. The aim of GAIA will be to map the positions and motions of over one billion stars and other celestial objects to an accuracy of one 360-millionth of a degree. This will allow direct, accurate measurement of the positions of and distances to stars as far away as the centre of the galaxy, and precise measurements of their motions. The results of these measurements will allow new tests of the accuracy of Einstein's theory of relativity and pave the way for a huge leap in understanding of the structure and dynamics of stars and objects in our and other galaxies. ESA will also collaborate with NASA on two smaller missions. Europe will play a junior role in the Next generation space telescope project, the planned successor to the Hubble space telescope, with an estimated launch date of 2008. The new telescope aims to use an eight-meter wide mirror, cooled using a high-powered cryogenic cooling system, which will allow scientists to observe galaxies so distant that they will be able to observe their formation following the big bang. ESA will also work with NASA on the Laser interferometer space antenna (LISA) project, planned for 2011. The project aims to launch three small spacecraft into solar orbit in order to detect gravity waves - weak ripples in space time which Einstein predicted, but which have never yet been observed. The three craft will use precise optical systems and laser beams exchanged with mirrors in order to allow the detection of much weaker gravity waves than earth-based laser instruments. It is hoped that this technology will enable scientists to detect gravity waves given off by the black holes which reside at the centre of most galaxies.