BepiColombo Status Options

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

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

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

A couple of tidbits from, respectively, the February 5, 2007, and February 12, 2007, issues of Aviation Week & Space Technology:

News Breaks
Europe
The European Space Agency
Aviation Week & Space Technology
02/05/2007, page 17

The European Space Agency will split a €329-million ($424.4-million) prime contract for Bepi Colombo Mercury mission, the agency's next major science project, between Astrium and Alcatel Alenia Space. Astrium Germany will be overall prime contractor, with Astrium U.K. and Alcatel Alenia Italy as co-primes, says Jacques Louet, ESA's director of science projects. But Astrium Germany will shoulder the full program risk under a "political expedient" approved last week by ESA's industrial policy committee. The green light for the €665-million mission is to be given by ESA's science program board later this month, along with a call for ideas for the next round of science missions planned for 2015-25. Three large (€650-million) and three medium (€300-million) missions are expected to be proposed for the tender, expected to be realized in October. The first, a medium mission, would be launched around 2017. To ensure approval, Louet said, science planners will propose €200 million in cuts through 2015. The bulk of the savings--€110 million--will come by offering to merge ESA's Solar Orbiter mission with NASA's four-satellite Sentinel project, eliminating one Sentinel and carrying the four remaining units aloft on the same launcher, with shared instrument packages.

Excerpt from

ESA Plans for New Science Missions Facing Renewed Budget Turmoil
Aviation Week & Space Technology
02/12/2007, page 33

Michael A. Taverna
Cannes
Douglas Barrie
London

A European Space Agency plan to draw up a slate of new missions for its Cosmic Vision science program is facing renewed turmoil over budgets.

[...]

These hiccups threaten to overshadow the go-ahead for the BepiColombo Mercury mission, approved late last month (AW&ST Feb. 5, p. 17). The continuing difficulties with the science program have prompted an external review, due to be completed by mid-year. The outcome is likely to shape, and possibly recast, the Cosmic Vision initiative, kicked off in 2002 to overcome organizational and budget shortcomings with the previous Horizons/Horizons-Plus program (AW&ST June 3, 2002, p. 33). One thing is already clear, officials say: Under the second phase of Cosmic Vision, the rate of new mission launches will be pushed back to one every 18 months, compared with one every 12 months under the current setup.

EDIT: Since the BepiColombo has the green light, I changed the thread title.

This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: Feb 12 2007, 06:23 PM