Comet Interceptor is an exciting multi-spacecraft mission that will be launched before its target is known!
The target is expected to be a dynamically-new comet which will be penetrating into the inner Solar System (inwards of the orbit of the asteroid belt) for the first time. The other originality of the mission is its multi-point capability: it will be deploying three spacecraft, mother spacecraft A (ESA), and probes B1 (JAXA) and B2 (ESA), to characterise the pristine comet and its interaction with the space environment. At Imperial, we are responsible for the magnetometer onboard probe B2.
Comet Interceptor will wait in space at the Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2 until a dynamically-new comet (e.g., a new Long Period Comet) is identified on its first-ever way into the inner Solar System. At this point, Comet Interceptor will set off to make a flyby of the comet, and make new discoveries about its properties. Such pristine comets are messengers from the dawn of the Solar System and will shed lights on how it formed.
Comets are fascinating objects. They may have brought water and building blocks of life to Earth. They also constitute an amazing plasma laboratory: the gas sublimated from their nucleus escapes to space and becomes partially ionised. Our research at Imperial focuses on the always-evolving cometary plasma and its dynamic interaction with the space environment driving auroral emissions.
A comprehensive review on the mission was recently published in Space Science Reviews.