The European Space Agency's (ESA) Space Science Programme committee is to meet on 28 November to decide whether to endorse a plan to refly the $500 million Cluster mission following the destruction of the four component satellites on board the failed maiden flight of the Ariane 5 in June.
The purpose of the mission was to study how the Solar wind interacts with the Earth's magnetic field.
For the new launch attempt, four spacecraft, including the one original ground spare and three new craft, would be launched separately in 1999-2000, as piggyback payloads on Ariane 4 flights.
ESA would pay for the new craft and the launches, but European scientists would be asked to pay for a new set of instruments, sufficiently similar to the original to fulfil the intended missions.
This condition may present a stumbling block, as one of the premises of the new mission is that it will not compromise ESA's already firm plans for new science expeditions.
A spare detector from the ill-fated Cluster mission, developed by the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, flew on the Argentine-US satellite, SAC-B which was rendered inoperable after failing to separate from its Pegasus XL booster on 4 November (Flight International, 13-19 November).
Source: Flight International