ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR New SCIENCE ideas

IN ESA'S SCIENCE PROGRAMME

9 February 2016

Through this Call the Director of Science solicits from the broad scientific community proposals for the competitive selection of new "Science Ideas", to be investigated in terms of feasibility and needed technology developments.

Direct link to this page:

http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/new-scientific-ideas 

Note (18 March 2016): the tentative date and place for the Briefing meeting have changed.

The Briefing meeting is now planned for 1st June 2016 in ESAC - Spain (still TBC)

Interested parties planning to submit a proposal are required, as indicated below, to send a mandatory Letter of Intent by 9 May and will be invited to attend a briefing meeting on 8 June (date TBC).

The present Call is open to science ideas in all areas of Space Science. No limitations to the science goals addressed are imposed on the proposals. 

This Call is not intended at replacing future Calls for Medium (M) or Large (L) missions, but aims at stimulating the emergence of new and innovative science ideas based on technologies not yet sufficiently mature, possibly to become potential candidates for future M or L mission Calls in the ESA Science Programme.

The schedule for the issue of the Call and the proposal evaluation process is:

DOCUMENTATION

Details of the Call are available in the Announcement document. The Announcement document and the Letter of invitation can be downloaded from the right-hand menu, under "Documentation".

LETTER OF INTENT (LOI) SUBMISSION

Prospective proposers must submit a mandatory Letter of Intent (LoI) by the deadline indicated in the table reported above. Proposals not preceded by a corresponding LoI will not be considered. LoI submissions are accepted exclusively in electronic form, in PDF format, using the online submission form that can be accessed below or from the left-hand menu.

Letters of intent shall be limited in length to 2 A4 pages (minimum font size 11 pt). A description of the purpose of the LoI and the expected content is available in the Announcement document.

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION

Proposals are accepted exclusively in electronic form, in PDF format, using the online submission form that can be accessed below or from the left-hand menu.

Proposals shall be limited in length to 25 A4 pages (not including appendices and bibliography), with a minimum font size of 11 pt, and a maximum file size of 50 Mbytes. A description of the expected proposal content is available in the Announcement document.

BRIEFING MEETING

Following the submission of a Letter of Intent, proposers will be invited to a briefing meeting, currently planned for 8 June (date TBC), to be held at ESTEC, The Netherlands (TBC). Confirmation of the date and of the logistical details for the briefing meeting will be communicated to the Lead Proposers indicated in the Letters of Intent.

CONTACT

The main contact point for this Call is:

Luigi Colangeli
Head of the Coordination Office for the Scientific Programme (SCI-CS)

ESA - ESTEC

Postbus 299
2200 AG Noordwijk
The Netherlands
Tel:  +31 - 71 565 3573
Fax: +31 - 71 565 4791
Email: luigi.colangeliesa.int