European Space Agency Declares Its Two Space Missions

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the first two missions that it has selected for its Cosmic Vision 2015 – 2025 ten year plan. The mission is called “Solar Orbiter”, under which a spacecraft will be operating close to the Sun than any other mission so far so as to examine the solar wind. The second mission is the “Euclied” that is a space telescope whose main aim would be to examine the accelerating expansion of the universe in order to understand the accurate nature of dark matter.

SOLAR ORBITER:

The solar observer would examine and evaluate how the Sun produces and propels the flow of charged particles to improve the understanding of the methods by which the Sun leaves its effect on the environment these charged particles form the solar wind in which the planets are present and satellite around the Sun in their orbits. This spacecraft will work 42 million kilometres from the Sun which is close enough to examine the solar wind after it has been ejected by the Sun. The launch of the Solar Orbiter is planned in 2017 from Cape Canaveral.

EUCLID:

This spacecraft is named after “Father of Geometry”, who was a Greek mathematician. The aim of this satellite is to figure out the structure of the Universe with great accuracy and precision and to understand the exact nature of dark energy. To explain the phenomenon why the universe is expanding at an ever- accelerating range, the spacecraft will be examining over millions of hundreds of galaxies all over the universe. These observations recorded by the Euclid, will spread to 10 billion light years. This would disclose the reason for spread and growth of the universe. The launch of Euclid is planned in the year 2019 from Europe’s Spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana.

Source: Gizmag