SOL-EST-IF-005, SOLAR ORBITER EXPERIMENT INTERFACE DOCUMENT - PART A (9OCT07)

SOL-EST-IF-005, SOLAR ORBITER EXPERIMENT INTERFACE DOCUMENT - PART A (9OCT07). In May 2002, the new ESA Science Programme (Cosmic Vision 2020) was defined and presented to SPC. This programme contains groups of scientific missions related either technically or programmatically. One such mission group comprises: • The Bepi Colombo mission to Mercury which includes two orbiting spacecraft, • The Solar Orbiter mission which will permit close-up and high-latitude studies of the Sun. At its 105th meeting held on 5-6 November 2003, in response to the SSAC proposal concerning the reconstruction of the ESA Science Programme, the SPC decided to maintain Solar Orbiter in the Cosmic Vision Programme 2003-2013. The 107th meeting of ESA's Science Programme Committee on 7-8 June 2004 endorsed the recommendations of the SSWG and SSAC and confirmed the place of Solar Orbiter in the Cosmic Vision programme. This was reconfirmed at the SPC meeting on 8-9 February, 2006 with the assumption of the implementation of a May 2015 launch. At its meeting in May 2006, the SPC directed the Science programme Directorate to proceed with a Call for Letters of Intent for the payload complement, to optimize the mission in terms of science requirements and industrial implementation and to seek international cooperation, so as to bring the mission back into an acceptable cost envelope to ESA and maintain the possibility for a launch in 2015. These activities were carried out as directed by the SPC from June 2006 to October 2007. The Call for Letters of Intent elicited 23 responses, covering all scientific measurements and providing inputs to instrument accommodation studies that were performed with Industry. Industrial studies were also carried out to optimize the spacecraft design and advance critical technologies. ESA and NASA cooperated to define a joint mission composed of ESA’s Solar Orbiter and NASA’s Inner Heliospheric Sentinels projects which will have coordinated instrument Announcement of Opportunities. The science objectives of the joint mission were established by a Joint Science and Technology Definition Team. The outcome of these activities will be reviewed in November 2007 when the SPC is asked to decide how and whether to proceed with the mission. The Experiment Interface Document (EID) will be first released with the instrument AO. The purpose of the document is to ensure that: • The Principal Investigators (PIs) design, build and verify their instruments within the technical constraints imposed by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft and compatible with the Solar Orbiter programme constraints. • The Solar Orbiter Prime Contractor designs, builds and verifies the spacecraft such that the instruments can be successfully integrated into the system. • The spacecraft can be successfully launched and operated to achieve the scientific objectives of the Solar Orbiter mission. The EID consists of two parts; A and B. The EID-A contains the interface specifications that are applied to the design of the instrument as defined in the EID Part B written by the Principal Investigator. Part A defines the Solar Orbiter technical and programmatic requirements all Solar Orbiter PI’s have to comply with. The EID-B defines the PI response to the technical requirements in part A specifying in detail the interface information applicable to a particular experiment. Part B will form the sole formal and binding document for all technical and programmatic agreements between the ESA Solar Orbiter Project Office and each Solar Orbiter Principal Investigator. The EID A and B shall be placed under formal configuration and change control once signed and thus any change requires formal agreement between ESA and the PI. The EID A and B will become applicable documents to the Solar Orbiter prime contractor.