EXPLORATORY CALL FOR A MINI-FAST MISSION
​​​​​​​IN ESA’S SCIENCE PROGRAMME

Date: 19 March 2025

The ESA Director of Science solicits the scientific community in ESA's Member States for proposals for mini-Fast (mini-F) mission concepts with an estimated ESA Cost at Completion (CaC) below 50M€ at 2025 economic conditions (e.c.) and a total development duration from selection to launch of less than 5 years.

The purpose of this exploratory Call is to assess the potential of mini-F missions in the Science Programme to:

• increase the ESA Science Programme diversity;
• support the development of the European science and technology communities, in particular the next generation of professionals;
• increase launch opportunities for space science missions;
• offer a new agile ESA Science Programme element to implement space science missions in less than five years from selection to launch;
• explore new mission implementation schemes.

Given the nature of this Call, the boundary conditions are intentionally kept to a minimum and will be tuned following the analysis of the proposals for the future line of mini-F missions. However, the basic assumptions will remain unchanged: fast implementation schedule, implying a high technology readiness level at the time of the mission proposal. For full details of this Call, please see the documents in the Call information package.

​​​​​​​In parallel to the present invitation, the Director of Science has issued a Call for a Medium-size and a Fast mission opportunity in ESA's Science Programme.

Call information package

The documentation for this exploratory Call includes a Letter of Invitation from the Director of Science, the Exploratory Call for a mini-Fast mission in ESA's Science Programme document, and an Annex to the Call document containing technical details. These documents are available to download from the right-hand menu. Please consult the documents for full details, requirements, and constraints for this Call.

Proposal submission

Proposals for mini-Fast mission concepts must be submitted electronically (in pdf format), using the form linked below, by 12:00 (noon) CEST on 21 May 2025. Late submissions will not be considered.

Details of the required content for mini-Fast proposals are given in the Exploratory Call for a mini-Fast mission in ESA's Science Programme document.

Schedule for this Call and important dates

Contact

Queries may be address to mission-calls-2025 [at] cosmos.esa.int