SPICA (spacecraft)

The Space Infra-Red Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics telescope (SPICA), initially called HII/L2 after the launch vehicle and orbit, is a proposed infrared space telescope, successor of the successful AKARI spacecraft.

Background

The project is led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the telescope will be launched on an H-IIA rocket. The Ritchey-Chrétien telescope's 3.5-metre mirror (similar size to that of the Herschel Space Observatory) is to be made of silicon carbide, possibly by the European Space Agency (ESA) given their experience with Herschel. Currently planned to be launched in 2017, the spacecraft's main mission will be the study of star and planetary formation. It will be able to detect stellar nurseries in galaxies, protoplanetary discs around young stars, and exoplanets, helped by its own coronograph for the latter two types of objects.

Project plan

It is intended to use a halo orbit around the L2 point; it is intended to use mechanical cryocoolers rather than liquid helium, allowing the mirror to be cooled to 4.5 K (versus the 80 K or so of a mirror cooled only by radiation like Herschel's) which provides substantially greater sensitivity in the 10–100 μm infrared band (IR band); the telescope is intended to observe in longer wavelength infrared than the James Webb Space Telescope.

Intended focal-plane instrumentation

• SAFARI: 30–200 μm imaging spectrometer (to be provided by ESA)
• Coronagraphic instrument for detecting Jupiter-scale exoplanets, working in the 5–20 μm range, also usable as an unobstructed imager.
• High-resolution spectrograph for 4–40 μm
• Low-resolution spectrograph for 10–100 μm

Timeline

The mission has been planned for many years; the launch date as of 2005 was "early 2010s", though as of 2009 a great deal of hardware has been designed but very little built, the SPICA website indicates that in summer 2009 the mission is still at the conference stage,^[1] and the 2009 paper says 'within ten years'.^[2]. An internal review at ESA at the end of 2009 suggested that the technology readiness for the mission was not adequate ^[3]

As of 2010^[update], it is expected to be launched in 2018.^[4]

References

• SPICA Mission Summary at ESA

External links

• Official site - JAXA