Welcome to the UK SPICA supporters' page

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.