Welcome to the UK SPICA supporters' page

Simulated image of the SPICA space telescope

This site provides up-to-date information and support for UK supporters of the space telescope SPICA, being proposed for the ESA Cosmic Vision M5 call.

SPICA is a next-generation infrared astronomy mission, led by JAXA (Japan) with important contributions foreseen from ESA and a European consortium. With its deeply cooled (< 6 K) large (at least 2.5-m class) telescope, SPICA will be able to achieve superior sensitivity and high spatial resolution.

SAFARI (SpicA FAR-infrared Instrument) is one of the instruments planned for the SPICA payload. SAFARI is a three-band FIR grating spectrometer (34 - 210 μm, spectral resolution of 300 to 3000).

The SMI (Spica Mid-infrared Instrument) is a mid-infrared camera/spectrometer (12 - 36 μm) with three spectroscopic channels, resolutions from 20 to 28000, and a 10'x10' instantaneous imaging field of view at 34 μm.

For more details on the technical capabilities, see the instrument fact sheets.

Contact us

To sign up to the UK SPICA mailing list, SPICA-UK-LIST,
please contact Stephen Serjeant.

Only list members can post to this list.