EGU23-4065
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-4065
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

STELLA—Potential European  contributions to a NASA-led interstellar probe

Robert F. Wimmer-Schweingruber1, Nicolas André2, Stas Barabash3, Pontus C. Brandt4, Timothy S. Horbury5, Luciano Iess6, Benoit Lavraud7, Ralph L. McNutt, Jr.4, Elena A. Provornikova4, Eric Quémerais8, Robert Wicks9, Martin Wieser3, and Peter Wurz10
Robert F. Wimmer-Schweingruber et al.
  • 1University of Kiel, Institut für Experimentelle und Angewandte Physik, Kiel, Germany (wimmer@physik.uni-kiel.de)
  • 2Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, UPS, CNES, Université de Toulouse, Toulouse, France
  • 3Swedish Institute od Space Phyics, Kiruna, Sweden
  • 4Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, MD, United States
  • 5Department of Physics, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Space and Atmospheric Physics Group, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
  • 6Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
  • 7Laboratoire d’astrophysique de Bordeaux, University Bordeaux, Pessac, France,
  • 8Héliosphère, Exosphéres Planétaires, Plasmas et Interfaces, Laboratoire Atmosphères, Observations Spatiales, Guyancourt, France
  • 9Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
  • 10peter.wurz@space.unibe.ch

Stella is a proposed European contribution to NASA’s Interstellar Probe (ISP), a large-strategic mission candidate. ESA’s call for M-class mission proposals was the best and only currently available option for the European science community to contribute to the astronomically constrained ISP launch window in 2036 – 2037. Traveling with a speed of ~ 7.0 au/year ISP would reach 350 au during its nominal 50-year life-time. The proposed Stella contribution to ISP includes two core and two optional elements for the full complement:

• Core: Provision of European scientific instruments;

• Core: Provision of the European ISP communication system including the spacecraft’s 5-m high gain antenna;

• Full complement: ESA deep space communication facility: an extension of ESA’s DSA with a new antenna array;

• Full complement: Contribution to ISP operations to increase drastically the ISP and European payloads science return.

How to cite: Wimmer-Schweingruber, R. F., André, N., Barabash, S., Brandt, P. C., Horbury, T. S., Iess, L., Lavraud, B., McNutt, Jr., R. L., Provornikova, E. A., Quémerais, E., Wicks, R., Wieser, M., and Wurz, P.: STELLA—Potential European  contributions to a NASA-led interstellar probe, EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-4065, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-4065, 2023.