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Planetary Instruments based on Optical technologies for an iNnovative European Exploration Using Rotational Seismology

Project description

Shaking up planetary seismology with new European instrumentation

Earth is not the only celestial body with subsurface elastic waves. Although planetary seismology is not a new field, in contrast to our knowledge of Earth’s seismic activity, we still know very little about the interiors of other planets and celestial objects. Two of the three instruments on NASA’s InSight mission to Mars are European-led, including the SEIS seismometer. Keeping that European leadership momentum going, the EU-funded PIONEERS project is developing two advanced seismometers with innovative data analysis capabilities, one for planets and one for small bodies such as asteroids. The technology will support understanding of planet formation, the search for habitable planets and planetary defence.

Objective

Planetary seismology is a key technique to image the internal structure of planetary objects, and target fundamental science objectives from the formation of planetary systems to the characterization of habitable worlds. With the SEIS instrument on board InSight mission, Europe has demonstrated its leadership in developing such instrumentation. PIONEERS will allow Europe to keep its technological advance and to enter a new realm of planetary exploration with an innovative ground motion instrumentation concept relying on high precision sensors based on optical interferometry, and on 6 degrees of freedom (6 DoF, with 3 translations and 3 rotations) measurements that provide substantial more science return compared to usual seismometers. The PIONEERS project will develop two 6 DoF instruments for measuring ground deformations of planetary objects. The first instrument is a very low noise 6-DoF engineering model dedicated to imaging the internal structure of terrestrial planets. The second one is a high TRL, reduced scale version of the same instrument dedicated to the exploration of small bodies, in order to support planetary defense and asteroid resources applications. We will build the instruments with the expertise in planetary seismology and high performance optical technologies provided by the PIONEERS partners. Innovative data analysis methods, as well as Earth analogue field testing will validate the expected increase of performance level by two orders of magnitude. Cost optimization, ITAR-free strategy and adaptation to CubeSat standards will drive other technological developments opening new markets for high precision scientific instrumentation. Instruments developed by our consortium members are demonstrating their predominance this year (SEIS on board InSight, blueSeis commercial rotational seismometer release, ROMY laser interferometer). It is therefore the right time to keep European leadership strong by innovating both on instrument concept and technology

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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RIA - Research and Innovation action

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-SPACE-2018-2020

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Coordinator

INSTITUT SUPERIEUR DE L'AERONAUTIQUE ET DE L'ESPACE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 600 000,00
Address
AVENUE EDOUARD BELIN 10
31055 Toulouse
France

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Region
Occitanie Midi-Pyrénées Haute-Garonne
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 634 900,00

Participants (7)

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