Intercepting Interstellar Objects

We describe how the ESA Comet Interceptor mission, which is due to launch in 2028/29 to a yet-to-be-discovered target, can provide a conceptual basis for a future mission to visit an Interstellar Object.

Comet Interceptor will wait in space until a suitable long period comet is discovered, allowing rapid response to perform a fast flyby of an object that will be in the inner Solar System for only a few years; an enhanced version of this concept could realistically provide the first in situ investigation of a visitor from another star system.

Accessible regions for CI comet encounters, relative to Earth, for different ∆v (0.75 or 1.5 km/s) and time of flight (ToF) trajectories (from J. P. S´anchez et al. 2021).– astro-ph.IM

Colin Snodgrass, Marina Galand, Arnaud Beth, Charlotte Goetz, Abbie Donaldson, Cyrielle Opitom

Comments: White paper submitted to the UK Space Frontiers 2035 prioritisation exercise
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2512.00492 [astro-ph.IM](or arXiv:2512.00492v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2512.00492
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Submission history
From: Colin Snodgrass
[v1] Sat, 29 Nov 2025 13:55:36 UTC (1,188 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.00492
Astrobiology,