  FLARE (First Light And Reionization Explorer) is a space mission that will be
submitted to ESA (M5 call). Its primary goal (about 80% of lifetime) is to
identify and study galaxies that dwell in the universe before the end of the
reionization up to about z = 15, a redshift that might not be statistically
reachable for JWST, Euclid and WFIRST. A secondary objective (about 20% of
lifetime) is to survey star formation in the Milky Way.
  The strategy selected for FLARE optimizes the science return: imaging and
spectroscopic integral-field observations will be carried out simultaneously on
two parallel focal planes and over very wide instantaneous fields of view.
FLARE will feature an instantaneous field of view of about 0.2 deg$^2$ with
0.2-arcsec pixels and an instantaneous integral-field spectroscopic field of
view of about 1 arcmin$^2$ with R = 500 - 1000 and an angular resolution of
about 0.4 arcsec. To detect first-light galaxies, the imaging and spectroscopic
survey (parallel observations over about 6 years) will reach m$_{AB}$ = 28 and
f$_{\lambda}$ = 10$^{-18}$ erg/cm$^2$/S.
  FLARE will help addressing two of ESA's Cosmic Vision themes: a) "How did the
universe originate and what is it made of?" and b) "What are the conditions for
planet formation and the emergence of life?" and more specifically, "From gas
and dust to stars and planets".
  FLARE will provide to the ESA community a leading position to statistically
study the early universe after JWST's deep but pin-hole surveys. Moreover, the
instrumental development of wide-field imaging and wide-field integral-field
spectroscopy in space will be a major breakthrough after making them available
on ground-based telescopes.
