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Both dark energy missions propose the use of the Teledyne Imaging Systems Hawaii-2RG detector and SIDECAR ASIC. These activities would lead to a European supply of NIR/SWIR detector technology for both these and future science missions. This programme aims at developing a prototype large area hybrid array comprising silicon read-out integrated circuit and HgCdTe photovoltaic sensing layer.

Future missions are currently being proposed / designed with existing (or moderately inproved) Space-to-Earth communication capabilities in mind. Optical communications technology offers the potential of a dramatic increase in data-rates, specifically in the down-link of science data, thereby allowing for a substantial increase in science return.Direct detection technology using pulse position modulation (PPM) is regarded as the preferred solution for "deep space" optical links.

Classical control design techniques used for flexible spacecraft are based on single axis design approaches to control the rigid-body motion complemented by low-pass and notch filters to suppress the resonant peaks of the low-frequency flexible modes. These techniques are inherently relying on a priori knowledge of the structural flexible modes and introduce significant conservatism in the control and structural design, dictated by the need to separate the controller bandwidth from the flexible modes frequency.

Science missions such as SPICA (with the Safari instrument) and ATHENA (with the X-IFU instrument) require a complex cryogenic chain to ensure thermal bath temperatures in the order of 50 mK at the level of their respective detectors. The last cooling stage in these complex chains includes an Adiabatic Demagnetization Refrigerator (ADR) that takes advantage of the fact that the entropy of paramagnetic materials in a magnetic field is lower than when no field is present.