The Ariel Payload Design post-PDR
- Author(s)
- Paul Eccleston, Andrew Caldwell, Georgia Bishop, Lucile Desjonqueres, Rachel Drummond, Alex Davidson, Martin Whalley, Martin Caldwell, Chris Pearson, Caroline Simpson, Sandy Fok, Davide Bruzzi, Alex Davies, Mark Anderson, Pranav Umesh, Enzo Pascale, Gianluca Morgante, Mauro Focardi, Giorgio Savini, Marc Ollivier, Miroslaw Rataj, Giuseppe Malaguti, Giovanna Tinetti, Andrea Tozzi, Paolo Chioetto, Emanuele Pace, Paola Zuppella, Giampaolo Preti, Christophe Serre, Jose M. Gomez, Gustavo Alonso, Javier Perez, Neil Bowles, Keith Nowicki, Jerome Martignac, Michel Berthe, Pascale Danto, Martin Crook, Matthew Hills, Charles Padley, Semu Makinen, Zsolt Kovacs, Janos Szoke, Peter Szirovicza, Mateusz Sobiecki, Konrad Skup, Piotr Wawer, Roland Ottensamer, Warren Holmes, Renaud Goullioud, Markus Czupalla, Niels Christian Jessen, Soren Pedersen, Tom Ray, Deirdre Coffey, Lukas Steiger, Carlos Compostizo, Ricardo Machado, Andrea Bocchieri, Lorenzo Mugnai, Stephan Birkmann, Salma Fahmy, Ludovic Puig, Delphine Jollet, Anders Svedevall, Thierry Tirolien, Jean Christophe Salvignol, Jean Philippe Halain
- Abstract
The Ariel space mission will characterize spectroscopically the atmospheres of a large and diverse sample of hundreds of exoplanets. Through the study of targets with a wide range of planetary parameters (mass, density, equilibrium temperature) and host star types the origin for the diversity observed in known exoplanets will be better understood. Ariel is an ESA Medium class science mission (M4) with a spacecraft bus developed by industry under contract to ESA, and a Payload provided by a consortium of national funding agencies in ESA member states, plus contributions from NASA, the CSA and JAXA. The payload is based on a 1-meter class telescope operated at below 60K, built all in Aluminium, which feeds two science instruments. A multi-channel photometer and low-resolution spectrometer instrument (the FGS, Fine Guidance System instrument) operating from 0.5 – 1.95 microns in wavelength provides both guidance information for stabilizing the spacecraft pointing as well as vital scientific information from spectroscopy in the near-infrared and photometry in the visible channels. The Ariel InfraRed Spectrometer (AIRS) instrument provides medium resolution spectroscopy from 1.95 – 7.8 microns wavelength coverage over two instrument channels. Supporting subsystems provide the necessary mechanical, thermal and electronics support to the cryogenic payload. This paper presents the overall picture of the payload for the Ariel mission. The payload tightly integrates the design and analysis of the various payload elements (including for example the integrated STOP analysis of the Telescope and Common Optics) in order to allow the exacting photometric stability requirements for the mission to be met. The Ariel payload has passed through the Preliminary Design Review (completed in Q2 2023) and is now developing and building prototype models of the Telescope, Instruments and Subsystems (details of which will be provided in other contributions to this conference). This paper will present the current status of the development work and outline the future plans to complete the build and verification of the integrated payload.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Astrophysics
- External organisation(s)
- Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Sapienza University of Rome, Instituto Nazionale die Astrofisica (INAF), INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, University College London, Université Paris XI - Paris-Sud, Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Genetics and Biophysics "Adriano Buzzati-Traverso", CNR, University of Florence, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, University of Oxford, Université Paris Saclay, Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES), OHB System AG, Admatis Ltd., California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Aachen University of Applied Sciences, Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, University College Dublin, Czech Academy of Sciences, SENER Aeroespacial, Active Space Technologies (AST), Cardiff University, European Space Astronomy Centre (ESA), Science and Operations Department - Science Division (SCI-SC)
- Volume
- 13092
- No. of pages
- 21
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3019713
- Publication date
- 08-2024
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103003 Astronomy, 103038 Space exploration, 102022 Software development
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Condensed Matter Physics, Computer Science Applications, Applied Mathematics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/28dbfbd4-9529-407c-9a77-118b40d7c4d8