SPACE: the SPectroscopic All-sky Cosmic Explorer

TL;DR

SPACE is a proposed space mission designed to create the largest 3D map of the Universe over the past 10 billion years by conducting extensive near-IR spectroscopic surveys of hundreds of millions of galaxies, surpassing ground-based capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel space-based spectroscopic survey mission with advanced instrumentation to map cosmic evolution more comprehensively than previous ground-based efforts.

Findings

Plans for a 1.5m telescope with DMD arrays for large multiplexing

Capability to survey over half a billion galaxies up to z<2

Deep spectroscopic survey reaching AB~26 at 2<z<10+

Abstract

We describe the scientific motivations, the mission concept and the instrumentation of SPACE, a class-M mission proposed for concept study at the first call of the ESA Cosmic-Vision 2015-2025 planning cycle. SPACE aims to produce the largest three-dimensional evolutionary map of the Universe over the past 10 billion years by taking near-IR spectra and measuring redshifts for more than half a billion galaxies at 0<z<2 down to AB~23 over 3\pi sr of the sky. In addition, SPACE will also target a smaller sky field, performing a deep spectroscopic survey of millions of galaxies to AB~26 and at 2<z<10+. These goals are unreachable with ground-based observations due to the ~500 times higher sky background. To achieve the main science objectives, SPACE will use a 1.5m diameter Ritchey-Chretien telescope equipped with a set of arrays of Digital Micro-mirror Devices (DMDs) covering a total field of view of 0.4 deg2, and will perform large-multiplexing multi-object spectroscopy (e.g. ~6000 targets per pointing) at a spectral resolution of R~400 as well as diffraction-limited imaging with continuous coverage from 0.8mum to 1.8mum.