Marco Polo

Marco Polo is one of the mission concepts currently under study within the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme of the European Space Agency ESA. The main objective of this science mission is to bring a sample from a primitive near Earth asteroid (NEA) to Earth. OHB is leading an industrial assessment study currently running under ESA contract.

As mission target, the asteroid 1999 JU3 has been selected. The Marco Polo spacecraft consists of two modules, the sampling spacecraft and the re-entry capsule. Launched on the Soyuz/Fregat launcher, the sampling spacecraft uses chemical propulsion to perform the interplanetary transfer to the target asteroid and back to Earth. The stay time in the asteroid vicinity is around 17 months. Before the actual sampling is performed, an extensive global characterisation of the asteroid 1999 JU3 is conducted, founding the basis for the challenging landing operations and providing the scientific context for the acquired sample. Descent and landing as well as the sampling operations are performed in an autonomous way, keeping the stay time on the asteroid surface short. This is of particular importance in view of the extremely low gravity environment inherent to small asteroids (diameter of 1999 JU3 being assumed to be around 900 m). The sample is transferred to the re-entry capsule which is brought back to Earth by the main spacecraft. Earth re-entry is performed with a velocity of about 12 km/s. The nominal landing site on Earth is the Woomera desert, Australia.

As prime contractor, OHB is leading the industrial study and is responsible for the detailed design of the sampling spacecraft. The OHB industrial team consists of leading European companies contributing to the study by providing dedicated support to particular aspects of this technologically challenging mission.