DARWIN mission and configuration trade-off

The European DARWIN mission aims at detection and characterization of Earth-like exo-planets as well as at aperture synthesis imaging. The method to be applied is nulling interferometry in the mid-infrared wavelength regime. The DARWIN instrument consists of a flotilla of free-flying spacecraft, one spacecraft carrying the optics for beam recombination and three or more spacecraft carrying the large collector telescopes. We provide a trade-off of different configuration, payload, and mission concepts. We discuss various two and three-dimensional aperture configurations with three or four telescopes, beam routing schemes, phase modulation methods, and beam recombination and detection schemes as well as different launch vehicle configurations, launch scenarios, and orbits. We trade the different DARWIN concepts by assessing the performance in terms of science return, development risk, and planning.