ESA Lagrange Space Weather Monitoring Mission to L5 Point

In the framework of the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Programme, European Space Agency (ESA) has started the development of the "Lagrange" mission that will provide solar monitoring data for operational space weather applications from the L5 point. Lagrange mission will carry a holistic set of space weather instruments that allow remote sensing of the solar disc, solar corona and heliosphere between the Sun and the Earth. The mission will also carry a set of in-situ instruments providing data about the solar wind, interplanetary magnetic field and solar charged particle flux at L5 point. This mission will be the first dedicated space weather mission in L5 and the first ever deep space mission providing measurement data in Near Real-Time (NRT).

The development of the Lagrange mission was started with Phase 0 mission feasibility studies in 2015-2016 during Period 2 of the SSA Programme. The successful feasibility studies paved way to the start of the Phase A/B1 studies for the spacecraft platform and payload instruments in SSA Period 3. The objective of the Programme is to complete the Phase B1 studies with a successful Initial System Requirements Review (ISRR) in September 2019. This will allow starting the mission Phase B2/C/D phases in 2020, subject to the approval of the mission proposal by ESA Member States in the Ministerial Council in November 2019.

This presentation will provide an overview of the Lagrange mission objectives, payload instruments and expected mission return addressing both the operational applications and bonus science. The presentation will also provide a vision of ESA's space weather system development plans over the next decade including space missions beyond Lagrange.