  The Probe of Inflation and Cosmic Origins (PICO) is a NASA-funded study of a
Probe-class mission concept. The top-level science objectives are to probe the
physics of the Big Bang by measuring or constraining the energy scale of
inflation, probe fundamental physics by measuring the number of light particles
in the Universe and the sum of neutrino masses, to measure the reionization
history of the Universe, and to understand the mechanisms driving the cosmic
star formation history, and the physics of the galactic magnetic field. PICO
would have multiple frequency bands between 21 and 799 GHz, and would survey
the entire sky, producing maps of the polarization of the cosmic microwave
background radiation, of galactic dust, of synchrotron radiation, and of
various populations of point sources. Several instrument configurations,
optical systems, cooling architectures, and detector and readout technologies
have been and continue to be considered in the development of the mission
concept. We will present a snapshot of the baseline mission concept currently
under development.
