CALICO - a Mission Proposal to Explore Ceres In Situ
- 1Luleå University of Technology, Kiruna, Sweden (axel.hagermann@ltu.se)
- 2ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
- 3ESA/ESAC, Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
- 4DLR Institute for Planetary Research, Berlin Adlershof, Germany
- 5Paris-Saclay University, Orsay, France
- 6The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
- 7University of Stirling, UK
- 8Institut for Space Physics, Kiruna, Sweden
- 9Umeå University, Sweden
- 10Technische Universität München, Sweden
- 11Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali-INAF, Rome, Italy
- 12Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium
- 13Warsaw University of Technology, Poland
- *A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract
The Ceres Autonomous Lander Into Crater Occator (CALICO) was proposed in response to ESA’s M7-call for future space missions. CALICO is a mission to study the surface and interior of dwarf planet Ceres, the closest ocean world to Earth. Ceres’ accessible location in the main belt makes it a compelling target for exploration since it was classified as an ocean world in the wake of NASA’s Dawn mission, which provided a wealth of data. DAWN also left open many questions, such as whether the interior of Ceres ever had the potential for habitability.
CALICO’s space segment consists of two components: the CALICO surface element is to land in Occator crater to analyse the salt- and organic-rich deposits of Vinalia Faculae, where building blocks of life might be accessible on the surface. The CALICO orbital element will characterize Ceres’ magnetic and particle environment to establish the presence of subsurface volatile reservoirs.
We present an overview of CALICO’s science objectives, instrument payload and a possible mission scenario. Although not selected to go forward into Phase A, CALICO - or any CALICO-like mission - has great potential to answer such fundamental questions about our place in the Solar System. The CALICO consortium will continue its efforts to realize a mission to Ceres.
Axel Hagermann Stefan Schröder René Laufer Harish Rao Ramavaram Erika Kaufmann Gordon Wasilewski Bartosz Kedziora Matthias Grott Stefano Mottola Andrew Morse Simon Sheridan Günter Kargl Christian Schroeder Jon Hillier Katharina Otto Adam Zwierzynski Ernesto Palomba Karen Olsson-Francis Natuschka Lee Mikael Granvik Mark Paton Ottaviano Ruesch Seiji Sugita Naoya Sakatani Kazunori Ogawa Tatsuaki Okada Colin Snodgrass Andrea Longobardo Fabrizio Dirri Zita Martins Olivier Poch Olga Prieto-Ballesteros Lorenz Roth Philipp Reiss Roland Trautner Michel Blanc Konrad Kossacki Tim van Hoolst Hauke Hussmann Olivier Mousis Pierre Beck Naomi Murdoch Vassilissa Vinogradoff Satoshi Tanaka Uli Auster Ferdinand Plaschke Pierre Vernazza Nicolas André Stas Barabash Cédric Pilorget Jean-Pierre Bibring Karol Seweryn John Carter Michele Banister Antoine Pommerol Xiao-Dong Wang Joakim Peterson Shahab Fatemi Maximilian Hamm Yoshifumi Futaana Jan Kindracki Nicole Schmitz Wladimir Neumann Ian Hutchinson Hannah Lerman
How to cite: Hagermann, A., Schroeder, S., Buchwald, R., Bründl, T.-M., Küppers, M., Benkhoff, J., Otto, K., Grott, M., Pilorget, C., Olsson-Francis, K., Sheridan, S., Morgan, G., Schröder, C., Barabash, S., Fatemi, S., Reiss, P., Palomba, E., Longobardo, A., Van Hoolst, T., and Kindracki, J. and the The CALICO Consortium: CALICO - a Mission Proposal to Explore Ceres In Situ, Europlanet Science Congress 2024, Berlin, Germany, 8–13 Sep 2024, EPSC2024-19, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2024-19, 2024.
