Blue Dots

L2/L3 science : ESA call for white papers

ESA has recently issued a call for white papers on the science themes of the L2 and L3 missions of its Cosmic Vision programme. These are flagship missions tentatively scheduled for launch in 2028 and 2034, respectively. The details of the call are found here.

Note that the call focuses on science, and questions to be adressed by the future large missions, rather than specific mission concepts, which will be chosen later with the call for L2 and L3 missions respectively. Typically, the white papers should have 12 pages advocating a science theme, and only 4 pages on potential strawman concepts to carry out that science.

To maximize the impact at ESA, it is important that the exoplanet community responds to the call with a paper which is as consolidated as possible. Because the deadline for responses is next May 24th, we must act quickly. The date of April 4th has already been set aside for an open forum whose goal is to agree on the outline of a white paper with an identified editor for each section. We will iterate online before that meeting. The plan is to have the first draft circulating by the end of April, which would leave two good weeks for tune up and the opportunity for people to declare themselves (or not) as supporting scientists.

Wednesday 20 March 2013 by Vincent Coudé du Foresto