Background and context: Missions are being studied to the systems and moons of outer planets, including extended observation periods by local orbiters or possible landers, that require careful evaluation of the local radiation, plasma, microparticle, atmospheric and plume environment for design of both platform and science payload. Radiation impact potentially includes total cumulative doses, single event effects from short term enhancements and internal charging risk whilst plasma environments present risks of surface charging.

Background and context: The aim of this activity is to breadboard the Straylight LIDAR instrument concept and to verify its performance experimentally. This activity aims to raise the TRL to 4 and follows the TDE activity (T216-104MM Verification of straylight rejection of optical science payloads using a pulsed laser source). The aim of this smooth follow-on is to verify the concept experimentally using an available flight spare space telescope baffle as a representative test object.Description of the concept: The technique is called ?straylight LIDAR?

Capillary Driven Loops, as Loop Heat Pipes are currently assembled and filled at the loop heat pipe manufacturer. LHPs are used to transport heat from dissipative units where sometimes these units could be in an area that is difficult to access. In these cases, the LHP tubing routing could be very complex which makes the task of inserting these two-phase devices very challenging. Furthermore, the radiators used by LHPs could be an access panel which would need to be opened and closed multiple times.

An investigation shall be done of the feasibility of a fractionated (multi-static) surface/sub-surface sounder configuration that fulfils the needs of the key application of interest i.e. remote sensing of the planets or moons of planets. This type of configuration allows to increase the SNR (having more than one receiver) and together with the use of advanced radar processing strategies enables the clutter removal or feature extraction.

After Beagle 2 failure, one of the recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry concluded that future planetary entry missions should include a minimum telemetry of critical performance measurements and spacecraft health status during mission critical phases such as entry and descent. In case a relay satellite would be available, the data would be transferred to it, which will act as an Orbiter.

ESA missions with downlink in X-band are limited to 10 MHz of bandwidth and 8.75 Mbps of data, using the current GAIA modulation. GAIA-NIR is requiring higher data rates and it is pushing the limits at X-band.The CCSDS-131.2-B standard defines 27 Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) modes that are intended to allow fine control of information rate in a given bandwidth to optimise data throughput by minimising the required link margin.

Aluminium-based alloys obtained by a rapid solidification process have been successfully used for manufacturing optical mirrors. The maximum size of this type of aluminium mirrors is limited by the size of the billet, i.e. currently considered to be approximately 500 mm with and homogeneous microstructure. Consequently, the current manufacturing processes allow to produce mirrors with an effective area limited to a maximum dimension of 400 mm . The need for larger Aluminium-based mirrors is coming from scientific missions that require a large collecting area.

In recent years, the traditional MCT (Mercury Cadmium Telluride) technology for near-infrared (NIR) sensing has been developed further to manufacture APD (Avalanche Photo-Diode) arrays, which enables sub-electron readout noise measurements. This technology is now routinely used for wave-front sensing on ground-based telescopes using small format devices. Further effort to increase the size of NIR APD sensors as well as improving the MCT material properties (e.g. lower dark current) is needed such that they can be used for future ground and space-based scientific instrumentation.

Present ESA Deep Space Stations are equipped with a 20 kW X-Band High Power Amplifier (HPA).

Uncertainties on atmospheric densities and temperatures are major risk drivers for atmospheric entry and orbital maneuvers such as aerobraking or aerocapture. The EnVision mission scenario foresees orbit perigee lowering down to about 140km using aerobraking. Europe has gained a good expertise during the Venus Express mission, however there is no easily accessible model not to say engineering model to rely on for mission design at Venus.