munich

Future scientific missions of the European Space Agency (ESA) are under threat because member states are not making sufficient money available for the development of scientific instruments.

This was the message from a ‘brainstorming’ meeting in Oxford, England, last week of ESA's science advisory and science programme committees, and its working groups on astronomy, Solar System science and fundamental physics.

Under ESA rules, the agency pays for satellites and launches but member states must provide instruments for missions in which their scientists participate. The meeting was arranged to discuss responses to financial crises faced by both sides.

ESA has reoriented its long-term space science plan, Horizons 2000. The new plan, presented to the meeting by the agency's executive, abandons the concept of ECU300-million (US$332-million) medium-sized missions in favour of smaller and cheaper ‘flexible’ missions, including technology testing missions, that can be launched more frequently (see Nature 385, 380; 1997).

ESA's executive said it also hopes to make a one-off saving of more than ECU300 million by placing instruments for the next two missions in the planning stage — the cornerstone FIRST (Far-Infrared Telescope) and the Planck surveyor, a medium-sized mission to study the cosmic-microwave background — on the same satellite (see Nature 387, 639; ). The merger is strongly opposed by Planck scientists.

Ironically, says Paul Murdin of the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, ESA's attempts to make its science budget stretch further will make it even harder for member states to provide instruments. Delegates said it would be difficult to find cash for instruments for early flexible missions such as Mars express, which ESA hopes will be launched in 2003. In addition, the proposed FIRST-Planck merger, with a planned launch in 2005 or 2006, would bring forward FIRST's launch by two years, putting further pressure on budgets. A firm decision on the merger will be made next June. Meanwhile, a call for proposals for FIRST and Planck instruments will go out in the next few weeks.

No definitive solution to the cash problems was proposed, but “many options for alleviating costs to member states were discussed”, says Roger Bonnet, ESA's science director. These included simplifying instruments, and standardizing interfaces between instruments and satellites so costs could be transferred to ESA.

There was some lightening of the gloom with the announcement that NASA would provide a 3.5-metre carbon-fibre telescope for FIRST as a demonstrator in return for 10 per cent of viewing time.