Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
will study the interior and the surface of the planet. Both payload teams
consist of scientists from the Japanese and European communities.
Those data will be opened to the public, and the Japanese space science
community will welcome the participation of planetary science activities in
our projects.
3.1.3.
The first sample return from a near-Earth asteroid
In order to unveil the primitive materials in the solar system, the Hayabusa
spacecraft (cf. Ref. 12) was launched in May 2003. It made a rendezvous
with the near-Earth asteroid “Itokawa” (named after one of the founders
of the ISAS space program) from September to November 2005. Hayabusa
is an engineering test spacecraft, and is designed to make the first sample
return from asteroids: its goal is to rendezvous and dock with the asteroid,
then take the samples from the asteroid surface and bring them back. In
November 2005, Hayabusa tried to take samples from the asteroid's surface.
Hayabusa will return to the earth with first asteroid materials in 2007.
3.2.
Phase-2 (2015-2025): to learn about the
Sun-Planetary connection
The main targets of Phase-2 (2015-2025) are the common cosmic physical
processes in the all magnetospheres, detailed studies of the neighborhood
planets Mars and Venus, and the expansion of our fields to the outer solar
system, e.g., Jupiter and asteroids further than Mars. We consider that
some of the missions should be initiated and launched before 2015.
3.2.1.
Sun and Sun-Earth system
The main targets for the Sun and the Sun-Earth system in this decade will
be advanced studies of energetic processes in the magnetosphere related to
the basis of space weather and of physical process in the magnetosphere that
are common cosmic processes. For these objectives, two new solar terrestrial
missions are proposed: cross Scale COupling in Plasma universE (SCOPE),
a mission to study the cross-scale coupling in the plasma universe, and
Energization and Radiation in Geospace (ERG), a mission to investigate
energization and radiation in geospace.
The ERG mission (cf. Ref. 13) is planned as a small-sized satellite, aim-
ing to study the acceleration and loss mechanisms of relativistic particles
in the radiation belts during magnetic storms. Its proposed orbit has a
