  We describe the scientific motivations, the mission concept and the
instrumentation of SPACE, a class-M mission proposed for concept study at the
first call of the ESA Cosmic-Vision 2015-2025 planning cycle. SPACE aims to
produce the largest three-dimensional evolutionary map of the Universe over the
past 10 billion years by taking near-IR spectra and measuring redshifts for
more than half a billion galaxies at 0<z<2 down to AB~23 over 3\pi sr of the
sky. In addition, SPACE will also target a smaller sky field, performing a deep
spectroscopic survey of millions of galaxies to AB~26 and at 2<z<10+. These
goals are unreachable with ground-based observations due to the ~500 times
higher sky background. To achieve the main science objectives, SPACE will use a
1.5m diameter Ritchey-Chretien telescope equipped with a set of arrays of
Digital Micro-mirror Devices (DMDs) covering a total field of view of 0.4 deg2,
and will perform large-multiplexing multi-object spectroscopy (e.g. ~6000
targets per pointing) at a spectral resolution of R~400 as well as
diffraction-limited imaging with continuous coverage from 0.8mum to 1.8mum.
