Marco Polo is a joint European/Japanese mission proposed for the European Space Agency's 'Cosmic Vision' programme for launch between 2015 and 2025. The primary objective is to return unaltered materials from a primitive Near Earth Object (NEO) to the Earth. NEOs are part of the small body population that represents the primitive leftover building blocks (embryos) of the Solar System formation process. They offer important clues to the chemical mixture from which the planets formed about 4.6 billion years ago and carry records both of the Solar System's birth/early phases and of the geological evolution of small bodies. This mission will provide the first opportunity for detailed laboratory study of the most primitive materials that formed the terrestrial planets and advance our understanding of some of the fundamental issues in the origin and early evolution of the Solar System and possibly life itself. Marco Polo aims to: * Determine the physical and chemical properties of the target body, which are representative of the planetesimals (planetary building blocks) present in the cloud of gas and dust that surrounded the developing Sun, * Identify the major events which influenced the history of the target NEO, * Determine the elemental and mineralogical properties of the NEO and place them in the geological context of the surface. * Search for new types of interstellar grains that pre-date the Solar System and provide clues to their origin in stars and their evolution in inter-stellar clouds. * Investigate the nature and origin of organic compounds on the target body and identify those which may reveal the origin of pre-biotic molecules on the Earth. Although we already have samples of asteroids in our terrestrial meteorite collections which have provided important scientific clues to the objectives listed above they have suffered terrestrial contamination and weathering, and the most primitive material does not survive the process of entry into the Earth's atmosphere. A sample return mission to a primitive asteroid will return new types of material for laboratory study, collected and stored under optimum conditions, linked to a specific source body with geological context. Terrestrial laboratories provide high precision & accuracy, allow complex sample selection and preparation, the ability to analyse the same sample using many techniques and retention of material for future advancements, none of which are possible with experiments at the target. However the spacecraft will provide physical and mineralogical measurements over the whole NEO to provide geological context for the returned samples and allow us to study large scale processes, such as the history of impacts and geological disruption. This proposal is for funds to support preparatory activities in the UK to maximise the science return and ensure good UK participation for scientists and industry in the Marco Polo Mission if it is selected. This proposal is a revised version requesting funds awarded by PPRP.

This proposal is for funding to support phase A studies for Euclid, a selected candidate M-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme. Euclid is designed to make the most exquisitely accurate measurements of Dark Energy in several complementary ways, to explore what it is, and to quantify precisely its role in the evolution of the Universe. In the current 'concordance model' of the Universe, three quarters of it consists of Dark Energy, and one fifth of Dark Matter: Euclid will measure and elucidate the nature of Dark Matter too. If, instead, the concordance model is incorrect, and our fundamental ideas about gravity need revision, Euclid will test the validity of many of these modified gravity theories. Besides Dark Energy and Dark Matter studies, Euclid will provide a truly colossal legacy dataset over the whole sky, with optical imaging at 0.25 arc second spatial resolution to very faint limits (R~24.5), infrared imaging in 3 bands to similar limits and only slightly worse spatial resolution, and spectra and redshifts of 150 million galaxies to H=22. This dataset can only be obtained from space. It will be used by scientists worldwide in a wide range of contexts, and it will have huge public outreach potential. The planned launch of Euclid is 2017. The payload instruments will be produced through national funding, so this funding supports the first part of that provision. The UK Euclid team will work with ESA to develop the overall Euclid payload concept, providing vital scientific inputs to ensure that the optimal approach is taken and to guide design tradeoffs. It will, through ESA, provide inputs to the ESA-commissioned industry studies of the mission as a whole. The team will also work with other European colleagues to develop a large-field imager with two focal planes (one optical and one infrared) and an infrared spectrograph, and has strong roles in each of these areas. The proposal contains requests for supporting the scientific studies, system engineering work at the level of Euclid, and work on the instrumentation: the visible imager (particularly the detectors and entire electronics detection chain), and the optomechanical concept and design for both the near infrared spectrograph and imager. UK groups have been working extensively through the Cosmic Vision process to contribute to Euclid through its precursor, DUNE and SPACE. They have taken central roles in the core instrumentation and in the science support to the mission and have been highly effective in shaping the mission concept. This grant will cement the leading positions for UK groups, realised up to now through their vision and commitment.

The surface-to air transfer of water, CO2 and other gases is an important piece in the puzzle of climate change on all planets with atmospheres. The transfer of any other particles, e.g. dust grains from the ground into the atmosphere is of similar importance. Meteorology sees the surface at which this interchange happens as flat and solid, while in reality there is a persistent exchange of mass and energy between the porous, granular ground and the atmospheres of planets. This project looks at a boundary that is in fact blurred and fuzzy rather than discrete and flat, and tries to explain how gases like water, CO2 and dust or sand particles behave near that boundary, how temperatures change in the uppermost mm of the soil and what happens when liquids, gases and solids traverse the boundary of air and surface.

This study will identify and analyse ongoing geological activity across the whole of Mars in the form of the changing morphology of kilometre-scale “classical gullies” (Fig. 1). From this, we aim to determine whether these changes are caused by the action of liquid water, or dry frost (water or carbon dioxide). Such a study addresses key questions of ongoing martian habitability, planetary protection (i.e. limiting access for future missions to possible ‘wet’ environments) and current climate. Jan Raack, the Experienced Researcher (ER), has just published a study of one such gully: this can be used as a methodological template for a more ambitious project. The core of the project is a global search for change in martian gullies using 25cm/pixel HiRISE images. Thermal and spectral data will be used to determine the types of volatiles that are present as changes occur, thus constraining the triggering mechanism for flow. The core task is supported by Earth-based field work and laboratory experiments using a Mars simulation chamber. This multidisciplinary approach, combining remote sensing, field, and laboratory work is a powerful methodology, and also provides great skills development for the ER. Significant outreach and communication activities are a vital part of the project. We will use a variety of media (blogs, Twitter, conference presentations, press-releases of papers etc.), and also apply to the UK Royal Society to be part of the annual Summer Science Exhibition. Preparing for the proposal and the exhibition will provide a key learning experience for the ER, and develop proposal writing, public communication and project management skills. The three key outcomes of the project will be two peer-reviewed papers describing the distribution and triggering mechanism of martian gullies based on a synthesis of field, remote sensing and laboratory studies, and the Exhibition at the Royal Society, where the project results will be communicated to thousands people.