THE much anticipated marriage between two future space missions to look for Earth-like planets around other stars has been called off. But one of the partners is to go it alone.
Once described as an engaged couple, the European Space Agency鈥檚 Darwin and NASA鈥檚 Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) aimed to launch a small fleet of about eight spacecraft, working together to simulate a single giant telescope. With money tight on both sides of the Atlantic, an equal collaboration seemed the only way to achieve the planned 2015 launch.
Now, however, ESA may have found both the will and the way to go it alone. The initial plan had been to use six satellites carrying infrared telescopes. A seventh satellite was needed to combine the light from these telescopes and an eighth to keep all the satellites synchronised and to communicate with Earth. Now, scientists at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Holland say they can use just four satellites to achieve the same results.
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The findings come shortly after NASA tried to delay the combined Darwin/TPF mission until 2020, to make room for another single space-telescope mission. ESA wants no part of this because the precursor mission 鈥渃an only survey about 30 stars鈥�, says the study scientist on ESA鈥檚 Darwin mission, Malcolm Fridlund, while Darwin will study 150 stars. NASA might end up playing a minor role at most in Darwin, as it is now committed to the single space-telescope.