Title:

JASMINE projects:
Series of Infrared Space Astrometry Missions

Abstract:

''JASMINE'' is an abbreviation of Japan Astrometry Satellite Mission for Infrared Exploration. Three satellites are planned as a series of JASMINE projects, as a step-by-step approach, to overcome technical issues and promote scientific results. These are Nano-JASMINE, Small-JASMINE and (medium-sized) JASMINE. JASMINE missions deal with the positions and proper motions of celestial objects. Nano-JASMINE uses a very small nano-satellite and is scheduled to be launched in 2012. Nano-JASMINE will operate in zw-band (~0.8 micron) to perform an all sky survey with an accuracy of 3 milli-arcseconds for position, parallaxes and proper motions. Small-JASMINE will observes towards a region around the Galactic center and other small regions, which include interesting scientific targets, with accuracies of 10 to 50 microcarcseconds in an infrared Hw-band (1.7 micron). The target launch date is around 2017. (Medium-sized) JASMINE is an extended mission of Small-JASMINE, which will observe towards almost the whole region of the Galactic bulge with accuracies of 10 microcarcseconds in Kw-band(~2 micron). The target launch date is the first half of the 2020s. In this talk, "astrometry" is briefly introduced and future space astrometry missions in the world are mentioned. Furthermore scientific objectives, designs, observing strategies, and technical issues of JASMINE missions are explained.