Open Access

Paul Eccleston, Rachel Drummond, Kevin Middleton, Georgia Bishop, Andrew Caldwell, Lucile Desjonqueres, Ian Tosh, Nick Cann, Martin Crook, Matthew Hills, Chris Pearson, Caroline Simpson, Richard Stamper, Giovanna Tinetti, Enzo Pascale, Mark Swain, Warren A. Holmes, Andre Wong, Ludovic Puig, Göran Pilbratt, Martin Linder, Nathalie Boudin, Hanno Ertel, Lisa Gambicorti, Jean-Philippe Halain, Emanuele Pace, Francesc Vilardell, José M. Gómez, Josep Colomé, Jérôme Amiaux, Christophe Cara, Michel Berthe, Vincent Moreau, Gianluca Morgante, Giuseppe Malaguti, Gustavo Alonso, Javier P. Álvarez, Marc Ollivier, Anne Philippon, Marie-Laure Hellin, Steve Roose, Martin Frericks, Matthijs Krijger, Miroslaw Rataj, Piotr Wawer, Konrad Skup, Mateusz Sobiecki, Niels Christian Jessen, Søren Møller Pedersen, Peter Hargrave, Matt Griffin, Roland Ottensamer, Thomas Hunt, Duncan Rust, Aymen Saleh, Berend Winter, Mauro Focardi, Vania Da Deppo, Paola Zuppella, Markus Czupalla

• The Atmospheric Remote-Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, ARIEL, has been selected to be the next (M4) medium class space mission in the ESA Cosmic Vision programme. From launch in 2028, and during the following 4 years of operation, ARIEL will perform precise spectroscopy of the atmospheres of ~1000 known transiting exoplanets using its metre-class telescope. A three-band photometer and three spectrometers cover the 0.5 µm to 7.8 µm region of the electromagnetic spectrum. This paper gives an overview of the mission payload, including the telescope assembly, the FGS (Fine Guidance System) - which provides both pointing information to the spacecraft and scientific photometry and low-resolution spectrometer data, the ARIEL InfraRed Spectrometer (AIRS), and other payload infrastructure such as the warm electronics, structures and cryogenic cooling systems.