The STARTIGER'S demonstrators: toward a new generation of formation flying solar coronagraphs

STARTIGER stands for "Space Technology Advancements by Resourceful, Targeted and Innovative Groups of Experts and Researchers". STARTIGER is an ESA initiative within the Basic Technology Research Program (TRP) aiming at facilitating innovative and breakthrough research. The STARTIGER approach encourages the investigation of novel ideas, the aim being to achieve technology breakthroughs with the maximum likelihood of success in the shortest period of time (6 months or less). In the framework of the ESA STARTIGER initiative, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM, France) associated with Laboratoire Atmospheres, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS, France), and together with Centre Spatial de Liege (CSL, Belgium), Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino (INAF-OATo, Italy), University of Athens (UoA/IASA, Greece), and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL, UK), proposed to study the new generation of formation flying solar coronagraphs incorporating the most sophisticated capabilities to achieve diagnostics measurements in the solar corona in a unified, coordinated and progressive approach.