• → European Space Agency

    • About Science & Technology

    • For Public

    • For Educators

    • ESA

    • Science & Technology

    • MarcoPolo-R

    • Missions
    • Show All Missions
    • Mission Home
    • Summary
    • Status
    • Science
    • Spacecraft
    • Mission Operations
    • Resources
    • News Archive
    • Multimedia Gallery
    • Publication Archive
    • Calendar of Events
    • Services
    • Contact Us
    • Subscribe
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Bookmark and Share

    Status

    MarcoPolo-R is a mission that aims to bring back to Earth a pristine sample from a primitive near-Earth asteroid (NEA). It was proposed as a candidate M-class mission in response to the 2010 call for medium-size (M-class) missions for ESA's Cosmic Vision plan. In February 2011, it was shortlisted for study as one of the four candidate M3 missions.

    The MarcoPolo-R proposal is based on a previous mission study - a mission called Marco Polo - that was selected for assessment after an earlier call for Cosmic Vision missions.

    The Marco-Polo-R mission scenario and spacecraft design has been analysed in an internal ESA study at the Concurrent Design Facility at ESA's European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC). Detailed industrial studies are scheduled for 2012 before the candidate M3 missions are down-selected in 2013.


    Last Update: 27 Mar 2013

    • Shortcut URL
    • http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=49556
    • See also
    • Marco Polo
    • Call for proposals for medium-size missions
    • Candidates selected for ESA's next medium-class mission
    • Related Links
    • MarcoPolo-R community site

    Connect with us

    • RSS
    • Youtube
    • Twitter
    • Flickr
    • Google Buzz
    • Livestream
    • Subscribe
    • App Store
    • ESA Science Twitter

    Follow ESA science

    • Copyright 2000 - 2013 © European Space Agency. All rights reserved.

    • Terms and Conditions