BepiColombo Status |
BepiColombo Status |
Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
Dec 1 2005, 12:11 AM
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#1
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Excerpt from a News article by Jenny Hogan in the December 1, 2005, issue of Nature:
"The [funding] situation has led to speculation that BepiColombo, a mission destined for a 2013 launch to Mercury, might be cancelled. 'That is the big danger painted in the sky,' says Karl-Heinz Glassmeier, principal investigator on one of the instruments proposed for the spacecraft. "Nerves were set jangling about the project, which also involves the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, after it was postponed because the initial design was too heavy. That problem seems to have been solved, but officials say the estimated cost of the mission, at 600 million [euros] to 650 million [euros], is still more than 100 million [euros] above target." Reference: Europe's cash crisis puts space plans under threat Jenny Hogan Nature 438, 542-543 (2005) doi:10.1038/438542a Full Text |
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Jul 6 2008, 06:44 AM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 220 Joined: 13-October 05 Member No.: 528 |
Tough to predict. Bepi-Colombo's roots go way back into the mid-90s , and it also has JAXA as an international partner building an entirely separate orbiter from the ESA planetary orbiter. I think one of the things that saved Cassini from cancellation in the early 90s was the Huygens probe being built by ESA. NASA was reluctant to back out of the project with the commitment they had made to ESA.
So it seems that there are many factors influencing this decision. One of the things not mentioned in the article was the Exo-Mars mission, also slated for a 2013 launch window. I've wondered for a long time if having two big ticket planetary missions with the same schedule would pose a problem on budgets. And like Bepi-Colombo, the Exo-Mars budget has gone up a few times. IIRC the cost estimate on that one started around 600 million Euros, and has gone up around 1 Billion in the last six months. However, the way ESA gets money is more complex than the NASA model. I get the impression that each project is funded by separate contributions from each contributing partner nation. So it may be that Bepi-Colombo and Exo-Mars will never compete with each other for funds, at least not directly. |
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