Cool Stars 14 - Submitted Abstract # 174 This version created on 05 October 2006 Towards the Characterization of the Darwin Stars Jesus Maldonado, Universidad Complutense de Madrid UCM & Universidad Autonoma de Madrid UAM Raquel Martinez-Arnaiz, Universidad Complutense de Madrid UCM David Montes, Universidad Complutense de Madrid UCM Carlos Eiroa, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid UAM Benjamin Montesinos, Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia & Laboratorio de Astrofisica Espacial y Fisica Fundamental Ignasi Ribas, Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai Enrique Solano, Laboratorio de Astrofisica Espacial y Fisica Fundamental The ESA mission Darwin will search for the presence of Earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars, study the planet atmospheres, carry out comparative planetology, and analyze potential spectroscopic signatures of life. A deep knowledge of the Darwin stars and of their environment is required by the missions's scientific objectives. Astrophysical information on the Darwin stars have been either collected or estimated by the ESA Terrestrial Exoplanet-Scientific Advisory Team (TE-SAT) by consulting a large number and variety of data sources. However, the existing data do not allow us to characterize in detail the whole sample of stars in the prime target list to the level required by Darwin scientific objectives. Therefore, we have started precursor high resolution spectroscopic observations aiming to a complete characterization of the prime Darwin stars. The main goals are: a) to determine good spectral types and luminosity classes; b) to analyze the stars' kinematics; c) to estimate accurate rotational velocities; d) to quantify the level of chromospheric activity; e) to estimate stellar ages. Up to now, we have obtained spectra of more than 100 Darwin stars for which, to our knowledge, no previous high resolution spectra are available in public sources. All spectra have been reduced and data are being analysed to estimate the aforementioned quantities. Our spectra will be included into the archive DAMA (DArwin archive MAdrid, under current development in Madrid), which is an AVO oriented facility with features allowing to estimate astrophysical parameters and to download data related to the Darwin stars. ----------------------------------