Announcement of Opportunity for
Interdisciplinary Scientists and Guest Investigators
in the ExoMars 2022 mission

 

Please check the Updates section at the end of the page for any changes since the AO was issued.

3 December 2020

This Announcement of Opportunity (AO) solicits the participation of the scientific community as Interdisciplinary Scientists or Guest Investigators in the ExoMars 2022 mission, to augment the scientific return of the mission as a whole.

The ExoMars programme is an international collaboration undertaken by ESA and Roscosmos, with NASA contributions, to develop and launch two missions. 

The first ExoMars mission was launched on 14 March 2016 and arrived at the red planet on 19 October 2016.  The second ExoMars mission, scheduled for launch in 2022, will deliver two science elements to the martian surface: (1) Kazachock, a surface platform (SP) instrumented to perform environmental and geophysics measurements; and (2) Rosalind Franklin, a rover tasked with conducting a search for signs of life.

The aim of this AO is to appoint up to five Interdisciplinary Scientists (IDS) and up to eight Guest Investigators (GI) for the ExoMars 2022 mission. The IDSs and the GIs will be appointed until the end of the nominal mission (lasting approximately 211 sols); the appointment could be renewed in case of mission extension. An IDS or GI appointment is ad personam. ESA will not fund the activities of the IDSs or the GIs (travel costs to attend meetings, etc.) and each proposer is responsible for securing their own funding.

This call is open to scientists in institutions based in ESA Member States, Canada, and Russia. However, specific expertise not present in ESA Member States, Canada and Russia could be covered by scientists from other countries. Team members participating in a team supporting an IDS can be from any country.  While Principal Investigators (PIs) and Co-PIs of the ExoMars instrument teams are excluded from this call, Co-Investigators (Co-Is) are eligible for IDS and GI positions.​​​​​​​

Full details, including the tasks of an IDS or GI, requirements for the proposals, and evaluation criteria, can be found in the Announcement of Opportunity for Interdisciplinary Scientists and Guest Investigators in the ExoMars 2022 mission document.

Submission forms

 

Letter of Intent Submission Form

The deadline for receipt of mandatory Letter of Intent has passed.

 

Proposal Submission Form

The deadline for receipt of proposals has passed.

 

Schedule

The schedule for this AO is given in the table below:

Event Date
Date of AO release 3 December 2020
Due date for mandatory Letter of Intent 12 January 2021, 12:00 (noon) CET
Due date for proposals 15 February 2021, 12:00 (noon) CET
Appointment of IDSs and GIs Fourth quarter 2021

 

Contact

Further queries should be addressed to:

Valérie Zinck
​​​​​​​Exploration Programme Coordinator
​​​​​​​Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration Programme
ESA/ESTEC - Noordwijk, The Netherlands
E-mail: Valerie.Zinck@esa.int

and

Luigi Colangeli
Head of the Science Coordination Office
Directorate of Science
ESA/ESTEC - Noordwijk, The Netherlands
E-mail: Luigi.Colangeli@esa.int​​​​​​​

 

Updates

4 January 2021    Please use this new, revised CV template (now requesting 10 most relevant publications).
     

 

Last updated: 15 February 2021

 

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Documentation

 

Letter of Invitation from the Director of Human and Robotic Exploration (pdf, 134 KB)

Announcement of Opportunity document (pdf, 234 KB)

ExoMars Science Management Plan (pdf, 3.3 MB)

ExoMars Mission Summary (pdf, 1.6 MB)

CV template (docx, 35 KB; updated 4 January 2021)