HAL: hal-00598209, version 1

arXiv: 1106.0132

DOI: 10.1007/s10686-012-9309-y

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Experimental Astronomy 34 (2012) 203-242

OSS (Outer Solar System): A fundamental and planetary physics mission to Neptune, Triton and the Kuiper Belt

Bruno Christophe 1, Linda J. Spilker 2, John D. Anderson 2, Nicolas André 3, Sami W. Asmar 2, Jonathan Aurnou, Don Banfield, Antonella Barucci 4, Orfeu Bertolami 5, Robert Bingham 6, Patrick Brown 7, Baptiste Cecconi 4, Jean-Michel Courty 8, Hansjörg Dittus 9, Leigh N. Fletcher, Bernard Foulon 1, Frederico Francisco 10, Paulo J. S. Gil 10, Karl-Heinz Glassmeier, Will Grundy, Candice Hansen, Jörn Helbert 11, Ravit Helled, Hauke Hussmann 11, Brahim Lamine 8, Claus Lämmerzahl 12, Laurent Lamy 4, Benjamin Lenoir 1, Agnès Levy 1, Glenn Orton 2, Jorge Páramos 10, Joël Poncy, Frank Postberg, Sergei V. Progrebenko, Kim R. Reh 2, Serge Reynaud 8, Clélia Robert 13, Etienne Samain 14, Joachim Saur, Kunio M. Sayanagi, Nicole Schmitz 11, Hanns Selig 12, Frank Sohl 11, Thomas R. Spilker 2, Ralf Srama, Katrin Stephan 11, Pierre Touboul 1, Peter Wolf 15

(2012-09-27)

The present OSS mission continues a long and bright tradition by associating the communities of fundamental physics and planetary sciences in a single mission with ambitious goals in both domains. OSS is an M-class mission to explore the Neptune system almost half a century after flyby of the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Several discoveries were made by Voyager 2, including the Great Dark Spot (which has now disappeared) and Triton's geysers. Voyager 2 revealed the dynamics of Neptune's atmosphere and found four rings and evidence of ring arcs above Neptune. Benefiting from a greatly improved instrumentation, it will result in a striking advance in the study of the farthest planet of the Solar System. Furthermore, OSS will provide a unique opportunity to visit a selected Kuiper Belt object subsequent to the passage of the Neptunian system. It will consolidate the hypothesis of the origin of Triton as a KBO captured by Neptune, and improve our knowledge on the formation of the Solar system. The probe will embark instruments allowing precise tracking of the probe during cruise. It allows to perform the best controlled experiment for testing, in deep space, the General Relativity, on which is based all the models of Solar system formation. OSS is proposed as an international cooperation between ESA and NASA, giving the capability for ESA to launch an M-class mission towards the farthest planet of the Solar system, and to a Kuiper Belt object. The proposed mission profile would allow to deliver a 500 kg class spacecraft. The design of the probe is mainly constrained by the deep space gravity test in order to minimise the perturbation of the accelerometer measurement.

1:	Département de Mesures Physiques (DMPH)
	ONERA
2:	Jet Propulsion Laboratory [NASA] (JPL)
	NASA – California Institute of Technology
3:	Centre d'étude spatiale des rayonnements (CESR)
	CNRS : UMR5187 – Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées – INSU – Université Paul Sabatier [UPS] - Toulouse III
4:	Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique (LESIA)
	CNRS : UMR8109 – INSU – Observatoire de Paris – Université Pierre et Marie Curie [UPMC] - Paris VI – Université Paris VII - Paris Diderot
5:	Departamento de Física e Astronomia
	Universidade do Porto
6:	Rutherford Appleton Laboratory - Didcot (RAL)
	Science & Technologie Facilities Council
7:	Imperial College London
	Imperial College London
8:	Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (LKB (Jussieu))
	CNRS : UMR8552 – Université Pierre et Marie Curie [UPMC] - Paris VI – Ecole normale supérieure de Paris - ENS Paris
9:	German Aerospace Center (DLR)
	Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)
10:	Instituto Superior Técnico - Technical University of Lisbon (IST)
	Technical University of Lisbon
11:	Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institute of Planetary Research
	DLR
12:	ZARM
	University of Bremen
13:	Département d'Optique Théorique et Appliquée (DOTA)
	ONERA
14:	Géoazur (GEOAZUR)
	Université Nice Sophia Antipolis [UNS] – CNRS : UMR6526 – Institut de recherche pour le développement [IRD] – Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur – INSU – Université Pierre et Marie Curie [UPMC] - Paris VI
15:	Systèmes de Référence Temps Espace (SYRTE)
	CNRS : UMR8630 – INSU – Observatoire de Paris – Université Pierre et Marie Curie [UPMC] - Paris VI

Subject

:

Physics/Astrophysics/Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Sciences of the Universe/Astrophysics/Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Physics/General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Physics/Physics/Instrumentation and Detectors

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From: Serge Reynaud <>

Submitted on: Sunday, 5 June 2011 11:44:13

Updated on: Friday, 28 September 2012 11:55:45