ESA M8 candidate PRIAMOS - A sample return mission to a D-Type Near-Earth Asteroid

Kurzfassung

PRIAMOS (PRImordial Asteroid Mission to understand the Origin of the Solar system), one of ten remaining ESA M8 mission candidates, is an asteroid sample return mission that will rendezvous with a D-type Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA), characterize its surface, and return a regolith sample to Earth. Unlike prior sample return missions, PRIAMOS will return rocky material not represented by meteorites and which comes from the un-explored archive of the far-outer solar system. The analyses of the returned sample in ground-based laboratories will pave the way to a holistic understanding of the origin of the solar system, the dynamical processes that shaped its evolution, and the origin of Earth as a habitable planet. Here we will provide the latest state of the mission.