Concept of operations for the Neptune system mission Arcanum

Abstract

The Arcanum mission is a proposed L-class mother-daughter spacecraft configuration for the Neptunian system, the mass and volume of which have been maximised to highlight the wide-ranging science the next generation of launch vehicles will enable. The spacecraft is designed to address a long-neglected but high-value region of the outer Solar System, showing that current advances make such a mission more feasible than ever before. This paper adds to a series on Arcanum and specifically provides progress on the study of areas identified as critical weaknesses by the 2013–2022 decadal survey and areas relevant to the recently published Voyage 2050 recommendations to the European Space Agency (ESA).