The UK Government will invest £30 million to secure the UK’s
leading role in developing a space telescope to explore
exoplanets.
Due to launch in 2029, Ariel’s mission is to understand the links
between a planet’s chemistry, its evolution and its host star, by
characterising the atmospheres of 1,000 known planets outside our
solar system.
It is the first space mission dedicated to this analysis and will
provide a step-change in our understanding of what exoplanets are
made of, how they were formed and how they evolve. Scientific
data will be released to the scientific community and general
public at regular intervals throughout its planned four-year
operational phase.
Ariel, which was proposed by an international consortium led by
University College London (UCL), was selected by the European
Space Agency (ESA) from 26 proposals put forward to be the next
‘medium class mission’ in its science programme. The UK will lead
the overall science of the mission and head up a consortium of 17
countries building the mission’s payload module.
The investment is the first major long-term commitment that the
UK has made to space science since the publication of the
National Space Strategy and the leadership role will provide an
unprecedented opportunity for the UK space sector’s academic
base.
Science Minister said:
This is an incredibly important commitment for UK space science
and technology, marking a major milestone for the National Space
Strategy and boosting our ambitions to grow our £16.5 billion
commercial space sector.
By investing £30 million and taking the helm of the entire Ariel
consortium – the first time in a decade that we have secured
leadership for a mission of this magnitude – we are putting the
UK at the heart of international space research, providing new
opportunities for space businesses and academics across the
country.
The £30 million is provided through the UK Space Agency’s
National Space Science Programme and is in addition to more than
£6 million the Agency has already provided to support UK teams
during Ariel’s study phase up to March 2022.
This investment will secure the UK’s scientific leadership of the
mission and will incorporate the delivery of Ariel’s payload
module, cryogenic cooler and optical ground support equipment, as
well as science operations and data processing.
UK organisations contributing expertise to the UK’s role as
mission consortium Principal Investigator and payload lead
include University College London (UCL), Cardiff University,
University of Oxford and the Science and Technology Facilities
Council’s (STFC) RAL Space at Harwell Space Cluster in
Oxfordshire.
Professor Giovanna Tinetti, Mission Consortium Principal
Investigator for Ariel at UCL, said:
Ariel will be transformational in helping us understand the
planets in our galaxy. By studying hundreds of diverse worlds in
different environments, we will see our own planet in context,
giving us a better sense of why Earth formed as it did.
We are very grateful to the UK Space Agency and the UK government
for their continued support and commitment in advancing planetary
science, helping us understand worlds beyond our solar system as
well as within it.
Paul Eccleston, Ariel Consortium Programme Manager and Chief
Engineer at RAL Space, said:
We welcome the agreement and the commitment from the UK Space
Agency to enable this collaboration. I’m delighted that the UK is
taking a leading role in the mission and proud of the progress
the consortium has already made to design the payload. These ties
are only set to strengthen as we progress towards launch.
Teams at RAL Space will build and test the Ariel payload module,
managing hardware contributions from other consortium nations,
while the STFC Technology department is developing the £5.5
million cryogenic active cooler system.
Scientists at UCL and University of Cardiff will lead performance
analysis, testing and fine-tuning the complex algorithms that
will process the data returned from Ariel. The University of
Oxford team will deliver the equipment to test Ariel’s payload
telescope and optical elements.
Günther Hasinger, ESA’s Director of Science, said:
Ariel is a very important mission for ESA’s Space Science
programme, and among our world-leading fleet of missions that
study extrasolar planets.
This commitment by the UK Space Agency and our scientific partner
institutions in the UK is a big step forward for Ariel, and we
are looking forward to working together closely on implementing
the mission.
A payload design review will be completed later this year, with
the design expected to be finalised by 2025. A flight acceptance
review will be completed in early 2029 ahead of launch later that
year.
Ariel’s full name is the Atmospheric Remote-sensing
Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey. You can learn more about the
mission through the Ariel YouTube
channel, created by UCL and ESA.
