Awards

PPP Chair Awarded Cassini Medal

The 2023 Jean Dominique Cassini Medal & Honorary Membership of the European Geosciences Union is awarded to Athena Coustenis for her major discoveries in the field of planetary atmospheres and surfaces and outstanding contribution to international space missions.

Congratulations to Athena Coustenis, Director of Research Exceptional Class at the Laboratoire d’études spatiales et d’instrumentation en astrophysique (LESIA), Observatoire de Meudon, France, respected worldwide for her significant contributions to the study of planetary atmospheres and surfaces in the outer Solar System and beyond. She has made significant achievements through her research using ground-based observations and her involvement in international space missions. She has uncovered new knowledge of outer Solar System objects with a particular emphasis on Saturn’s moon Titan. She has contributed in a distinctive way through her role in space missions as Coinvestigator of three instruments on the Cassini/Huygens mission and currently as Co-investigator on the JANUS camera on the JUICE mission. She is also involved in future space missions that will explore exoplanets. She has earned respect as a scientist authoring and co-authoring more than 180 refereed publications, as a book author, and as Chair of the Panel for Planetary Protection (PPP) of COSPAR. She has held numerous positions on committees in Europe and the USA.

This issue of Space Research Today sees the launch of COSPAR’s new logo. Having changed little since the Committee’s early days, the COSPAR Bureau agreed to bring the logo from the Cold War into the modern era.

The design brief was clear: an image that is simple with clean lines, and more globally inclusive. Thanks go to Science Office for the result. And we are keen to hear your impressions!