Space Research Today, Issue 218

SPACE RESEARCH TODAY

December 2023

N° 218

MESSAGE from the COSPAR President Pascale Ehrenfreund

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n March 2023, a team of experienced COSPAR associates and external experts convened to explore a new strategy for COSPAR. The team engaged in a comprehensive evaluation, considering the impact of the Strategic Action Plan (SAP) for the period 2019-2023. They critically assessed the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of COSPAR activities and laid the groundwork for a fresh strategic plan, covering the years 2024-2028.

community. The strategy also addresses the next generation of space scientists and proposes a more efficient support structure for early career scientists and education within the space sector. It explores how COSPAR can increase the involvement of students and young professionals in its conferences and activities worldwide.

The primary pillars of the forthcoming strategic plan for 2024-2028 encompass several critical areas of focus. These include new missions for COSPAR in strategic domains such as a space climate initiative, space weather, the new era of space exploration and astronomy, space environmental stewardship, and related aspects such as light pollution and space debris.

Additionally, the plan delves into COSPAR's future and sustainability, covering aspects of its financial growth, the development of its activities and symposia, and identifying pathways for sustainable growth.

Additionally, the plan emphasizes space ecosystems to broaden COSPAR's scope and reach. Furthermore, the strategy considers COSPAR's role in the international space sector, highlighting how its longstanding international network can facilitate, bridge, and reinvigorate international scientific cooperation. It also focuses on enhancing COSPAR's influence The plan emphasizes and impact within space ecosystems to the international

broaden COSPAR's scope and reach

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Crucial elements that complement this strategic plan include capacity building, education and outreach, fostering relations between science and industry, and utilizing small satellites to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue and projects between COSPAR Scientific Commissions, Panels, and Task Groups.

Notably, the efforts of the past 2-3 years in establishing a Committee on Industry Relations (CIR) and a Panel on Innovative Solutions (PoIS) have yielded positive outcomes. A network of 18 aerospace companies, both large and small, is now actively engaged. Numerous individuals

The event will encompass various activities, are dedicated to collaborating with PoIS, including scientific and business sessions, an expressing a willingness to provide concrete exhibition, networking opportunities, and support to and engage with COSPAR. With a cultural events, enabling all stakeholders to generation of COSPAR space scientists on the engage in meaningful brink of retirement, it dialogues regarding is imperative to ensure COSPAR 2024 will offer of the challenges of the their replacement by young, committed unique opportunities to exchange present and the future individuals at all levels groundbreaking research findings of space research. of the organization.

COSPAR 2024 COSPAR should foster represents a distinctive opportunity to witness networking among young scientists, aid in and promote cutting-edge contemporary their training and preparation, enhance their capacity to work in their home countries, and space science, connect with the thriving Korean space industry, establish new connections with emphasize the crucial significance of STEM colleagues, explore new products and services, careers to society and decision-makers. and share your passion for space science.

We are delighted to extend an invitation to you to participate in the 45th Scientific Assembly of COSPAR, scheduled to take place between 13 and 21 July 2024, at BEXCO in Busan, South Korea. Operating Sincerely, COSPAR should foster under the theme of "Team Spirit in networking among Space Research," Pascale Ehrenfreund young scientists COSPAR 2024 COSPAR President will offer a range of unique opportunities to exchange groundbreaking research findings and expertise, fostering professional networks and international friendships.

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MESSAGE from the General Editor Richard Harrison

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pace Research Today (SRT) is aimed at disseminating news and information on COSPAR business and the wider space research community.

On occasions, we find a theme forming as we pull an issue together and this issue includes a focus on a variety of Indian space research activities, including reports on the Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander mission and the Aditya-L1 solar mission, along with news items relating to the successful test of the Gaganyaan spacecraft (to demonstrate that a crew could safely escape if the rocket malfunctioned), to an ISRO call for Capacity Building and a NASAISRO radar mission. These reports certainly stress the progress being made in Indian space activities, which is wonderful to witness. It also highlights the fact that some countries that were not major players in the early decades of space flight are moving into the top league in terms of their capabilities. Clearly, from the point of view of the SRT editorial team, we strongly encourage news and reports from countries with emerging space capabilities, as well as those that are now fully fledged. In a real sense, we explore and exploit space on behalf of the entire population of our planet so the efforts and successes of all countries involved in space research activities need to be appreciated through these pages.

This issue also has an underlying theme of education, highlighted by the International Satellite Program in Research and Education (INSPIRE) and the report on Bringing Space into the Classroom. Education is, of course, an area that is central to the aims of COSPAR. Also close Space Research Today

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to the heart of COSPAR’s goals of inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility, is the review of an excellent book on women in space

by Umberto Cavallaro.

Other highlights of this issue include an article on the ESA Euclid mission, which produced its first light images recently, as well as on the NASA Lucy mission that has made wonderful contact binary asteroid observations, in addition to news and reports on a number of missions in progress. With regard to COSPAR business the issue includes a number of reports, including one on the Group on Earth Observation summit in November, and on the activities of the Panel on Exploration. And for COSPAR business, do please remember that the last pages of each issue include the list of COSPAR Scientific Commissions and Panels, along with their membership, in addition to a list of COSPAR officers. Always useful to keep in mind for future reference.

Finally, my usual call for the submission of any material that you think might be of interest, whether it be related to COSPAR business or to space research activities in general.

This includes our Letters to the Editor and the Snapshot section, which might appeal to many of you, to share your findings or achievements.

Alternatively, please submit a cartoon!

We love to hear from you.

COSPAR Business 13

Research Highlights 40

News in Brief 84

Space Snapshots 96

Meetings 98

Meetings of Interest 98 Meeting Announcements 100 Meeting Reports 103

COSPAR Extended Abstracts 108

COSPAR Publication News 116

Book Reviews 118

What Caught the Editor’s Eye 120

Letter to the Editor 122

Submissions to Space Research Today 133

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TABLE OF

COSPAR Community

COSPAR COMMUNITY Iossif Papadakis - Chair (2021-2024), Sub-Commission E1: Galactic and Extragalactic Astrophysics Iossif Papadakis received his BSc in physics from Athens University in Greece, and then he moved to London for his PhD studies in astrophysics at Queen Mary College. He completed his PhD studies in 1993, and then he moved to Southampton University, where he stayed almost three years as a postdoctoral researcher, before moving back to Greece. He is currently a Professor of Astrophysics at the Physics Department in the University of Crete and an affiliated member of the Institute of Astrophysics at the Foundation for Research and Technology in Greece.

Iossif is mainly interested in studying the variability of the photons emitted by the vicinity of compact objects, like X-ray binaries and, mainly, AGN. He has developed statistical tools for the proper estimation of the power and cross spectra from the observed light curves of these objects, and he has worked with data collected from the current X-ray satellites, like XMM-Newton, NuSTAR and Neil Gehrels/Swift observatory, as well as from past satellites like to RXTE, EXOSAT and even Ariel 5 (although he was not necessarily around by the time the last two satellites were operating). He was recently involved in the study of the correlation seen Space Research Today

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(or not) between the X-rays and the UV/optical bands of a few nearby AGN that have extensively been monitored the last few years. Together with other colleagues, he has developed models for the expected time lags between the X-ray and the UV/ optical variations in the case when X-rays illuminate the accretion disc. He is also heavily involved in teaching both undergraduate physics courses (from electro-magnetism to nuclear physics) and postgraduate courses (e.g. high energy astrophysics).

He has served as Chair of the Physics Department of the University of Crete, member of the research committee and of the Senate of the University of Crete.

Furthermore, he has been a member of the National Astronomical Committee of Greece and member elect of the governing council of the Hellenic Astronomical Society. He has been a member of the core management group of a COST action, member of advisory committees of various EU research projects, as well as chair 6

of various time allocation panels of XMM-Newton and NASA's ADAP panels.

In addition, he has organised and served as Scientific Organising Committee member of various conferences, both in Greece as well as abroad.

Finally, he is very active in astronomy outreach efforts within his community, giving talks to schools, to the public, and also frequently participating in the "Open Days" (which actually happen at night)

in the Observatory of Skinakas in Crete, Greece.

Iossif is currently serving as the Chair of the COSPAR Scientific Sub-Commission E1: Galactic and Extragalactic Astrophysics (since 2021). He is very interested in supporting COSPAR to enhance international collaboration in this area of research which is among the most productive and exciting research areas in astrophysics currently, worldwide.

Peter Doran - Vice-Chair (2022-2026), Panel on Planetary Protection Dr. Peter Doran is Professor and the John Franks Endowed Chair in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Louisiana State University (LSU), Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. Prior to starting at LSU in 2015, he spent 15 years as a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He was named a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UIC in 2013. While at UIC he served as campus director for the Illinois Space Grant Consortium.

He got his BSc at Trent University, and MSc at Queen’s University, Canada before moving to the USA to acquire his PhD in Hydrology/ Hydrogeology in 1996 at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has spent his career specializing in extreme environments research, particularly polar regions and using polar regions as planetary analogs. He has led or been involved in 10 expeditions to the Canadian High Arctic, and at last count 28 expeditions to Antarctica, including his first one as a member of a NASA team that joined the last Soviet Antarctic Expedition in 1991.

He has published over 130 peer-reviewed studies in this pursuit and been awarded 17 NSF and 12 NASA grants over the last 20 years.

While doing this research, Dr. Doran got involved in environmental stewardship of the Antarctic Space Research Today

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environment. This combined with his interest in space and planetary analogs, naturally led him to become involved in planetary protection. His first experience directly with planetary protection was as a member of the Mars Special Regions Science Analysis Group (SR-SAG), which was followed by many other committees. Notably he was a member of the NASA Planetary Protection Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council for 9 years, was a Science Representative on the COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection (since 2018), and is now Vice Chair of that Panel.

He has been very much involved in the development and refining of planetary protection policy for the last 10-15 years. He has also led research that required stringent cleaning and sterilization procedures be developed to maintain the integrity of the science in challenging analog environments.

Dr. Doran held a NASA Planetary Biology Internship in 1991, was named an Aldo Leopold Fellow in 2008 and a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2018.

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In Memoriam Tomaso Belloni (1961-2023) The polyhedric scientist and his sharp tones Tomaso Belloni passed away suddenly on 26 August 2023. He was a leading scientist of the Italian astrophysics community and was well known internationally for his work on compact objects in the X-ray and gamma-ray bands. He had graduated at the University of Milan, and continued his activity first at the Max Planck Institute of Garching (MPE), Germany, and then at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

He came back to Italy in 1999, and was Research Director at the Brera Astronomical Observatory.

Mourning sometimes calls for silence, but Tomaso loved words, written, read, spoken, discussed, recited.

He loved to laugh and to make people laugh.

Having given so many talks - none of which were trivial - he resented highfalutin' and rhetorical speeches.

With this short note we intend to outline his style, that of a person of rare intelligence, occasionally rough, but certainly unconventional, full of passion and explosive enthusiasm, introverted and open at the same time.

Tomaso used to discuss everything with everyone. He had strong and clear opinions, but also an intellectual honesty that few can boast: he rigorously applied his analytic approach to everything he encountered, and he was as insistent and sure of himself in arguing his theses as he was ready to admit his mistakes. And as soon as he discovered that he had supported the "wrong" thesis, he changed his mind and did that with a smile, almost with joy.

He was recognized among the leading experts at the highest international level on his subjects. His huge scientific production has its core in the study and characterization of the variability in X-rays of stellar-mass black holes accreting star from a companion star.

The very rapid quasi-periodic flux oscillations, the rich variety of emission modes of some of these systems, the variability classes identified in the GRS 1915+105 system and the characteristic variation to "q" (or "turtle-head" as Tomaso jokingly liked to call it) of the hardness of the energy spectrum as a function of intensity of transient black holes (subsequently identified also in other classes of accreting compact objects) are among the best known results inextricably linked to his work and his name.

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An anonymous reviewer of a project of his once described him as one of the "best minds" in the field. Some Fourier spectral modelling techniques he developed are now part of the basic knowledge of researchers and students working on fast timing studies. Nevertheless, Tomaso's scientific activity extended very far: he studied pulsars of the most diverse classes, accreting neutron stars or isolated, magnetars, white dwarfs in binary systems, as well as the enigmatic "ultraluminous" sources of X-rays in nearby galaxies. He laid the foundations to establish important analogies between the variability characteristics of black holes and neutron stars in X-ray binaries, and for the understanding of the conditions behind the emission of plasma winds and jets at very high speed from these systems.

Tomaso had been very involved in the activities of some of the most important X-ray satellites, both under development (such as LOFT and eXTP), and in orbit. Among these successful missions, some of which made the history of X-ray astronomy, we recall ROSAT, for which Tomaso had worked at MPE since the early 1990s; RXTE, which he worked on for years while in Amsterdam at the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy and then later, when he moved definitively to Merate in a permanent position at the Brera Astronomical Observatory; INTEGRAL, for which Tomaso was a member of the Integral User Group and served on several occasions as chair of the Time Allocation Committee; AstroSAT, for which he wrote and maintained the official timing analysis software, GHATS. Tomaso collaborated with various Indian institutes, above all IUCAA, where the Astrosat operations centre is located: he often visitid IUCAA, establishing long standing collaborations with countless colleagues and students. Tomaso was also Visiting Professor at the University of Southampton, UK, where he regularly spent time, and often gave his well-regarded lectures on timing, which many of us had the pleasure of attending at least once.

Tomaso was in fact an excellent speaker and popularizer, he loved the stage and knew how to keep it: in his talks he even managed to make the seemingly dry mathematics of Fourier techniques interesting. In a similar way he intrigued and fascinated the public of all ages talking about the strange features of black holes and dark matter in his outreach lectures as well as in the popular books which he authored. He took care of every detail in his presentations, which were as beautiful as they were clear and essential. He often taught the younger ones how to prepare their own presentations, recounting with amused horror about that single slide filled with over a hundred figures he had seen projected at a conference, or the jumble of colours and fonts from some presentation he had attended.

In recent years Tomaso assiduously devoted himself to institutional activities both within INAF and in other institutions. He was vice-president of the INAF Scientific Council, and during his term he worked hard for the institution with the enthusiasm and determination that distinguished him. He was a member of COSPAR and chair of the Scientific Commission E: ”Research in Astrophysics from Space”.

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He had a key role in the Scientific Assembly of Athens in 2022, and more recently he was fundamental - in his capacity as chair of the Scientific Organizing Committee - in laying out the initial proposal and organising the next Assembly, to be held in Florence in 2026. Tomaso was also an esteemed and very active member of the D Division (”High Energy Phenomena and Fundamental Physics”) of the International Astronomical Union.

Through decades of avid reading, ranging from novels to poetry, from art to all kinds of science, technologies and techniques, from the human sciences to statistics (but not the Bayesian one, which he did not like one bit!) Tomaso amassed a boundless culture, maintained thanks to his prodigious memory and shared with spontaneity and irony. Novels, architecture, comics, economics, new discoveries, along with politics and football were among the topics that were examined every morning systematically and noisily argued in the corridors of the Observatory. Tomaso used to have work-related conversations with students and colleagues in his office sitting in front of a very bright window, unaware of the fact that they could not see his features against the light. When someone pointed that out to him he laughed out loud and changed his sitting place thereafter.

Tomaso loved all forms of art, and was a passionate enthusiast. He had great sensitivity for music, which he knew about also in technical aspects. He was a refined connoisseur of classical authors, but he ranged over all genres: widely diverse literature excerpts resounded in his office, and pervaded the adjacent corridors.

He was himself an artist, as testified by the massive body of photographs in which he captured the hidden beauty of unexpected places and subjects with powerful shots, following light playing on lines, volumes and colours. In 2017, a series of his shots taken in the Sicilian city of Cefalù was exhibited in a town hall exhibit.

We also like to remember him as semi-official photographer of many science meetings and workshops: many beautiful portraits were the result of his wandering among the participants during breaks, social dinners and evening entertainment with his camera in hand. Sometimes he carried also a tripod: it was for the self-timer, he too wanted to be in the group picture.

Your empty place at the table

talks narrates chats laughs out loud.

(Vivian Lamarque)

[Sarah Motta and Luigi Stella, with permission from INAF http://www.inaf.it/en/inaf-news/the-polyhedric-scientist-and-his-sharp-tones]

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In Memoriam Lee-Anne McKinnell (1970-2023) Dr Lee-Anne McKinnell, Managing Director of the South African National Space Agency’s Space Science Programme and Sandbaai resident, passed away on Saturday 19 August 2023 after a short illness.

Lee-Anne was born in Vereeniging in 1970 and grew up in Witpoortjie, close to Krugersdorp. She was the first female learner to complete a technical matric at the John Orr Engineering School of Specialisation.

Her father, an Electrical Engineer wanted her to follow in his footsteps, however, she developed a passion for physics. True to her nature, she decided to satisfy both and enrolled in a BSC Physics and Electronics course.

After obtaining her degree, Lee-Anne pursued her Honours, Masters and PhD in Physics through Rhodes University. She later obtained an MBA from the Business School Netherlands (BSN) in 2015, with distinction. She was accepted as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Graz University of Technology in Austria and fondly remembered the time she spent there.

Lee-Anne was appointed as a junior lecturer at Rhodes, but not for long, as she rose through the academic ranks and was appointed Honorary Research Professor at Rhodes University in 2011. She was well known for managing the Ionosonde Network in South Africa.

Lee-Anne was appointed to the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory (HMO) in 2004 as a researcher and was then appointed as the Acting Managing Director in 2010, after which she moved to Hermanus parttime. Her husband, John McKinnell, joined her in Hermanus in 2012 when the HMO was incorporated in the newly established South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and they relocated permanently.

Lee-Anne played a crucial role in the establishment of the Space Agency, as a board member and an executive and many of the students she supervised are now full-time researchers at SANSA and around the world. She served as SANSA Space Science Managing Director for 12 years and during this time made a tremendous contribution to the space science, skills development, and science engagement fields.

The Space Weather Project was her crowning achievement which produced a Space Weather Capability for the country in three years, on time, and on budget. The launch of the 24/7 Space Weather Centre

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in November of last year was a highlight for her and the SANSA team. Lee-Anne was a space weather advocate and custodian of the unique SANSA Hermanus facility which she loved and is now a National Key Point, thanks to her continued efforts to protect the site.

Dr McKinnell served on numerous international committees and working groups, including as the Space Weather co-chair for the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), ensuring Africa’s interests are maintained in the field of space science and related technology. She also received a long list of awards for her contribution to the Space Science field.

Lee-Anne loved animals, especially dogs. She owned several dogs during her life, including a border collie named Skye and a dachshund named Pixie. She loved listening to music and took up baking as her lock-down hobby. She was also a skilled seamstress, a hobby she learned from her grandmother and practiced often.

Her husband, John McKinnell, expressed his gratitude for all the messages that have been pouring in since the announcement. “I received several messages from prominent scientists who told me they owe their current positions to Lee-Anne. SANSA was Lee-Anne’s life. She gave so much to the organisation, but also received so much in return, particularly from the wonderful Hermanus Space Science team. She will be sorely missed by me and sorely missed by them.

She was an active COSPAR Associate, and among her roles she had been National Committee Member for South Africa since 2008, and a member of the IRI Steering Committee from 2010. More recently she became a member of the COSPAR Panel on Space Weather in 2020.

Dr McKinnell is survived by her husband John, her parents Lynn and John Williscroft, and her two brothers Mark and Gerald Williscroft, and their families.

[Released by South African National Space Agency]

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COSPAR BUSINESS COSPAR PRESENT at THREE KEY CONFERENCES COSPAR stresses the need to define international norms for landing and operating on the Moon, the need for open data, and innovation in the classroom.

November 2023 has been busy for the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), with participation in three significant conferences promoting space science and the peaceful use of outer space through international cooperation, with a combined reach in the hundreds of thousands of attendees or viewers.

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OSPAR was present at the Paris Peace Forum (4,200 participants) where Executive Director Jean-Claude Worms took part in a round table on the theme of Fostering Lunar Policy Priorities for Safe and Sustainable Lunar Development.

The discussion covered the future of exploration and utilisation of the Moon, a key issue in the face of over 100 upcoming lunar missions from nations, private enterprises and non-governmental organizations. COSPAR stressed the need to urgently define international norms of behaviour for landing and operating on the Moon, as a prerequisite for elaborating international regulations.

This could be initiated by the approval of an ethical Space Research Today

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framework, acceptable by all actors.

The roundtable can be seen on the COSPAR YouTube channel at video link.

At the GEO Week 2023 and Ministerial Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, COSPAR was represented by the Vice-Chair of the COSPAR Task Group on GEO, Yasuko Kasai, who spoke during Session 3 about the need to have a policy of open data and encouraged GEO to use its influence to realize this objective.

The programme of events can be seen at www.earthobservations.org/geoweek2023 and the transcript of her speech can be found on page 20.

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The president of COSPAR, Pascale Ehrenfreund, The Space Education, Skills, and Talents session delivered opening remarks during the Opening already has over 683,949 views online, with 600 Session of the International Peace Alliance students and educators on-site.

(Space) (IPSPACE 2023), the International Symposium on The Chair of the COSPAR Panel The president of COSPAR the Peaceful Use of Space on Education, Rosa Doran, also gave a talk on Technology – Health, hosted took part, giving a keynote "A New Age of Space by the Experimental High speech on innovation and Exploration: Cooperation School Attached to Beijing inclusion, entitled “The Future and Innovation" Normal University, China on of Humans in the Hands of 19 November 2023. She gave Students.” This talk covered the a talk on “A New Age of Space Exploration: impact space exploration has on our daily lives Cooperation and Innovation” in the Plenary session and how to prepare students for future professions of the symposium. In addition, she was Co-Chair of related to the area while promoting innovation the session on Space Education, Skills, and Talents, in education. She highlighted the importance of and a panel member for the “Campus Innovative inclusion and empowering educators and learners Technology Showcase” discussion, together with to foster a stronger and more digitally competent IAA President Jean-Michel Contant. generation.

COSPAR is now an active partner in two Erasmus+ projects to bring the excitement—and importance—of space science to classrooms. Initial pilot schools in Europe will be involved in these three-year projects, with the expectation that other schools around the world will be inspired, enabling any teachers with access to the internet to take part with their students.

One project, EXpeditionary Program for Learning OppoRtunities in Analog Space Exploration (EXPLORE), uses the context of an analog mission to Mars. The other, StudenTs As plaNetary Defenders (StAnD) aims to engage primary and secondary school students in the subject of asteroids, meteors, and planetary defence.

Further details are on page 16. Websites for the projects are currently under construction—watch this space!

For more information about COSPAR activities, please check the COSPAR website.

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Bringing Space into the Classroom: EXPLORE and StAnD As COSPAR’s new Strategic Action Plan is being finalised (watch your inbox for news of its release) we bring you a sneak preview: one of the pillars is Education and Outreach. Already underway, as part of our efforts to promote space education in schools around the world with the Panel on Education, COSPAR is now a partner in EXPLORE and StAnD, two projects funded by the European Union Erasmus+* programme.

• The EXpeditionary Program for Learning OppoRtunities in Analog Space Exploration (EXPLORE) uses the context of analog missions that simulate Mars environments, learning about space exploration and its importance in our daily lives, and understanding the importance of preserving the Earth’s environment.

• StudenTs As plaNetary Defenders (StAnD) engages primary and secondary school students and teachers in the subject of asteroids, meteors, and planetary defence, raising interest in science and space exploration, while at the same time improving their skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and other areas.

Below you can find details about each project.

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EXPLORE Fact box

What?

Using the context of an exploratory mission to Mars, EXpeditionary Program for Learning OppoRtunities in Analog Space Exploration (EXPLORE) is a project to bring the future of space exploration closer to the reality of schools and bring educators’ and learners’ skills closer to real needs for emerging economic and societal challenges.

Why? This project addresses several growing needs in education, particularly: raising interest and awareness of the importance of STEAM fields among young students; upgrading educators’ competence and learning in various fields; bringing innovation into the classroom and to the student's learning experience; improving educators’ and learners’ digital literacy; and bridging the digital divide, ensuring an inclusive environment.

These are all areas that are crucial for the future needs of society.

Who? Austrian Space Forum is coordinating the project, leading the partnership of COSPAR, NUCLIO, Ellinogermaniki Agogi and Biosky.

For whom?

30 teachers of STEAM subjects and 360 students (60 upper high school students per country, per year).

How? An EXPLORE toolkit will provide the tools and instruments for integrating the analog field mission in schools.

A carefully selected set of classroom-compatible activities, relevant to analog research, will be defined and distributed. The activities will cover various curriculum STEAM subjects, including communication and intercultural training, analog space mission operations, geoscience exploration, robotics, and safety and will require minimal training for teachers. The concept will accommodate different learning styles, abilities, and cultural backgrounds, to promote inclusivity and diversity. This package will also conceptualise and design the EXPLORE analog missions, prepare the experiments and oversee arrangements for the on-site analog mission experience. Summer schools to support STEAM subject teachers will also be organised, where the toolkit and programme will be presented and discussed. A group of selected students will visit a planetary surface analog site where they will simulate an international space mission and collaborate with peers and professionals from participating countries.

Where?

In high schools in Austria, Greece and Portugal. The analog missions will be undertaken in a real scenario in Observatório Largo do Alqueva (Portugal).

Duration?

36 months; starting 1 September 2023.

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StAnD Fact box

What?

Students As planetary Defenders (StAnD) is a project to engage primary and secondary school students and teachers in the subject of asteroids, meteors, and planetary defence, raising interest in science and space exploration, and improving their skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) school subjects. Students will have the opportunity to discover new asteroids in telescopic images obtained in Hawaii, and study in more detail the properties of known asteroids and comets using robotic telescopes in observatories around the world. They will learn how to use new technologies, will improve their digital skills, and will work as teams in the different campaigns during the project.

Why? This project addresses several growing needs in education, particularly: raising interest and awareness of the importance of STEM fields among young students; upgrading educators’ competence and learning in various fields; improving educators’ and learners’ digital literacy; and bridging the digital divide, ensuring an inclusive environment. These are all areas that are crucial for the future needs of society. Trained teachers will become better prepared for addressing STEM topics, leading to improved learning by the students. The activities will engage students and teachers and lead to potential scientific discoveries.

Who? Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica is coordinating the project, leading the partnership of COSPAR, Ellinogermaniki Agogi, FTP Europlanet, and NUCLIO. For whom?

A minimum of 50 schools will be involved in the project, reaching 135 educators and 1,500 students. The main target groups are schools, scientists, and other relevant stakeholders in the field of education.

How? Meteor detection cameras will be installed in schools in each of the participating countries, and operated by the students with support from the project members. These cameras will detect meteors that enter the Earth’s atmosphere and may register a meteor large enough to leave a remnant in the ground - a meteorite - that can be recovered by specialists and possibly the re-entry of man-made objects. Students will also have the opportunity to recover micrometeorites, microscopic fragments of asteroids and comets, by using the Stardust Hunter kit that will be developed by the project team. The project will include • Teacher training sessions by means of massive open online courses and two summer schools; • Installation and operation of meteor detection cameras in participating schools; • Micrometeorite collection using the detection kits; • Asteroid Search Campaigns using professional telescopes in Hawaii on the framework of the International Astronomical Search Collaboration; and • Asteroid follow-up observations using telescopes of the Las Cumbres Global Observatory.

Where?

Initially in schools in Germany, Greece, Italy and Portugal, and it is hoped to mainstream the methodology being piloted in this project to other schools at a global level.

Duration?

36 months; starting 1 September 2023.

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COSPAR is keen to expand the reach of these projects to other countries, and to mainstream the ideas and methodologies used. If you are interested in receiving updates on EXPLORE and StAnD, or in launching one of these projects in your own country, please contact us at cosparcom@cosparhq.cnes.fr .

* About Erasmus+

Erasmus+ is the EU's programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe. It has an estimated budget of €26.2 billion. This is nearly double the funding compared to its predecessor programme (2014-2020). The 2021-2027 programme places a strong focus on social inclusion, the green and digital transitions, and promoting young people’s participation in democratic life. It supports priorities and activities set out in the European Education Area, Digital Education Action Plan and the European Skills Agenda. The programme also supports the European Pillar of Social Rights; implements the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027; and develops the European dimension in sport.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

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COSPAR STATEMENT for the 2023 GEO SUMMIT Editor’s Note: GEO Week 2023 took place in Cape Town, South Africa, from 6-10 November 2023, with the GEO Ministerial Summit on 10 November.

Organized by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the event was hosted by the Government of South Africa. Yasko Kasai, Vice-Chair of the COSPAR Task Group on GEO and Chair of Sub-Commission A1: Atmosphere (including Troposphere and Stratosphere), Meteorology, and Climate, spoke at the Summit on behalf of COSPAR. Here is a transcript of her speech.

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t is my pleasure to present, on behalf of the COSPAR leadership, the COSPAR perspective on priorities for GEO. Largely because the climate does not respect geo-political boundaries, the value of Earth observations, especially for critical climate-change studies, lies primarily in the ability to measure many variables frequently, over large spatial scales, and for long time-periods.

Many nations acquire space-based and suborbital data of relevance, but only by combining data from many sources can we hope to develop adequate constraints on climate modeling and prediction.

As such, we strongly endorse the efforts of GEO to make available to the global climate research community all data relevant to climateWe strongly endorse the change studies. This entails several components. First, a policy of efforts of GEO to make open data is required; this must come from decision-makers at high available all data relevant levels, and we encourage GEO to use its influence to realize this to climate-change studies objective as much as possible. Then, there must be adequate data storage and distribution infrastructure, which requires having both the facilities and the expertise to archive and distribute data. COSPAR is committed to helping spread the relevant expertise through our Capacity Building program. Proposals for Capacity Building Workshops are generally initiated by established Earth scientists in collaboration with a local institution and local scientists in the host country. The workshops are funded jointly by COSPAR and the host country.

One additional requirement for data to actually be of use to the scientific community is adequate documentation. Whereas Open Data Access is already a well-established goal of GEO, documentation is usually either ignored, or the requirements imposed are utterly unrealistic, and little progress has been Space Research Today

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made in this area. Creating good documentation can be a costly activity. However, we believe an excellent solution in most cases is to document datasets in peer-reviewed publications. The peer-review process in high-quality journals can assure that the papers provide effective explanation of the strengths and limitations of the datasets, validation studies can be included in such publications, and the details of the data format and structure can and should be included in Supplemental Material. Further, journals tend to have longevity that a locally hosted "report" might not.

In addition to the Open Data Access and other efforts GEO is making to improve the availability and use of Earth science data, helping establish the peer-reviewed-journal-article-approach as the norm for Earth science data documentation could be a major contribution to the overall GEO effort.

Thank you.

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Fly me to the Moon [by Jean-Claude Worms, COSPAR Executive Director, Link here]

So many actors

The short answers are no, probably, and no.

The renewed interest for going back to the Moon is obvious to all. The Artemis Accords are gaining supporters world-wide with 33 countries joining as of date – the most recent signatory being Angola.

In August this year, India became the 4th country after the Soviet Union, the United States, and China to land on the surface of our satellite with Chandrayaan-3, with a very strong contender, Japan, poised to become the 5th one sometime in 2024. There is a profusion of missions targeting the surface of the Moon in the coming 4-5 years, a good share of which are being developed by private enterprises.

The Outer Space Treaty (OST) of 1967 remains sufficiently vague on the matter, leaving room for varying interpretations about possible activities and behaviour on our satellite. Beyond the principles of “non-appropriation” (Article II), “province of all mankind” (Article I), “international responsibility” (Article VI) and coverage by “international law and UN Charter” (Article III), OST67 does not provide unambiguous directions on exploration (and exploitation) of celestial bodies.

It is not so much this plethora of missions that poses a problem, but it does raise the big question: who can do what on the Moon?

In other words, is there some form of formal lunar governance that has already been adopted by all space-faring nations, and detailed rules of behaviour for agencies and entrepreneurs?

Can anyone go anywhere on our satellite, claim territory, excavate, dig up, return material to Earth, secure and protect a base, or deposit ashes or DNA samples? In short, is there a treaty that everybody agrees to when it comes to exploration and use of the Moon?

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The so-called “Moon Treaty” (or “Moon Agreement”), although much more detailed in terms of addressing these questions, has never been approved nor ratified by most of the major space-faring nations.

The Artemis Accords of course lay down principles to be followed by all concerned actors: peaceful purposes, transparency, interoperability, emergency assistance, space object registration, release of scientific data, protecting heritage, space resources, de-confliction of activities, and orbital debris and spacecraft disposal. However, those remarkable basic principles are not sufficient to constitute the required detailed regulations that every lunar exploration agent will need to be able to operate on the Moon. In particular, industry 21

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is in need of such operating regulations. In all fairness, NASA and the USA are working to define these regulations, but the very short time horizon of upcoming missions mandates some urgency in establishing and agreeing on those rules.

Another major problem is that China and Russia have not signed the Artemis Accords, and it seems unlikely that they will do so in the near future.

Coordinate!

Many legal experts, agency executives, industry operators and scientists have naturally identified this regulatory vacuum and started to alert decision-makers accordingly. This is actually part of the problem: in my view, there is an urgent need to ensure that the entities that are discussing these issues in parallel coordinate their discussion, findings and recommendations.

The recent Paris Peace Forum 2023 was an occasion to assemble a few of these actors and debate about measures that countries and agencies could undertake to fill that vacuum. I had the pleasure to participate on behalf of COSPAR in a round table organized by Dr Antonino Salmeri of the Open Lunar Foundation, and offer views about the matter.

I stressed the urgent need to define international norms of behaviour for landing and operating on the Moon, as a pre-requisite for elaborating international regulations acceptable by all actors, so that space exploration does not become the Wild West all over again. The approval of an ethical framework, such as the one I had proposed with the “3 Laws of Space Exploration”, could be such a first step.

A video of this round table is available at link.

The Open Lunar Foundation has polled many stakeholders in the past few months, with the aim Space Research Today

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of identifying and investigating priority areas for lunar policy development. The result is a staged approach, dubbed “Lunar Policy Platform”, that recommends several areas of development for all concerned actors, in a prioritized manner. Clearly, not all stakeholders agree about the order of priority, but most seem to agree that regulations and procedures will be required. For instance, industry regards the elaboration of technical standards for interoperable systems and infrastructure as their prime concern; more urgent than, say, the establishment of international norms of behaviour for landing and proximity operations on the Moon’s surface, which was identified as the first priority for the science community. Interestingly though, industry views these norms as their priority number 2. Therefore, clearly, there is strong potential to agree on a path forward!

Similarly, the Moon Village Association’s Global Expert Group on Sustainable Lunar Activities (GEGSLA) has produced a Framework Document to guide well-balanced lunar projects and offer recommendations to implement safe and sustainable lunar activities through norm-setting, coordination, and management.

And there are many other actors involved, directly or potentially. Primarily the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS), of course, but also various other entities and learned societies, such as the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that addresses the matter of astronomy from the Moon; the World Economic Forum through its interesting “Space Sustainability Rating” project; the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI); the International Legal Center for Space Sustainability (ILCSS), and of course space agencies, industries and individual scientists.

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COSPAR of course is dealing with these issues in an inter-disciplinary manner, through its Scientific Commission B and Panels PPP, PEX, PEDAS and PSSH. We need to address many subjects and overcome many challenges, such as mining of resources or biological contamination. COSPAR has the responsibility to include all stakeholders (science, industry, policy, legal) in this attempt to protect future science while enabling space exploration; to inform and collect input from relevant stakeholders; and to issue recommendations to agencies and governments.

The Three Laws of Space Exploration, Worms, J.C., Space Research Today, Volume 215, 2022, pp 5660, ISSN 1752-9298. Link here Lunar Policy Priorities for Safe and Sustainable Lunar Development, a report of the Lunar Policy Platform, Open Lunar Foundation, October 2023.

Link here Recommended Framework and Key Elements for Peaceful and Sustainable Lunar Activities, 2022, Global Expert Group on Sustainable Lunar Activities (GEGSLA). Link here

Everybody can and should contribute. Remember that the OST defines obligations but also gives rights to UNCOPUOS Member States. Even if you are not being flown to the Moon right now, you can have a say in the matter!

References OST 1967, Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, entered into force Oct.10, 1967.

Link here Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, United Nations, December 18, 1979. Link here The Artemis Accords, Principles for Cooperation in the Civil Exploration and Use of the Moon, Mars, Comets and Asteroids for Peaceful Purposes, NASA. Link here

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This view of the Lunar surface was taken during the Apollo 17 mission. (Image credit: NASA). Link here

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM ILEWG and COSPAR PANEL ON EXPLORATION (PEX) [Bernard Foing, Vice-Chair COSPAR Panel on Exploration and SC B, Executive Director ILEWG, CEO LUNEX EuroMoonMars]

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pace exploration is a multifaceted endeavour and a “grand challenge” of the 21st century.

Today, space exploration has become an element of the political agenda of a growing number of countries around the world. The objective of the COSPAR Panel on Exploration (PEX) created in 2007 is to provide the best, most independent, input to support the development of worldwide space exploration programs and to safeguard the scientific assets of solar system objects. PEX builds on heritage and synergies with other COSPAR commissions and Panels, and various studies and community events organised by the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG), the International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG), the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) and by international and national working groups.

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ILEWG, COSPAR, PEX and Destination Moon

1.1. The ILEWG Charter ''Following the Beatenberg Declaration (3 June 1994), space agencies from all over the world met in Hamburg, Germany, at the EGS Moon Workshop (3 - 7 April 1995) and in full agreement decided to create an International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG). The charter of ILEWG is:

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2.

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To develop an international strategy for the exploration of the Moon To establish a forum and mechanisms for the communication and coordination of activities To implement international coordination and cooperation

To facilitate communication among all interested parties ILEWG agrees to establish an electronic communication network for the exchange of science, technology and programmatic information related to lunar activities.

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All interested space agencies will appoint two or three members. A chairperson is selected among the ILEWG members every two years.

ILEWG will meet regularly, at least, once a year, and will lead the organization of an International Conference every two years in order to discuss the state of lunar exploration.

Formal reports will be given at COSPAR meetings.''

1.2. Lunar Science and exploration Events and Activities by COSPAR/ILEWG The joint COSPAR/IAF World Space Congress was held in Washington DC, USA in 1992. From this Congress the publication "Astronomy and space science from the Moon" (1994 Adv. Space Res. 14, B. Foing, Editor, doi.org/10.1016/0273-1177(94)90039-6 was born, addressing the following areas related to the Moon: Aerospace technology; Sciences; Astronomy; Lunar Observatories; Lunar Resources; Panels Summaries; Lunar Environment and Protection; Chemical Analysis; Exobiology; Human Performance; Logistics; Robotics; Ground Support Systems; Habitats and Analogue Simulations.

ILEWG/COSPAR International Conferences on Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon (ICEUM) have been organised since 1992, in which participants exchange information, form splinter groups and develop ICEUM/COSPAR declarations. Such meetings have been held in Washington (1992), Beatenberg (1994), Kyoto (1996), Moscow (1998), ESTEC (2000), Houston (2002), Hawaii (2003), Udaipur (2004), Toronto (2005), Beijing (2006), Sorrento (2007), Canaveral (2008), Beijing (2010), Moscow (2014), (Istanbul16), ESTEC/Vienna (2017), Pasadena (2018), (Sydney2020), Vienna (2020), Athens (2022). The next ICEUM will be associated with the COSPAR Scientific Assembly in Busan, South Korea (2024), and then Firenze, Italy (2026).

ILEWG has also sponsored sessions at yearly IAC international congresses together with the IAF in 20022023 (with recent events in Dubai, UAE in 2021, Paris, France in 2022, Baku, Azerbaijan in 2023), with future events at the IAC in Milan, Italy in 2024, Sydney, Australia in 2025 and Antalya, Turkey in 2026.

ILEWG also co-sponsored yearly lunar sessions at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna, Austria 2004-2023, with the next meeting on April 15-19, 2024. COSPAR, the IAF, the IAA, ILEWG, EGU, UN and SGAC have held various events in last the two decades addressing lunar science, technology, community, legacy, space resources, economy, legal, protection, inspiration and education.

Relevant science recommendations from ILEWG Conferences on Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon (ICEUM) can be seen at: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu

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Figure 1: ILEWG roadmap towards robotic village and human permanent settlements

1.3. Exploration4science In terms of science, key questions include the following: • What does the Moon tell us about processes that shape Earth-like planets (tectonics, volcanism, impact craters, erosion, space weathering, volatiles)?

• What is the present structure, composition and past evolution of the lunar interior?

• Did the Moon form in a giant impact and how? How was the Earth evolution and habitability affected by this violent event, and by lunar tidal forcing?

• How can we return samples from large impact basins as windows to the lunar interior, and as a record of the early and late heavy bombardment?

• What can we learn about the delivery of water and organics by comets and asteroids from sampling cores of the lunar polar ices deposits? Are they prebiotic ingredients in lunar soils or ices?

• How do we find and return samples ejected from the early Earth (and possibly the oldest fossils) now buried under a few meters of lunar regolith?

• How do we use most effectively the Moon as a platform for astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics, compared to Earth or space based laboratories?

• How can we use an international robotic village (as recommended by ILEWG) to provide the measurements to fulfill these scientific objectives?

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Many COSPAR Moon-dedicated publications (Adv. Space Res. 1994, 1996, 2002, 2004, 2006) and ten ILEWG volumes have compiled information in the last two decades on what science can be done: of, on and from the Moon. Among the more recent ambitions is to use the Moon for Earth sciences and to study fundamental solar system processes. The National Research Council (NRC), the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) and ILEWG have roadmaps on-line that outline fundamental and applied science concepts for Moon missions. The lunar far side, shielded The lunar far side from terrestrial radio emission, would allow the exploration of the radio cosmos would allow the from the Moon.

exploration of the radio cosmos

Figure 2: Challenges for MoonVillage implementation (launch, soft landing, operations, survival, communications, Human-robot partnerships, mobility, resource utilisation), but also the inclusion of broader and new stakeholders and investors, cooperating internationally

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1.4. Destination Moon The Moon is a valuable and crucial target for planetary science: it represents a window through which to explore the origin of our solar system and the Earth-Moon system. Created by a destructive impact to Earth in the early history of our solar system, the Moon provides a unique platform to search for clues about the conditions of the primitive solar nebula and terrestrial planet(s). In the early history of solar system formation, some 3.9 billion years ago, the destabilized solar nebula disk caused a massive delivery of planetesimals to the inner solar system. This so-called Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) phase was likely triggered by rapid migration of giant planets. As a consequence, numerous small bodies, including comets and asteroids and their fragments (meteorites and interplanetary dust particles), impacted young planets (Gomes et al.

2005). The bombardment record is uniquely revealed by the Moon, as the early record has been erased on Earth by erosion. Evidence for water on the Moon was recently provided by three different spacecraft (e.g. Chandrayaan-1). Investigating the distribution of water on the Moon and searching for embedded molecules in polar ice deposits are exciting avenues to pursue. Understanding the formation of the Moon, its internal structure and environment, and the impact history of the inner solar system are of particular importance in reconstructing the details of processes that occurred in the early solar system, and to shed light on the origin of life on Earth.

1.5. The LEAG roadmap The Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) Roadmap is a hierarchical document that is comprised of three themes with subsequent goals, objectives, and investigations or initiatives (Living document www.lpi.usra.edu) The Moon has been and will continue to be the scientific foundation for our knowledge of the early evolution and impact history of the terrestrial planets. Remotely sensed, geophysical, and sample data allow us to define investigations that test and refine models established for lunar origin and evolution. For example, documenting the diversity of crustal rock types and the composition of shallow and deep lunar mantle will allow refinement of the lunar magma ocean hypothesis. Dating the formation of large impact basins will relate directly to the crustal evolution of all the terrestrial planets and, possibly, to the bombardment history of the outer solar system.

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IMEWG, MEPAG, PEX and Destination Mars

2.1. Mars Science Mars continues to be an object of keen interest in the context of planetary evolution and extraterrestrial life. Its climate has changed profoundly over time and the planet’s surface still retains physical and chemical evidence of early planetary and geologically more recent processes. A primary objective of future international planetary exploration programs is to implement a long-term plan for robotic and human exploration of Mars, and as part of these programs, to search for extinct or extant life on Mars. Although Space Research Today

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Regions in the currently the surface of Mars may be uninhabitable, regions in the subsurface subsurface could may still harbour life or remnants of past life. Recent missions, such as Mars still be habitable Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, the Mars Exploration Rovers, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and Phoenix, have added significantly to our knowledge of the history of water at the martian surface and the evolving role it has played in interacting with the crust. The geological record indicates a diversity of water-modified environments, including promising ancient habitable environments. The presence of methane gas suggests a dynamic system on Mars that couples its interior and atmosphere, even as its reported variability challenges our present understanding of atmospheric chemistry. Although the surface of Mars may currently be uninhabitable, regions in the subsurface could still be habitable. In the coming decade, Mars is the only target addressing the search for life that, realistically, can be visited frequently by robotic spacecraft, paving the way for returned samples and human exploration. Finally, the consensus of the Mars science community is that the greatest progress in determining biological potential of Mars is through returning samples from the Mars surface to be analyzed in Earth laboratories (Jakosky, 2007). Finally, Mars is the most likely planet besides Earth to be explored by humans working on its surface.

2.2. Preparing for human Mars exploration The following goals for the period 2016-2025 related to preparing for human exploration are listed in the current NASA Roadmap. Many of these are still active, although others have shifted as priorities and budgets have evolved.

• • • • • • • • • • •

Lab study of Mars samples Intensive search for life Subsurface exploration Understand potential Mars hazards - toxicity, biohazards, Scalable demos of key capabilities (ISRU, EDL) and dress rehearsal Develop other major capabilities Expand Mars telecom infrastructure Human habitation and ops validation on Moon Select and validate human Mars architecture Select site for robotic outpost Commit to timetable for human Mars exploration

2.3. COSPAR and IMEWG Conferences and Events 1993-2010 The International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG) was established with the primary purpose of coordinating international efforts in the exploration of Mars. This organization, which includes representatives from all major space agencies and institutions involved in Mars exploration, was conceived at a meeting in Wiesbaden, Germany, in May 1993. Since its inception, IMEWG has met biannually to discuss' the overarching strategy for Mars exploration.

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The terms of reference for IMEWG, as approved in 1996, are as follows: • Produce and Maintain an International Strategy: The group aims to develop and continuously update a comprehensive strategy for Mars exploration, accommodating the goals and missions of the participating space agencies.

• Provide a Forum for Coordination: IMEWG serves as a platform for coordinating Mars exploration missions, ensuring alignment and collaboration among the various international efforts.

• Examine Possibilities for Future Missions: The group also explores the potential for future missions beyond those currently planned, considering the long-term objectives of Mars exploration.

IMEWG's intent is to establish a long-range, broad strategy for Mars exploration that is specific enough to identify intermediate and long-term goals while remaining flexible to adapt to programmatic and fiscal realities. This strategy must also align with missions already funded or in the planning stages.

IMEWG has functioned effectively as a planning forum for Mars exploration, issuing recommendations on various aspects such as surface network missions, telecommunication strategies, and recovery strategies for lost missions. The group's discussions and recommendations have significantly influenced the planning and approval of mission scenarios by various space organizations.

IMEWG focuses on educating its members about ongoing Martian exploration efforts.

In addition to its strategic role, IMEWG focuses on educating its members about ongoing Martian exploration efforts, providing a collaborative forum for mission coordination, and examining possibilities for future missions beyond the currently defined ones. By working together, IMEWG members share knowledge, costs, risks, opportunities, and benefits, advancing the collective human and robotic exploration of Mars​​​​​​.

2.4. International Mars Sample Return The International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG) is an assembly of major space agencies and institutions collaborating on Mars exploration. Established in 1993, it meets biannually to strategize international efforts for exploring Mars. Initial participants included countries like Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and the United States, as well as organizations like the European Space Agency​​.

One of the significant initiatives under IMEWG is the international Mars Architecture for the Return of Samples (iMARS), established to plan an international Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. The Phase 2 Working Group of iMARS, formed in 2014, concluded that it is feasible to return scientifically selected samples from Mars by 2031/33. This conclusion hinges on the proposed mission architecture, technology development roadmap, and sample management plan, emphasizing the need for early and binding agreements among participating organizations for a successful campaign​​.

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Regarding current and future Mars missions, several are ongoing, and others are planned under the IMEWG framework. Current missions include NASA's Curiosity Rover, Emirates Mars Mission: Hope Probe, NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN), ESA, ASI, NASA's Mars Express, NASA's Mars Odyssey, ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), NASA's Perseverance Rover, CNSA's Tianwen-1, and ESA, ROSCOSMOS's Exo Mars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO).

Future missions encompass a wide array of projects such as JAXA's Martian Moons Exploration (MMX), NASA's Escapade, ISRO's Mangalyaan 2, NICT, ISSL's TEREX, ROSCOSMOS's Mars-Grunt, ESA's Rosalind Franklin ExoMars Rover, a joint Mars Sample Return mission by NASA and ESA, the international Mars Ice Mapper (I-MIM) by NASA, CSA, ASI, JAXA, and CNSA's Mars Sample Return​​. imewg.org iMARS – Phase 2 In 2014, IMEWG chartered a Phase 2 International Mars Architecture for the Return of Samples (iMARS) Working Group, comprising two expert panels spanning both Engineering and Science/Earth Operations.

The iMARS Phase 2 Working Group was tasked with providing: a status report on planning for a Mars Sample Return (MSR) campaign, building on missions and international developments achieved since the iMARS Phase 1 WG issued its report; It is feasible to return and delivering recommendations for progressing toward campaign scientifically selected implementation, including a proposed sample management plan.

samples from Mars in 2031/33

The Phase 2 Working Group’s key conclusions are that it is feasible to return scientifically selected samples from Mars in 2031/33 under the proposed mission architecture, technology development roadmap, and sample management plan. A successful campaign will depend on early and binding agreements for long-term commitments by participating organisations. Returning samples from Mars will require a multidisciplinary approach. (iMARS Report)

2.5. COSPAR Planetary Protection Panel and Policies Planetary Protection is the practice of protecting solar system bodies from contamination by Earth life and protecting Earth from life forms that may be returned from other solar system bodies. Planetary Protection is therefore concerned with biological interchange in the conduct of solar system exploration and use, which includes: • Possible effects of contamination of planets other than the Earth, and of planetary satellites

within the solar system by terrestrial organisms; • Contamination of the Earth by materials returned from outer space carrying potential extraterrestrial organisms.

Major international efforts are dedicated to developing, maintaining and publishing important policies that indicate the implementation requirements necessary to manage the potentially harmful effects of contamination.

These policies are informed by current, peer-reviewed scientific knowledge, and based on the principle that planetary protection measures should enable the exploration and use of the solar system and not prohibit it.

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2.6. Mars on Earth – Field Site Analogues and Facilities Terrestrial analogues are sites (both natural and artificial) that have specific characteristics that simulate properties of a targeted planetary space environment. Numerous field sites around the world have been identified as having one or more physical similarities to specific locations on Mars. Examples may include geological, geomorphic, geochemical, or climatic parameters comparable in nature.

For decades, teams have utilized these environments for scientific, technological, and/or operational experiments that allow researchers to develop and test conceptual models or make scientific measurements about properties or processes inferred on Mars; and can be used to inform future mission planning for both human and robotic activities.

3. COSPAR and Destination: Near-Earth asteroids The remaining populations of planetesimals—those that were not integrated into planets—exist today as small bodies such as asteroids and comets. Most of the asteroids and comets are confined to stable orbits (such as the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter) or reservoirs in the outer solar system (such as the Kuiper Belt) or beyond our solar system (such as the Oort cloud). Icy planetesimals in the outer solar system occur as comets, Centaurs, and Kuiper-Belt objects. Comets and asteroids and their fragments frequently impacted the young planets in the early history of the solar system.

4. IAA Cosmic Study 2004

The Moon is a priceless target to be investigated

In 2004 the Cosmic Study undertaken by the IAA summarized a new vision for the “Next steps in Exploring Deep Space” (Huntress et al. 2004). The study defined four key destinations as the most important targets: the Moon, Libration Points (gravitationally balanced locations that are ideal for maintaining spacecraft, telescopes, etc.) such as the one located away from the Sun and behind the Earth that is called “SEL2”, Near Earth Objects (NEO’s) and the planet Mars. The following overarching science questions were defined as: • • •

Where did we come from?

What will happen to us in the future?

Are we alone in the universe?

Investigations of the terrestrial planet environment allow us to gain knowledge on the formation and early history of our solar system. Investigating the Earth-Moon-Mars space, including near Earth objects, may answer long-standing questions about the origin and future destiny of the human race. In order to understand the origin of the Earth-Moon system and the processes on the young Earth that led to the origin of life, the Moon is a priceless target to be investigated with robots and humans.

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The Moon and Lagrange points provide a unique platform to study the origins of our universe and the formation of planetary systems. Investigating the physical properties and chemical processes of small bodies provides us with a glimpse into the earliest periods of our solar system. Mars, which has been extensively investigated for water and mineralogy in the past, is the prime target in our solar system for discovering evidence of extinct life and possibly extant bio-signatures. Any science breakthroughs on the search for life on Mars will have a strong impact on all future exploration missions.

Current missions that are planned to explore the Earth-Moon-Mars space in the next decade include lunar orbiters and landers, sample return missions to the Moon, Phobos and near Earth-asteroids, as well as orbiters, landers and rovers to explore the martian atmosphere, surface and subsurface. A Mars sample return mission to be conducted through international cooperation is planned for the next decade. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is now operating at L2.

5. ISECG The International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) is a forum of space agencies to advance the Global Exploration Strategy through coordination of their mutual efforts in space exploration. ISECG is a voluntary, non-binding coordination forum of space agencies which has following goals: • Exchange information regarding interests, plans and activities in space exploration • Work together to strengthen both individual exploration programmes and the collective effort (see www.globalspaceexploration.org ).

In 2006, 14 space agencies began a series of discussions on global interests in space exploration.

Together they took the unprecedented step of elaborating a vision for peaceful robotic and human space exploration, focusing on destinations within the solar system where humans may one day live and work, and developed a common set of key space exploration themes. This vision was articulated in The Global Exploration Strategy: The Framework for Coordination, which was released in May 2007. A key finding of this framework document was the need to establish a voluntary, non-binding international coordination mechanism through which individual agencies may exchange information regarding interests, objectives, and plans in space exploration with the goal of strengthening both individual exploration programmes as well as the collective effort. This coordination mechanism is the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG). Its principles are: Open and inclusive; Flexible and evolutionary; Effective; Supportive of mutual interests.

The Terms of Reference for ISECG were formally adopted at the first meeting of ISECG held in Berlin in November 2007. The ISECG chair function rotates and is determined by consensus. The scope of ISECG is broad and strategic. ISECG focuses on the development through consensus of non-binding products for use by participating agencies–roadmaps, findings, recommendations, and other outputs as necessary.

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ISECG products are developed by working groups whose themes extend into space exploration strategies, mission architectures, technologies, science, commercialization, public outreach, and the emergence of new space agencies. Dedicated teams support working groups, as required, on special subjects. The work is guided by regular meetings of the Senior Agency Managers (SAMs) and monthly plenary ISECG teleconferences. The degree of participation in ISECG working groups varies by agency and by product.

As ISECG work is based on consensus among the members, all products developed at the working group level need approval by the ISECG plenary. ISECG is supported by a permanent Secretariat.

ISECG welcomes new members and is open to any government space agency interested in leveraging collaboration and partnerships to more easily achieve their space exploration goals and yield greater benefits to their communities on Earth.

Figure 3: Global Exploration Roadmap

6. COSPAR PEX Terms of Reference: The objective of the COSPAR Panel on Exploration (PEX) is to provide independent scientific advice to support the development of exploration programs and to safeguard present and potential scientific assets of solar system objects, and to understand the consequences of proposed and ongoing research, exploration, and utilization activities. This advice will be drawn from expertise provided via the contacts maintained by COSPAR’s various bodies with the international community and scientific entities with the aim of representing a consensus view of the international scientific community in order to provide guidance for future exploration activity and cooperative efforts.

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PEX will function by providing its advice and analyses to the COSPAR Bureau and Council, as well as to concerned governmental and space agencies, private entities, and the public. PEX will work to promote science objectives by incorporating the multitude of relevant activities within COSPAR’s own scientific structure, as well as scientific advice from national scientific institutions and international scientific unions including, where appropriate, recommendations from groups such as ILEWG and IMEWG. Ex-officio members will include the chairs or representatives of interested COSPAR Scientific Commissions and Panels and a delegate member of ILEWG. The Panel may also call on experts in the various other domains relevant to the exploration and use of outer space.

7. COSPAR PEX report 2010: Roadmap for robotic and human exploration of the Moon, Mars and Near-Earth Asteroids The COSPAR PEX report 2010 was authored by Pascale Ehrenfreund (Lead Editor), Chris McKay (NASA Ames Research Center), John D. Rummel (Chair, COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection), Bernard H. Foing (ESA ESTEC, Executive director ILEWG), Nicolas Peter (ESA), John Zarnecki (Open University, Milton Keynes), Tanja Masson-Zwaan (President IISL), Maria Antonietta Perino (Thales Alenia Space, Torino), Steve Mackwell (Director, Lunar Planetary Institute) and Linda Billings (Research Professor, GWU).

The PEX report 2010 provided a summary of science roadmaps and recommendations for planetary exploration produced by many national and international working groups such as the IAA Cosmic study (Next Steps in Exploring Deep Space), NRC, ILEWG, LEAG and MEPAG to create and exploit synergies between similar programs. The excellent science documents/roadmaps prepared by the aforementioned working groups allow us to summarize compelling scientific imperatives that can be used to provide vision for space exploration and context for architectural studies for robotic and human exploration of the EarthMoon-Mars space. We have addressed elements of both applied and fundamental science.

While science and technology represent the core and, often, the drivers for space exploration activities, several other disciplines and their stakeholders should be more robustly interlinked and involved than they have been to date. Successful long-term planning and development of major space architectures for exploration can only be implemented when all stakeholders governments, space agencies, commercial space sector, space entrepreneurs, and the public strive for common goals at both national and international levels. A shared vision is thus crucial to provide direction that enables new countries and stakeholders to join and engage in an overall effort supported by A shared vision the public.

is thus crucial to provide direction

The PEX report 2010 also offered a program of stepping stones to foster a future international exploration program, while engaging newly emerging spacefaring nations in a meaningful way. Different science initiatives, providing clear milestones toward a truly global endeavour, have been outlined.

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We discuss technology activities such as the ILEWG global robotic village, an international sample return mission, studies for an international lunar base, and the use of Antarctica as an analog and as paradigm for Moon and Mars research outposts. The report also outlines how to protect the lunar and martian environments for scientific research and discusses corresponding legal frameworks.

The report concluded with recommendations and describes how PEX will engage COSPAR Commissions, ESF, NSF, and other international science foundations, the IAF, UN bodies, and IISL to support in particular national and international exploration working groups and the new era of planetary exploration. PEX has been taking specific actions to: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

support a worldwide Moon/Mars analog field program support the international exploitation of the ISS in preparation for exploration support a worldwide CubeSat program for developed and developing countries in preparation for exploration support the ILEWG lunar global robotic village support studies and precursor activities toward international human bases (Moon, Mars) using research activities in Antarctica as a model support synergies between space exploration and Earth science support the Panel on Planetary Exploration in protecting the lunar and martian environments for scientific research support updated regulations and treaties to protect the Earth-Moon Mars space support activities in capacity building for space exploration involve and engage the public, stakeholders and youth in participatory ways

COSPAR's input, as gathered by PEX, has been intended to express the consensus view of the international scientific community and should ultimately serve as a guideline to support future space exploration activities and cooperative efforts that lead to outstanding scientific discoveries, innovation opportunities, strategic partnerships, technology progress, and inspiration for the public and youth worldwide.

8. COSPAR/ILEWG/IMEWG/PEX sponsored sessions and events PEX and COSPAR Scientific Commission B (SCB) co-sponsored events have been organized for COSPAR Scientific Assemblies since 2008, as well as an event in 2017 at ESLAB ESTEC. PEX:SCB events are planned for COSPAR 2022 in Busan, South Korea and for COSPAR 2026, in Florence, Italy.

Technical and Plenary Sessions co-sponsored by COSPAR/ILEWG/IMEWG/PEX were organized at IAC (2001-2024), with the IAF, at EGU Vienna (2005-2024), and with Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC, 2006-2024).

Symposia organized with ESA ESLAB at ESTEC 2000 and 2002, and ESRIN 2017 were also co-sponsored

by COSPAR/ILEWG/IMEWG/PEX. Space Research Today

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9. AAE/COSPAR Planetary Exploration Horizon 2061 The Planetary Exploration Horizon 2061 exercise, a Long Term Perspective (published as a book by M. Blanc, P. Bousquet, V. Dehant, B. Foing, M. Grande, L. Guo, A. Hutzler, J. Lasue, J. Lewis, M.-A. Perino, H. Rauer, Co-editors, see www.sciencedirect.com, see also horizon2061.cnrs.fr ), originated from an initiative of the Air and Space Academy (academieairespace.com), targeting “a pool of knowledge unique in Europe aimed to promote the development of scientific, technical, cultural, and human activities in the fields of air and space. Its members are experts in the different activity sectors of aerospace: science, technologies, History, industry, services, laws, and societal dimensions of aeronautics and space activities.

In 2015, they jointly identified the needs for a long-term foresight on the future of planetary exploration, designed to inform technology experts about the “big” science questions of planetary sciences that future scientific missions should contribute to address. In return, technology experts would have the task to identify the future technologies, infrastructures, and services that would be needed to fly these missions of a distant, multidecadal future.”

“Planetary systems are a class of astrophysical objects which cover both the solar system, giant planet systems, and extrasolar planetary systems. To address this large-scale perspective about planetary systems, the foresight had to encompass the whole solar system, from Earth to its farthest regions, its boundaries with the interstellar medium and its scientific connections with stars and exoplanets.”

“Five main objectives were assigned to this dialogue: 1. Identify the “big” science questions that will drive planetary sciences in the coming decades; 2. Provide a variety of notional space mission concepts that will address these “big questions”; 3. Identify the technologies and infrastructures that will be needed to fly these missions; 4. Inspire coordination and collaborations between the different players of planetary exploration; 5. Share with public/private leaders and the public the major scientific and technological challenges that will drive planetary exploration in the decades to come."

“Continuation of the Horizon foresight exercise in the coming years will be needed to integrate new scientific discoveries and take into account the new capacities offered by emerging technologies. To this end, a “Horizon 2061” association setup by the editors of this H2061 book will continue their work by means of regular updates of the long-term foresight, for instance, every 5 years, and of focused meetings on specific subjects only superficially touched on in this book. We hope that the younger generation will join in and take the lead in the implementation of these new activities.”

10. Implementing COSPAR PEX 2010 report recommendation 1: EuroMoonMars, to support a worldwide Moon/Mars analog field program EuroMoonMars, an initiative founded by the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG), is dedicated to advancing research towards settlements on the Moon and, eventually, Mars. This initiative involves a series of field campaigns in Moon-Mars analogue environments to prepare for these ambitious goals. Several key developments and projects under EuroMoonMars have been highlighted recently: Space Research Today

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EuroMoonMars + International MoonBase Alliance (IMA) + HI-SEAS (EMMIHS): This initiative involves simulation campaigns at the IMA analogue facility, HI-SEAS, in Hawaii, USA. The campaigns have been organized in various locations of technical, scientific, and exploration interest since their inception with EuroGeoMars2009. The HI-SEAS base, located on Mauna Loa in Hawaii, provides an analogue for the desolated Lunar surface and a Mars-like geological environment for field tests and extra-vehicular activities (EVAs)​​. After collaborating with NASA on long-duration missions, Hi-SEAS now focuses on highend research for shorter-duration missions. The current mission includes developing new technologies for future extraterrestrial habitats and training potential founders of such habitats. The crew for these missions is selected for their diverse and interdisciplinary backgrounds, aiding in technological advancements and spreading knowledge both within and outside the habitat​​​​.

EuroMoonMars and Moon Village Workshops were organized at ESTEC, and various universities (Amsterdam, ISU, KICT Seoul, EuroSpaceHub academy, IPSA, McGill, Padova, Macerata and others).

These workshops highlighted the ongoing research and collaboration efforts within the EuroMoonMars initiative, bringing together experts and stakeholders in the field of space exploration and utilization. These initiatives and missions by EuroMoonMars play a role in preparing for future human settlements on the Moon and Mars, contributing significantly to our understanding and capabilities in space exploration.

Figure 5: HI-SEAS Analogue MoonMars Base at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, USA

International MoonBase Alliance

11. Other Examples on Progress on COSPAR PEX 2010 Roadmap recommendations and updated PEX action Plan We should inventory actions and initiatives developing PEX 2010 recommendations, and give here some keywords on some examples, that could be addressed by the PEX community and collaborators:

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• support a worldwide Moon/Mars analog field program o MDRS, EuroMoonMars Programmes, NASA Desert RATS, AMAZE, EU analogs, ESA Pangea/CAVES • support the international exploitation of the ISS in preparation for exploration o EXPOSE-R and R2, missions on ISS, • support a worldwide Cubesat program for developed and developing countries • in preparation for exploration o Moon and Mars cubesats • support the ILEWG lunar global robotic village o ESA Moon Village and MV Association • support studies and precursor activities toward international human bases (Moon, Mars) o GLUC Global Lunar 2010, and GLEX, International Moonbase Alliance (since 2017), Lunar

Palace, Antarctica missions • support synergies between space exploration and Earth science o UN-COPUOS/COSPAR, EuroMoonMars Earth Space Innovation, EuroSpaceHub • support the Panel on Planetary Exploration in protecting the lunar and martian • environments for scientific research o New COSPAR PPP, joint B/PEX/PPP sessions • support updated regulations and treaties to protect the Earth-Moon Mars space o COSPAR/UN workshops • support activities in capacity building for space exploration o EuroMoonMars Earth Space Innovation, EuroSpaceHub, H2061 • involve and engage the public, stakeholders and youth in participatory ways o ILEWG Young Lunar and Galilean Explorers grants, H2061 The Action plan for PEX will be continued under the leadership of new PEX Chair (2023-2026) Michel Blanc, in coordination with COSPAR SC B and other commissions, the COSPAR Panel on Planetary Protection, and other panels.

The Action Plan will include following up on COSPAR PEX2010 recommendations, and will further develop Interdisciplinary actions, Develop a COSPAR PEX 2040 Roadmap in synergy with space agencies and other exploration stakeholders, Follow-up H2061 initiative. It will work with representatives of stakeholders from agencies, academia, industry, new space economy, ILEWG, IMEWG, IAF, IAA, ISECG and other international and national relevant groups. We expect to link this work with New Strategic Goals of COSPAR and with roadmaps of agencies and exploration stakeholders. We look forward your ideas, inputs and activities to be discussed at Busan COSPAR General Assembly!

Acknowledgements: we thank past and current contributors to PEX, PEX2010 report, ILEWG, IMEWG, ISECG, COSPAR, EuroMoonMars, IAA, IAF agencies and websites from which the summary information presented here was collected.

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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS CHANDRAYAAN-3 MISSION UPDATES From Space to Safe Landing [Rishitosh K. Sinha, M. Shanmugam, and N. Srivastava, Physical Research Laboratory, India]

Exploration of the Moon: Chandrayaan missions The Chandrayaan missions have revolutionized our fundamental perception of the Moon. Right from confirming water molecules and hydroxyl ions, to discovering recent volcanism, detecting water-ice, unfolding new lithology, and revealing a minimagnetosphere, the Chandrayaan-1 (launched on 22 October 2008) has proven to be the stepping stone to ISRO’s journey of planetary exploration.

Since then, ISRO has come aboard the group of the few space agencies (NASA, ROSCOSMOS, ESA, and CNSA) worldwide that have jointly contributed significantly in revitalizing global interest in exploring the Moon, as well as enhancing our understanding of the Moon’s evolutionary history.

The unprecedented imaging of the lunar surface at the highest spatial resolution ever is a testimony Space Research Today

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of how ISRO’s Chandrayaan-2 The Pragyan rover mission (launched has navigated more on 22 July 2019) than 100 meters has leapfrogged in within one lunar day leveraging several new technologies to explore the Moon. As a result, the Chandrayaan-3 mission (launched on 14 July 2023) has achieved remarkable success in soft landing the Vikram lander in the highlands of southern high latitude region, where no one has gone before in the past five to six decades of lunar exploration by both crewed and un-crewed missions.

Moreover, the Pragyan rover has navigated more than 100 meters within one lunar day.

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Chandrayaan-3 mission The Moon is believed to have hosted a global-scale magma ocean subsequent to its accretion, which is expected to be cooling even today and producing moonquakes due to shrinking of the interior. Since then, a suite of materials has formed within this molten magma because of segregation of minerals toward depths and into the crust. The Chandrayaan-3 mission was a follow-on mission of Chandrayaan-2 to first demonstrate soft landing on the lunar surface and subsequently conduct in situ measurements that can address the key aspects related to the origin of the Moon and its current active state. The mission configuration included a propulsion module, which carried the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to a 100-km lunar orbit. The launch took place from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota. Subsequently, several orbit-raising manoeuvres were performed, and after spending nearly 23 days in space, on 5 August 2023 Chandrayaan-3 was successfully inserted into the intended 164 km x 18074 km lunar orbit. The powered descent of the Vikram lander towards the desired landing site was commenced on 20 August 2023 from a 25 km x 134 km orbit. The Vikram lander successfully soft-landed on the Moon (precise coordinates: 69.373° S, 32.319° E) on 23 August 2023, around 18:04 IST. Deployment of the ramp from the lander module and rollout of the Pragyan rover towards the lunar surface was achieved on the same day. Since then, within one lunar day, the scientific instruments onboard Vikram and Pragyan have gathered significant amount of data that is wealthy in terms of enhancing our fundamental understanding of the lunar evolutionary history.

Fig 1

Fig 2 See page 42 for image captions Space Research Today

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Figure 1 (previous page): Launch of Chandrayaan-3 in fourth operational mission (M4) of LVM3 launcher. Source: www.isro.gov.in Figure 2 (previous page): a (left): Chandrayaan-2 OHRC image based view of the Chandrayaan-3 landing site with Vikram lander in the center. b (right ): Vikram lander (dimensions: 2000 x 2000 x 1166 mm3) on the lunar surface.

Source: www.isro.gov.in

Scientific Objectives The objective of Chandrayaan-3 mission was to demonstrate safe and soft landing of Vikram lander, navigate Pragyan rover on the Moon surface, and conduct in situ experiments with the help of scientific instruments on the lander and rover. All these objectives have been successfully accomplished.

The scientific instruments onboard Vikram lander were: •

•

•

•

Radio Anatomy of Moon Bound Hypersensitive ionosphere and Atmosphere (RAMBHA) Langmuir Probe (LP): an instrument for measuring the near surface plasma (ions and electrons) density and its variation with time.

Chandra’s Surface Thermo physical Experiment (ChaSTE): an instrument to characterize the thermophysical properties of the lunar surface.

Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA): an instrument to measure seismicity around the landing site and delineating the structure of the lunar crust and mantle.

LASER Retroreflector Array (LRA): A passive experiment from NASA to understand the dynamics of the Moon system.

The scientific instruments onboard Pragyan rover were: • Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS): an instrument to determine the elemental

composition of soil and rocks around the landing site.

• LASER Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS): an instrument to derive the chemical

composition and infer mineralogical composition to further our understanding of the lunar surface.

A SHAPE (Spectro-polarimetry of HAbitable Planet Earth) instrument has been sent aboard the propulsion module to examine the spectro-polarimetric signatures of Earth in the near-infrared (NIR) wavelength range (1.0 – 1.7 μm), which operated after successful separation of Vikram Lander Module.

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In Situ Measurements and Preliminary Inferences Within a week’s time, nominal operation of all the scientific instruments The technical and was demonstrated, and ISRO proudly announced that the technical and scientific objectives of scientific objectives of Chandrayaan-3 mission have been successfully Chandrayaan-3 mission accomplished. The APXS instrument has measured the abundance of have been successfully both major (Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca,Ti, Fe) and minor (e.g., S) elements within accomplished the lunar soil. In addition to detecting Al, Ca, Fe, Cr, Ti, Mn, Si, and O within the lunar soil, LIBS instrument also confirmed the presence of Sulphur (S). The ILSA instrument has recorded several events, both from known and unknown sources.

The known sources were primarily rover movement and operation of payloads onboard Vikram lander and Pragyan rover; however, further analysis of the potential unknown (natural events) sources is currently underway. The initial measurements conducted by the RAMBHA-LP instrument have revealed that plasma near the lunar surface could be relatively sparse. The measurement of the thermal profile of the lunar topsoil by ChaSTE has revealed new insights into Plasma near the the thermal behaviour of the Moon at the landing location, which sparked a lunar surface could lot of interest among the wider lunar community worldwide. be relatively sparse

Pragyan Rover Navigation on the Lunar Surface The six-wheeled, ~25-kg Pragyan rover (dimensions: 917 x 750 x 397 mm3) embarked on its lunar exploration journey soon after the Vikram had landed on the lunar surface.

The rover encountered potentially hazardous craters

The rover flawlessly navigated over the geologically old surface (~3.7 billion years) of the Moon, and completed a ~103-m long journey within one lunar day.

During the initial few days of Pragyan rover navigation around the landing site, the rover encountered potentially hazardous craters toward the south and east of the landing site. Therefore, it was decided to navigate the rover toward the west of the landing site, and this decision had favoured power requirements through solar panels for rover operations. Toward the west, Pragyan rover navigated for multiple ~5-7-m long segments that eventually led to completing a century of distance and remains unbeaten.

Pragyan rover tracks. The rover was retraced back as it had encountered a crater on its way toward the south of landing site. The width of rover track is ~80 mm. Source: www.isro.gov.in

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Taken together, the Chandrayaan-3 mission has been a life-changing moment for the entire nation and wider lunar community worldwide. The successful accomplishment of all the goals of this mission has brought a lot of joy and pride with it.

Stay tuned for further updates on scientific investigations and inferences!

Keep exploring via https://www.isro.gov.in/ and https://twitter.com/isro for more information.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr. Rishitosh K. Sinha is a planetary scientist keenly focused on deciphering the surface processes prevailed on Mars, Moon and Venus using remote sensing datasets. He is one of the science team members of the APXS instrument onboard the Pragyan rover of Chandrayaan-3 mission.

He is presently working as Scientist/Engineer-SE in the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.

Dr. M. Shanmugam is an engineer by profession and instrumental in developing scientific instruments for Chandrayaan and Aditya-L1 missions. He leads the engineering team as a Deputy. Project Director for the development of Solar X-ray Monitor on Chandryaan-2 Orbiter, APXS on Chandrayaan-3 Rover and Aditya Solar wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX) for Aditya-L1 mission. He is presently working as Scientist/Engineer-SF in the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.

Dr. N. Srivastava is a planetary geologist interested in the study of planetary scale processes on the Moon and Mars using remote sensing data. He is one of the science team members of the APXS instrument onboard the Pragyan rover of the Chandrayaan-3 mission. He is presently working as Associate Professor and is the Head of Planetary Remote Sensing Section in the Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.

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ADITYA-L1 First Observatory Class Mission to Study the Sun from India [K. Sankarasubramanian, Nigar Shaji, and M. Srikanth, U.R. Rao Satellite Centre, Indian Space Research Organization, India] Aditya-L1 is the first observatory class mission from India to study the Sun. It was launched on 2 September 2023 at 11:50 am IST (06:20 UT) using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C57). The satellite will be placed at the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point -1 (L1) in the month of January 2024 to study the dynamic Sun and its influence at L1. A suite of experiments–four remote sensing and three in-situ instruments–will provide the required data.

Science Objectives of the Mission Aditya-L1 carries four remote sensing experiments

Aditya-L1’s primary science objective is to understand the chromospheric and coronal dynamics of the Sun which are the major sources of space weather. Aditya-L1 carries four remote sensing, (Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC), Solar Ultra-violet Imaging Telescope (SUIT), Solar Low-Energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS), and High Energy L1 Orbiting Spectrometer (HEL1OS)) and three in-situ experiments (Plasma Analyser Package for Aditya-L1 (PAPA), Aditya Solarwind Particle EXperiment (ASPEX), and MAGnetometer (MAG)).

Figure 1 (See page 46 for image caption) Space Research Today

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Figure 1 (previous page): Aditya-L1 spacecraft in stowed condition. On the top deck, VELC (yellow) and SUIT (green) is seen on the right figure. SoLEXS can be seen below SUIT and mounted in the -P (-Pitch) panel. HEL1OS is mounted inside the intermediate deck (below VELC and SUIT panel) and its collimator is projecting outside (marked in left figure).

The in-situ payloads (PAPA, ASPEX consisting of SWIS and STEPS packages, and MAG) are also marked in the left figure. PAPA and stowed MAG are on the +Y (+Yaw) panel while SWIS and STEPS of ASPEX are mounted on the top deck towards the +P (+Pitch) side of VELC (Image credit: ISRO).

VELC The primary science objective of the Visible Emission Line Coronagraph (VELC) is to observe the inner solar corona and observe its dynamics, especially closer to the solar disc. VELC has four channels (one imaging at 500nm, two spectroscopic at 530.3nm and 789.2nm and one spectro-polarimetric at 1074.7nm channel) which can be operated simultaneously.

SUIT

The spectroscopic channel will cover a field-ofview of 1.08 Rsun to 1.5 Rsun (unvignetted FOV) while the imaging channel would cover 1.08Rsun to 3.0Rsun.

The VELC instrument was led by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) at Bangalore in close collaboration with ISRO laboratories.

SUIT images the solar atmosphere in eleven wavelength bands

The Solar Ultra-violet Imaging Telescope (SUIT) instrument images the solar atmosphere in eleven wavelength bands in the near Ultra-violet region (200 – 400nm). While VELC images the solar corona from 1.08 Rsun (unvignetted inner field), SUIT images the full disk with a FOV up to 1.6 Rsun. Both the chromosphere and photosphere are imaged by SUIT near-simultaneously to study the solar atmospheric dynamics using narrow as well as broadband filters.

The source regions of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) will be observed/monitored by SUIT. For the first time, full disk NUV (Near UV) images will provide the observation of irradiance variations which will allow the identification of the source regions of irradiance variabilities in the NUV band.

For the first time, full disk NUV images will provide the observation of irradiance variations

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The SUIT instrument was led by the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) at Pune in close collaboration with ISRO laboratories.

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SoLEXS and HEL1OS The Solar Low-energy X-ray Spectrometer (SoLEXS) and High Energy L1 Orbiting Spectrometer (HEL1OS) are sun-as-a-star spectrometers to study solar flares in the energy range of 1 to 150 keV. SoLEXS has an energy resolution (<250eV at 6keV) better than the NASA RHESSI spacecraft and also a 1keV low energy threshold, and will prove to be an ideal instrument to study abundance variations during solar flares and also study

magnetic reconnection physics along with coronal plasma diagnostics. HEL1OS would address the acceleration physics behind solar flares. SoLEXS & HEL1OS in combination with VELC and SUIT can comprehensively address the CME-flare relation and flare related filament eruptions.

The SoLEXS and HEL1OS instruments were led by the UR Rao Satellite Centre of ISRO in Bangalore.

ASPEX The Aditya Solar Wind Particle Experiment (ASPEX) will sample the solar wind. ASPEX will also study the energetic particles during eruptive events on the Sun. It is configured using two packages: the Solar Wind Ion Spectrometer (SWIS) and Suprathermal & Energetic Particle Spectrometer (STEPS).

SWIS and STEPS (with multiple packages mounted viewing different directions) instruments would address the variations of low energy (100eV to 20keV) solar wind ions (primarily H+ and He++) along (species differentiated) and across (species integrated) the ecliptic plane. Variations in the

PAPA The Particle Analyser Package for Aditya (PAPA) will observe the electron as well as ion population at the L1 point. The primary science objective of PAPA is to study the composition of the solar wind in order to understand its origin. Apart from that, its capability to observe them along and across the ecliptic plane will allow the study its anisotropy in and across the ecliptic plane and so study the origin of pickup ions. Towards this aim, PAPA will provide continuous measurement of the solar wind and interplanetary electron distribution functions Space Research Today

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alpha to proton ratio ASPEX will sample during the passage the solar wind of transient events like CMEs at L1 will be investigated. The energy range of ASPEX would also allow us to study the origin of supra-thermal particles in the solar wind and characterize SEPs and their particle acceleration processes.

ASPEX was led by the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad in close collaboration with the Space Application Centre (SAC) of ISRO.

PAPA is to study the composition of the solar wind to understand its origin

in the energy range 0.01 to 3 keV along and across the ecliptic plane. The PAPA payload consists of two units, the Solar Wind Ion Composition Analyser (SWICAR) and Solar Wind Electron Energy Probe (SWEEP).

PAPA was developed by the Space Physics Laboratory (SPL) of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) of ISRO at Thiruvananthapuram.

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MAG Along with the particle measurements, the magnetic field at L1 is measured by the MAGnetometer (MAG) instrument onboard Aditya-L1 using two tri-axial Flux Gate Magnetometers mounted on a deployable boom at 3m and 6m away from the spacecraft in deployed configuration. The primary science goals of MAG are to study the variation of the local magnetic field at L1 due to transient phenomena from the Sun, for example when a CME magnetic flux rope passes through L1, and to study the Bz component at L1 which would provide

a better estimate of the geo-effectiveness of the disturbances passing through L1 towards Earth.

MAG was developed by the Laboratory for Electrooptics Systems (LEOS) of URSC/ISRO, Bengaluru in close collaboration with the Space Physics Laboratory (SPL) of VSSC at Thiruvananthapuram.

The in-situ instruments, in addition to their own science, would provide inputs for space weather modelling tools.

The uniqueness of Aditya-L1 Aditya-L1 is unique as compared to other missions flown or being flown in the near future. In this aspect, combining observations from Aditya-L1 with other missions would provide additional science benefits which is not feasible with an individual mission alone. The uniqueness of Aditya-L1 includes: •

• •

CME dynamics close to the disk (1.08 Rsun unvignetted inner field) providing information in the acceleration regime which is not observed consistently earlier.

Coronal magnetic field and topology of active regions on the Sun. Spatially resolved solar disk observations in the near UV providing information on the radiation output from different features on the Sun.

•

On-board intelligence to detect CMEs and flares for optimized observations and data volume.

•

All flares are observed without any eclipse or sensitivity change (or low energy cut-off).

•

Solar wind electrons, protons, and alpha particles fluxes with direction information.

•

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SUMMARY With carefully chosen payloads for Aditya-L1, the mission will provide unique data sets to study solar dynamics and its effect on the heliosphere.

Aditya-L1 is in cruise phase to L1 and is expected to be inserted in the Lagrangian point in January 2024. During the cruise phase, payloads are being

The Aditya-L1 mission promises to provide important solar and heliophysics data

switched on for testing operation and performance.

All the payload instruments will start providing science data as soon as the Payload Verification phase is over.

The Aditya-L1 mission promises to provide important solar and heliophysics data which would allow solar and helio-physicists to explore and unravel answers to many long-standing questions about the Sun and its impact in the inter-planetary medium.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr. K. Sankarasubramanian obtained his PhD in Physics from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics at Bangalore University. He was with the National Solar Observatory, USA for his postdoctoral research for about six years before joining the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) at Bangalore. His research areas of interest are solar magnetic field, optics, and instrumentation. He has more than ten years of expertise in optical, NIR, UV, and X-ray instrumentation for ground- as well as space-based observatories.

He contributed to the AstroSat, Chandrayaan-1 and Chandrayaan-2 missions of ISRO in different capacities. Currently, he is heading the Space Astronomy Group (SAG) at the U R Rao Satellite Centre, Bengaluru. SAG is involved in conceptualising, building, testing, integrating,

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and research, for science payloads. SAG has recently delivered five payloads out of which four are already in space on-board Aditya-L1 and Chandrayaan-3. The next payload would be on the XPoSat (X-ray polarimetry satellite) mission.

Dr. Sankarasubramanian is also playing a major role in Aditya-L1 as the Principal Scientist of the mission along with being the Principal Investigator for one of the instruments.

He has more than one hundred research papers in national as well as international journals.

He is also a member of the International Astronomical Union, the Astronomical Society of India, and the Optical Society of India.

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Ms. Nigar Shaji, Currently Programme Director – Space Infrastructure – Low Earth Orbit & Planetary platforms & Project Director for the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, the first Indian Space Solar Observatory at the Sun-Earth L1 point, is responsible for the development all the ISRO developed low Earth spacecraft and planetary missions. Also as Study Team Director for Venus and EXO world Missions she plays a pivotal role in configuring a range of spacecraft. She acquired her BE (Electronics and Communication) degree from Madurai Kamaraj University, India, and her ME in Electronics and Communication Engineering from BIT Ranchi, India. She joined the ISRO Satellite Center, presently called the U. R. Rao Satellite Centre, in 1987, working in the area of spacecraft integration and testing. She made illustrious contributions in the planning, design and realization of spacecraft checkout systems, especially related to the testing

Shri. M Srikanth has been working in ISRO for 19 years with expertise in the areas of Mission Design and Spacecraft Mission Operations.

He has worked on over 20 satellite missions including various low Earth orbit missions and interplanetary missions, and has worked in different roles and capacities at the U.R Rao Satellite Center, Mission Operations Area as Space Operations Manager for MARS Orbiter, Deputy Mission Director for Chandrayaan-2 and Mission Director for Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1 missions.

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of payload and related systems for remote sensing and meteorological payloads. She has played a lead role in the development of high frequency payload data reception systems for all remote sensing spacecraft.

She also served as Head of the Telemetry Division, responsible for developing telemetry subsystems for all ISRO-developed spacecraft. She was Associate Project Director for Resourcesat-2A, the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite for national resource monitoring and management, before her present assignment. She has authored papers in image compression, system engineering and space internetworking. She is also a Fellow of IEI (India) and IETE.

M. Srikanth received an MTech Instrumentation degree from Devi Ahilya Viswavidhlaya (Indore University), India and an MSc in Electronics from Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, India.

He has received awards, including the ISRO Young Scientist Award in the Year 2012 and ASI Team Achievement Award 2013 for Mars Orbiter Mission Operations.

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EUCLID A Space Mission to Explore the Dark Universe [René Laureijs (European Space Agency (ESA)/ESTEC, the Netherlands), Yannick Mellier (IRFU, CNRS and Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, France), Giuseppe Racca (ESA/ESTEC, the Netherlands), Roland Vavrek, Pierre Ferruit (ESA/ESAC, Spain]

Overview

Euclid will carry out a survey of one third of the entire sky

The Euclid space telescope, developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), will observe the light emitted by numerous distant galaxies to obtain the largest and most detailed three-dimensional maps of the Universe for the total matter distribution and the luminous matter distribution. The distributions will shed light on the evolution of cosmic structures over the past 10 billion years enabling cosmologists to measure with unprecedented accuracy the effects of gravity on cosmic scales and the details of the accelerated expansion of the Universe. After more than ten years of industrial development, Euclid was successfully launched with a Falcon 9 operated by SpaceX in July 2023 to orbit the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point. During its nominal mission period of six years, Euclid will carry out a survey of one third of the entire sky. In this article we describe the most important aspects of the mission: the science objectives and the programmatic constraints, the technical challenges up to launch, and the in-orbit performance.

Euclid will start its nominal survey in February 2024.

Introduction In 1998, the discovery of the accelerated expansion of the Universe confronted us with one of the most fundamental questions in modern physics. The accelerated expansion suggested the existence of a force associated with a previously unknown energy dubbed Dark Energy. Scientists found that the Universe can be accurately described by the Standard Model of Cosmology: a spatially flat Universe which is governed by general relativity with a cosmological constant denoted by Lambda (Λ) and two major mass components: non-relativistic (cold) dark matter and normal–baryonic–matter.

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The best match of the concordance model ΛCDM with the observations suggests that dark energy and dark matter make up for 95% of the total energy density in the Universe. All physics more familiar to us is related to the remaining 5% normal matter. The apparent success of the model leaves physics in the embarrassing situation where the composition of the Universe is dominated by two components–dark matter and dark energy–whose true nature eludes us.

Significant progress in cosmology can be made by a better empirical knowledge of the two fundamental ingredients from which the concordance model is built: the accelerated expansion of the Universe and the validity of general relativity on cosmological scales. Observational cosmologists quickly realised that major advances in measurement precision can only be achieved by observing the evolution of cosmic structures under the influence of gravitation in an expanding universe. This implies large statistical studies of many galaxies over a significant sky area, posing formidable technical challenges.

In 2007, the European Space Agency, offered an opportunity for the development of a space-based experiment to investigate the Dark Energy phenomenon with unprecedented detail. Two large independent scientific teams proposing different observing techniques–so-called dark energy probes –were selected

by ESA for further study. The DUNE (Dark Universe Explorer) team advocated a wide field optical-infrared imager for Weak Lensing whereas the SPACE (Spectroscopic All-Sky Explorer) team concentrated on the detection of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations based on an all-sky spectroscopy survey in the near-infrared.

The two teams joined forces becoming the Euclid Consortium to develop a single mission concept, named Euclid. After a study phase of more than four years led by ESA, with industrial feasibility studies and with the scientific support from the Euclid Consortium, Euclid was selected among several competing missions. In 2012 the approval was given to start the development of the mission. The mission critical design milestone was passed by the end of 2018 and the spacecraft was launched on 1 July 2023.

Scientific Objectives The Euclid mission was selected to become the first approved space-based Stage IV dark energy program.

The mission’s top-level objectives are to provide an accurate measurement of the apparent acceleration of the expansion and to test general relativity on cosmological scales by observing the evolution of largescale structure in the universe. The Euclid mission has been developed to achieve a Dark Energy Figure of Merit larger than 400 (FoM > 400) from the Euclid observations alone.

The FoM is a measure of the accuracies that can be achieved for the parameters describing the dark energy equation of state p/ρc2 = ω0 - ωa(a0 - a), where p is the pressure, ρc2 energy density, and a the scale factor a = 1/(1+z) with redshift z. Euclid will determine ω0 to an accuracy better than 2% and ωa better than 10%.

These accuracies would be a decisive test to accept or reject the cosmological constant as the source of the cosmic acceleration. General relativity is tested by observing the growth of cosmic structure during the epoch where the effect of dark energy is detectable. Euclid data should be sufficient to obtain an accuracy of 2% (one sigma) for the growth index.

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The concordance model, ΛCDM, gives a clear prediction: ω0 = -1, ωa = 0, and the growth index must be 0.545. For many dark energy models with General Relativity, it should be around 0.55.

To fulfil the science goals, Euclid requires at least two independent cosmological probes that are optimally sensitive to the expansion history and/or the growth rate of cosmic structure. The imposed small margins require highly accurate and precise astronomical measurements. Since we are probing phenomena on cosmological scales, the Euclid mission should be able to cover large angular scales, over a redshift range between 0 < z < 2. This range corresponds to a look-back time of over 10 billion years, including the epoch where dark energy started to dominate at about z = 1.

It was found that the best strategy would be to optimise the mission for two cosmological probes: Weak Lensing (WL) and Galaxy Clustering (GC). Weak gravitational lensing enables us to determine the 3-dimensional shear field caused by the matter distribution on distant galaxies. The shapes of weakly lensed galaxies are sheared by variations of the gravitational potential caused by dark and normal matter between us and these galaxies. Besides accurate measurements of the ellipticities of these galaxies, their redshifts must be known to an accuracy that can be obtained from photometry. Galaxy Clustering is studied from the 3-dimensional distribution of galaxies derived from their precise spectroscopic redshift measurements. The GC signal probes the distribution and clustering history of the luminous matter delineated by the galaxies.

GC and WL are complementary, especially for the modified gravity science, and represent well-understood cosmological probes used in the low-redshift universe.

The observations driven by the two cosmological probes provides the detailed 3D distribution of the dark and luminous matter. The information in their power spectra can be used to address several cosmological topics such as the redshift-distance relationship which is a direct probe of the effects of gravity, mass estimates of structures, look-back time, etc. We mention also tests of the cosmological initial conditions and constraints on the mass of the neutrino and the neutrino hierarchy.

Figure 1 (above): The expansion of the Universe as a function of cosmic time is depicted by the yellow line in the graph. It shows that after an initial slow down of the expansion due to the presence of (dark) matter, the Universe starts an accelerated expansion a few billion years ago, when the energy density of dark energy started to dominate over the other components, the dark and normal matter. Euclid will trace the expansion history of the Universe over the past 10 billion years.

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The dark energy and related cosmology topics are not the only fields of astronomy that can be addressed with Euclid. The two primary cosmological probes require deep and diffraction limited images in the optical and infrared, and infrared spectroscopy for many targets that can be detected in the Euclid survey area.

The images are downlinked to Earth for dedicated scientific processing yielding a unique data legacy of several billion sources with detailed morphology and a complete atlas of the extragalactic sky. We mention legacy science topics such as cool and ultra-cool dwarf stars, galaxy evolution, faint dwarf galaxies, strong gravitational lensing, high redshift quasars, clusters of galaxies, etc.

Figure 2: Left: The two-dimensional distribution of the matter in the universe obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey by M. Blanton.

Right: Euclid will provide a 3D distribution obtained from surveying one third of the sky. Euclid will look back 10 billion light years corresponding to a redshift of z=2. The picture illustrates the extent of the Euclid survey, where the inner white circle depicts the area of the SDSS map in the left panel.

(Image credit: M. Blanton and SDSS)

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Designing the Euclid mission The design of the mission is, as for any scientific satellite, strongly constrained by its programmatic envelope: the Euclid budget was to fit in that of a medium class mission as dictated by the ESA 2015-2025 Cosmic Vision programme. The maximum duration of the nominal mission was set to six years, and the components of the mission should have a technology readiness level of 5 or higher at mission adoption. Already at an early stage it became clear that the programmatic constraints limited the choice in launcher to a Soyuz ST2-B with Fregat combination available to ESA. Consequently, the Euclid space segment was designed according to the Soyuz ST2-B characteristics and capabilities. During critical design, in view of the envisaged development timescales for Euclid and Ariane 62, it was decided to add Ariane 62 as backup launcher.

The WL cosmological probe relies on a wide-field optical imager to measure the shapes of galaxies up to a redshift of 2. As these galaxies are generally too faint for a massive spectroscopic redshift determination, measurements in different photometric filter bands should provide the redshifts. At the highest redshifts, the spectral energy distribution of the target galaxies peaks in the near-infrared up to a wavelength of ~2 micron.

To cover the entire redshift range, near-infrared photometry in the Y, J, and H bands is needed, reaching a survey depth of AB = 24 mag that cannot be achieved from ground. Euclid WL relies on complementary ground-based photometry in the g, r, i, and z filters over the same survey area to meet the required 5% accuracy in the photometric redshift determination. The GC cosmological probe requires a near-infrared spectrometer with a spectral resolution of R>380 for determining the redshifts of galaxies with 0.1% redshift accuracy from the measurement of H-alpha lines in emission.

The WL and GC probes have led to the design of two science instruments: an optical imager (VIS) for the WL shape measurement in one broad wavelength band (0.55-0.9 micron) and a near-infrared spectrometer and photometer (NISP) providing redshifts from slitless spectroscopy using grisms for GC and near-infrared imaging photometry in the Y, J, and H bands for WL. The optical and infrared observations cover the same sky area, To cover the entire redshift which is simultaneously observed using a dichroic mirror splitting the range, near-infrared light in a reflected optical beam for VIS and a transmitted infrared photometry in the Y, J, and beam for NISP.

H bands is needed

The science objectives demand a survey area of at least 14,000 deg2, or about one third of the entire sky for both the WL and GC probes. Considering the mission duration, the survey area pushed the telescope design to a wide-field Korsch Three-Mirror Anastigmat (TMA) with a 1.2-meter diameter primary mirror. The Euclid telescope provides very stable diffraction-limited imaging in a field of view (FoV) of more than 0.5 deg2 for both scientific instruments and sufficient depth within the allowed maximum exposure times.

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Figure 3: Schematics of the Euclid optics

Left: A schematic of the of the Korsch three-mirror anastigmat (TMA) telescope leading the light to a dichroic mirror, via folding optical mirrors (FOM). The transmitted beam enters the near-infrared spectrometer and photometer (NISP) instrument, the reflected beam is led to the focal plane array (FPA) of 36 CCD sensors of the visual (VIS) instrument. This design allows simultaneous NIR spectroscopy and visual imaging exposures.

Right: The 3D configuration of the optics, where the M1 has a 1.2-meter aperture diameter.

Note that the Korsch telescope is off-axis, and the M2 contains a focussing mechanism enabling it to move with 3 degrees of freedom. On the sides of the VIS FPA two pairs of VIS CCDs are placed for the fine guidance sensor (FGS).

(Image credit: Airbus Defence and Space)

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For the shape measurements the VIS instrument uses charge coupled devices (CCDs) customised for Euclid.

These devices were provided by Teledyne e2v because of their large manufacturing experience and detailed understanding of the properties of these sensors for space-based missions. For a sufficient sampling of the point spread function, a pixel size of 0.1 x 0.1 arcsec2 was chosen. This led to 620 Mpix sensor array of 36 CCDs of 4k x 4k pixels covering over 0.5 deg2 field of view.

The NISP focal plane array has larger pixel sizes of 0.3 x 0.3 arcsec2 and consists of an array of 16 H2RG (HgCdTe) of 2k x 2k pixels sensors, also covering over 0.5 deg2. The sensor chip systems, which consists of the sensor, proximity electronics, and the connecting flex cable, were provided by NASA. The sensors were manufactured by Teledyne and have an infrared cut-off wavelength of 2.3 micron optimised for Euclid to minimise the signal from the thermal emission by the instrument.

Figure 4: PLM and telescope structure Left: A CAD model of the silicon carbide (SiC) telescope structure mounted on the baseplate of the same material. The white structure on the left is the NISP radiator to cool the NISP instrument which is attached on the bottom side of the baseplate.

Right: The telescope during assembly at ADS Toulouse, France.

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The very stringent stable image quality requirements for the shape measurement of distant galaxies with sizes as small as 0.3 arcsec has led to a payload module design for which all the essential elements have been built from silicon carbide (SiC). This ceramic material has low density, low thermal expansion, and high thermal conductivity. This technology is a heritage from other ESA science missions e.g. Herschel and Gaia missions. Telescope mirrors, truss, instrument The image quality optical components, as well as the base plate onto which the instruments and telescope components are mounted are all made of SiC. also demands a

low noise guiding The image quality also demands a low noise guiding during the VIS exposures.

Euclid is equipped with a Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) which consists of two pairs of CCD sensors placed in the focal plane of the Euclid telescope on the sides of the VIS focal plane array. It tracks guide stars that can be identified in the Gaia catalogue for an absolute pointing performance.

The guidance actuation uses cold gas thrusters to compensate for the solar wind torque. Reaction wheels are used to perform attitude slews and an added reaction wheel is used to compensate for the torque by the movement of the filterwheels in the infrared instrument. The reaction wheels are stopped during operation of the fine guidance sensor to minimise unwanted vibrations during tracking.

Despite the large FoV provided by the telescope, Euclid must still observe more than 40,000 fields with one single visit per field using step-and-stare observing to complete its wide survey of more than 14,000 deg2 and its deep survey (2 magnitudes deeper than wide) of more than 50 deg2 with many visits per field. To ensure sufficient daily field of regard and thermal stability the satellite is in an orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, like JWST. Each day, Euclid can survey about 20 fields corresponding to about 10 deg2 of sky area. In that time the two scientific instruments produce 440 images of the sky plus additional calibration and diagnostic images.

Figure 5: View of the instruments. The instruments, optics, and telescope structures are mounted on a silicon carbide (SiC) baseplate. The light of M1 is diverted to the NISP instrument, which can be seen on the left wrapped in multi-layer insulation, and the VIS instrument focal plane array on the bottom of this picture.

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(Image credit: Airbus Defence and SpaceX)

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These images will be stored in 100 GB of compressed data files. The science data are downlinked daily using a 26 GHz K-band high gain antenna transmitting for 4 hours to ESA ESTRACK antennas in Malargüe (Argentina) or Cebreros (Spain). A third antenna in New Norcia (Australia) is being commissioned.

The Euclid science objectives can only be achieved after a detailed data analysis. Euclid will generate an unprecedented amount of space-based data, Euclid will generate an which must be calibrated and processed. These data will be complemented unprecedented amount with ground-based data from other sky surveys to determine the photometric of space-based data redshifts of the WL galaxies. The first level processing is done by the ESA's Science Operations Centre near Madrid and concerns the conversion of the spacecraft telemetry in files of raw instrument data. The Euclid Consortium is responsible for the generation of the second- and third-level data products. The second level provides the calibrated images, spectra, and catalogues of all the sources extracted from the data. The third level products provide the information for the core cosmology analysis. The Euclid Science Ground Segment (SGS) consists of 9 processing functions and 10 science data centres. The data centres will generate the products which will be sent to the central science archive in ESAC in Madrid, Spain, for the distribution of the products to the science community.

Together with the complementary ground-based observations, the SGS will process more than one million wide-field images.

Challenges encountered during development The all-SiC design of the payload module, which consists of the TMA telescope, instrument baseplate, and scientific instruments, together with a demanding image quality have set high-quality standards to the elaborate manufacturing of the SiC elements. The properties of the SiC material do not tolerate any mechanical changes to a component after manufacturing, forcing detailed mechanical design decisions prior to manufacturing. In addition, the surface figure errors of all optical elements in SiC are small and to the ultimate limits industry can provide.

Figure 6: A last view of Euclid The Euclid spacecraft before enclosure in the Falcon9 fairing at the assembly compound of Astrotech in Florida, USA. Euclid was successfully launched on 1 July 2023.

(Image credit: ESA/SpaceX)

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The size of the dichroic mirror is exceptionally large, and the definition of the VIS band transmission function caused a challenge in terms of dielectric layering over the surface of the dichroic substrate. It was also found that the application of dielectric layers causes wavelength dependencies of the wavefront error.

This has led to a change of the (dielectric) coating of one of the optical elements, and the construction of an on-ground optical test bench for the very accurate characterisation of the wavelength dependent wavefront error caused by the dichroic mirror. This characterisation at the level of precision required for Euclid is truly unknown territory but is needed for the modelling of the point spread function. It has been measured on the qualification model of the dichroic mirror, assuming identical properties of the flight model.

To derive the 3D shear distribution over the entire sky survey area, consistent galaxy shape measurements are needed with a minimum uncertainty in the systematic errors during the mission. This imposes accurate knowledge of the point spread function at any time at any position in the focal plane. To ensure that the spacecraft design meets the in-orbit image quality requirements, industry developed a detailed System Thermal Optical Performance (STOP) model to predict the variations in the image quality due to thermal changes caused by changes in the spacecraft attitude with respect to the Sun. The STOP model led to a better definition of on-ground thermal test cases and to changes in the spacecraft mechanical configuration to minimise thermal disturbances and maximise the thermal stability.

The required knowledge of the PSF imply modelling accuracies which are more than an order of magnitude higher than what can be achieved from the on-ground built accuracies of the image quality parameters. The modelling accuracies can be achieved in-orbit by measuring the telescope wavefront error from observations of stars (assumed to be point sources) in dense stellar fields with the telescope in-focus and out of focus.

The defocussing of the telescope is achieved by moving the secondary mirror using the telescope focussing mechanism onto which the secondary mirror is mounted. To enable these measurements, an additional qualification of the focussing mechanism had to be performed. The wavefront error measurements are carried out for a number of different telescope states. This is achieved by changing the telescope thermal condition determined by its attitude with respect to the Sun. A very serious and least expected challenge was caused by a world affair: the war in Ukraine. As an almost immediate consequence, the Soyuz ST2-B with Fregat combination could not be made available for Euclid.

The planned back-up launcher, the Ariane 62, was still under development, and the predicted date of its maiden flight was highly uncertain. After studies under high time pressure of other possible launch vehicles, it became clear that the SpaceX Falcon9 launch vehicle would be the best option for Euclid, requiring only minor modifications to the satellite qualification programme and with no impact on the nominal operations.

A timely launch with a Falcon9 in 2023 was strongly supported by the science community which led to an endorsement by the ESA member states.

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In-orbit performance

The updated software successfully solved the guiding problem

After the successful launch on 1 July 2023, the first month of the Euclid mission was dedicated to the commissioning of the spacecraft while on its way to its orbit around the second Lagrange point. The high-gain antenna deployment and operation were successful. All subsystems were operational and redundant systems were successfully checked; no spacecraft hardware anomalies were found. The two scientific instruments were successfully activated, all mechanisms, sensors and electronics were working nominally. Using the focussing mechanism, the telescope was put in focus, readily meeting the image quality requirements.

It was found, however, that the FGS was not able to initiate and sometimes keep its guiding especially in regions of low stellar density. The root cause was an insufficient rejection of cosmic rays by the FGS. This anomaly triggered an update of the on-board application software by the industrial team. In a record time, a new algorithm was implemented with an improved recognition and suppression of cosmic rays detected by the FGS sensors. The updated software successfully solved the guiding problem, ultimately achieving a high pointing accuracy and very low failure rate. The improved guiding provided a firm basis for the start of the next phase of the mission where all aspects of the scientific performances are verified, and where the instrumental calibrations are performed.

Figure 7: The Euclid pre-launch survey plan. It consists of about 40,000 individual pointings covering the wide survey, the deep fields, and the routine calibration observations. The different colours depict different years of the 6-year survey. The red lines encompass the area suitable for Euclid cosmology observations.

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The first observations with the VIS instrument showed a higher and The first observations with inhomogeneous background level, which was not seen during the VIS instrument showed a the ground tests. This additional illumination was attributed to the higher and inhomogeneous presence of parasitic light not coming from the telescope aperture. background level It possibly originates from sunlight reflected by a thruster boom to the back of the sunshield and subsequently reflected into the VIS cavity through a tiny light leak in the multi-layer insulation. The parasitic light can be diminished to a negligible level by operating the spacecraft in a specific range of azimuth angles. The survey plan had to be redesigned for this new constraint.

This was not a straightforward task as it took several years of development to create the pre-flight survey plan which encompasses the scheduling of the wide survey, deep survey, and routine calibrations, meeting the operational constraints over the entire nominal mission period of six years. Thanks to their years of expertise, the survey team was able to create a new plan in a record time of a few months, in time to meet the delivery date for the nominal survey. The new survey strategy yields a reduction of about 10% survey area due to a lower survey efficiency for a nominal mission time of six years. The smaller area is due to a forced larger overlap between the fields.

During high solar activity, X-rays from solar flares can penetrate the spacecraft shielding and cause some temporary contamination of parts of the VIS detector, with pixels of the images becoming oversaturated.

It has been estimated that roughly 3% of data can be lost due to such strong solar activity. Due to the stochastic nature of this anomaly, more mission time is needed to collect sufficient statistics on the mission impact. We expect the occurrence of the flares to correlate with the solar activity, which is increasing towards the expected peak in July 2025.

X-rays from solar flares can penetrate the spacecraft shielding

CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK We wrote this article during the performance verification phase of the mission before the start of the nominal survey. The analysis of the calibration requirements must still be finalised, and in the process a list of issues was identified that require further attention. But overall, the assuring picture emerges of a spacecraft that is well equipped to carry out the sky survey to collect an unprecedented amount of science data for the pursuit of the science objectives.

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Figure 8: The Perseus cluster of galaxies. This is a crop of a Euclid field centred on the cluster, which was observed during the commissioning period of Euclid in September 2023. The observation is part of the Euclid early release observations (ERO) programme which allocated 24 hours of observing time to collect objects suitable to showcase the capabilities of Euclid. The full resolution (26 k × 26 k pixel) images are available in ESASky. (Image credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre (CEA Paris-Saclay), G. Anselmi, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) Early November 2023 ESA released the first Euclid images of astronomical objects, showcasing the capabilities of Euclid. These objects were requested by scientific teams who have proposed studies of visually appealing astronomical targets with the Euclid data.

The teams were elated with the quality of the data unique to Euclid, confirming the variety of astronomical studies it enabled. They aim to publish their first scientific Euclid papers early 2024.

Whether Euclid can meet its core-cosmology science objectives to the high accuracies that were set out more than a decade before the launch of Euclid, can only be assessed sometime after the start of the nominal sky survey in 2024. Only after data collection over a reasonable survey area and after the indepth processing and analysis of the calibration data, can we tell how well the WL and GC performance will be met for the mission.

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The Euclid Consortium–now consisting of more than 2,000 The Euclid Consortium will carry scientists from 300 institutes in 13 European countries, the out the scientific data processing, USA, Canada, and Japan–will carry out the scientific data calibration and validations, product processing, calibration and validations, product generation, generation, and first scientific analyses and first scientific analyses of the Euclid data. The first planned public data release, Q1, represents an exciting milestone, providing more than 50 deg2 of area for non-cosmological studies and the development and testing of data processing and analysis tools. The Q1 release is scheduled 14 months after the start of the nominal mission in December 2023. The first public data release DR1 is planned one year after Q1 and will contain data collected during the first year of the mission.

The release of the final dataset DR3 encompassing the entire survey and accompanying final cosmological results is planned for 2031.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS René Laureijs is an ESA scientist at ESTEC, the Netherlands.

He supported the development and data analysis of several astronomical satellites, starting with IRAS, and subsequently ISO and Planck.

He has been involved in Euclid since 2007, first as study scientist, later, after the Euclid mission adoption in 2012, as ESA project scientist.

Yannick Mellier (CNRS-Sorbonne Université, Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, France) is senior astronomer at Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris.

He has worked on several projects in wide field imaging surveys at CFHT and ESO and their application to weak and strong gravitational lensing studies.

He led the IAP/Terapix image processing center between 1998 and 2005.

He has been involved in Euclid since 2006, first as Science Ground Segment Scientist, then, since 2011, as Euclid Consortium Lead.

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Giuseppe Racca has worked on space projects for more than 40 years, initially in industry and from 1987 in ESA. Following several years in the future science study office, he became science project manager for planetary (SMART-1), fundamental physics (LISA Pathfinder) and astronomy (Euclid) missions.

He was in charge of the Euclid mission from its adoption until completion of in-orbit commissioning.

Roland Vavrek is an infrared and optical astronomer by background, he studied star formation phenomena, gamma ray bursts and interstellar matter physics.

He joined ESA in 2004 to work on the development, calibration and operations of the Herschel Space Observatory.

He has been involved in the Euclid mission since 2013 as deputy project scientist.

Pierre Ferruit is an astronomer and instrumentalist who joined ESA in 2010 from the Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon (CRAL).

He spent a large fraction of his career working on the James Webb Space Telescope and on its near-infrared spectrograph NIRSpec.

He joined the Euclid mission full time in 2022 as the ESA Euclid Mission Manager.

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INSPIRE From Teaching Tools to Sun and Earth Observation Satellites [Mustapha Meftah (CNRS-LATMOS, France), Amal Chandran (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA), Loren Chang (National Central University, China: Academy of Sciences Located in Taipei), Leigh Fergus (COSPAR, France), Jean-Claude Worms (COSPAR, France) and Dan Baker (Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA)]

The INSPIRE programme aims to provide a constellation of Earth and space weather observing satellites

The International Satellite Program in Research and Education (INSPIRE) is a global consortium of space universities formed to advance space science and engineering, spearheaded by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics of the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU Boulder-LASP) and its international academic partners. Each INSPIRE small satellite (Figure 1) typically proceeds from concept to flight in three years, providing the opportunity for undergraduate and graduate student involvement in small satellite design, implementation, testing, and operations. INSPIRE brings science, engineering, and management to campuses across the globe. The INSPIRE program aims to provide a constellation of Earth and space weather observing satellites. To date, eight satellites are part of this program.

INSPIRE universities involved in this program are: • • • • • • • • • •

Space Research Today

The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU Boulder), USA The University of Versailles (UVSQ), France The National Central University (NCU), China: Academy of Sciences Located in Taipei Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore The Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), India The University of Iowa, USA The University of Alberta (UoA), Canada Sultan Qaboos University at Muscat (SQU), Oman Kyushu Institute of Technology (Kyutech), Japan Research Centre Jülich, Wuppertal University, Germany

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Figure 1 The Space Age began in 1957 with small satellites, particularly marked by the launch of the Sputnik satellite into orbit. Since then, thousands of small satellites have been launched into orbit. Their mass varies, ranging from subgram levels up to 500 kg for minisatellites (Branz et al., 2023), as specified in Table 1.

(a) Inspire-Sat 1 spacecraft undergoing testing at LASP.

(b) Inspire-Sat 5 (Uvsq-Sat) spacecraft dedicated to Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) observations.

(c) Inspire-Sat 7 spacecraft dedicated to ERB observations.

(d) Inspire-Sat X (Uvsq-Sat NG), a spacecraft for monitoring ERB and Greenhouse Gases (GHGs).

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The year 1999 marked the beginning of the CubeSat era. CubeSats are small, cube-shaped satellites that have revolutionized access to space, making space exploration more accessible and less costly. The CubeSat concept was introduced in the 1990s by Professors Jordi Puig-Suari of California Polytechnic State University and Bob Twiggs of Stanford University in the USA. They developed this concept with the goal of allowing their students to design, build, test, and operate small satellites capable of performing scientific missions in space, all within the frame of a graduate study cycle.

These small satellites typically have a volume of 1 litre (10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm), and their modular design allows the assembly of multiple units to create satellites of various sizes.

Table 1. Small satellite classes by mass.

Small satellite classes

Mass

Minisatellite Super-microsatellite Microsatellite Nanosatellite Picosatellite Femtosatellite Attosatellite Zeptosatellite Yoctosatellite

300 - 500 kg 100 - 300 kg 10 - 100 kg 1 - 10 kg 0.1 - 1 kg 10 - 100 g 1 - 10 0.1 - 1 g Less than 100 mg

Today, CubeSats have proven their versatility for a wide range of scientific applications. They have also demonstrated that it is possible to develop space programs that can work within cost, schedule and performance constraints, while setting themselves apart from traditional space missions.

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The Global Climate Observing System currently identifies 54 Essential Climate Variables

CubeSats open up new perspectives and force the space industry to reinvent itself, focusing on the real challenges. One of the major advantages of CubeSats is that they can be used in constellations, particularly to meet the challenges of climate change. The miniaturization of electronic components and the reduction in costs make it possible to envisage the deployment of a constellation of CubeSats dedicated to Earth Observation. Furthermore, artificial intelligence is redefining the limits of the space sector, offering unprecedented capacity to analyse scientific data – particularly climate variables from Earth. After the era of large satellites in geostationary orbit, launched by telecommunications satellites, we are now witnessing the rise of small satellites (CubeSats, nanosatellites, microsatellites) deployed in large numbers in low or medium orbit. They can cover the entire surface of the Earth, including high-latitude areas poorly served by satellites in geostationary orbit. A constellation with multiple satellites, orbiting on the same sun-synchronous path—known as a trailing constellation—presents the potential for significantly reduced revisit periods, allowing for observations of Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) at varying local solar times of identical scenes. This implies the availability of real-time observational data on diurnal scales for every global location, encompassing hard-to-reach areas like the polar regions. Achieving this level of detailed, variable observational data is impossible with a singular satellite in a sun-synchronous orbit, as it is constrained to sample specific locations at consistent local solar times, thereby offering no insight into the diurnal variations of emissions, a significant limitation for understanding various emission sources. Additionally, the versatile and interconnected measurements from these smaller, ‘agile’ satellites could be calibrated in-flight by referencing the more precise measurements obtained from larger satellites.

In practical terms, every coincidence where smaller and larger satellites observe the same scenes provides an opportunity to cross-verify the calibration of the smaller satellites using the accurate data from larger satellite platforms. In reciprocity, the constellation They can be used can convey critical information, including diurnal emission components, in constellations, back to the larger satellites for more extensive scrutiny and comprehensive particularly to meet analysis. This collaboration between CubeSat constellations and substantial the challenges of satellite platforms is indicative of an evolving paradigm in Earth Observation, climate change offering a synergistic approach that leverages the strengths of both satellite types to enhance our understanding and monitoring of Earth’s diverse and dynamic environments.

The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) currently identifies 54 Essential Climate Variables (ECVs).

Approximately 60% of these variables can be addressed using satellite data, establishing satellites as a crucial element in observing and comprehending the climatic transformations of our planet.

Global satellite broadband connectivity is also important for surveillance, crisis management and critical infrastructure connectivity and protection. It connects any location on the planet to the Internet, reducing data transmission times thanks to the greater proximity of satellites. This ability to respond rapidly to diverse, fast-growing needs, such as the Internet of Things, autonomous driving, telehealth, aviation and maritime connectivity, smart farming, financial services, education and research, is crucial. It also plays an essential role in combating global warming more effectively.

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CubeSats play a key role in demonstrating innovative technologies

CubeSats also play a key role in demonstrating innovative technologies. They enable us to test new materials, electronic components, new-generation sensors, disruptive instruments, revolutionary attitude control systems, on-board computers, radio-frequency communication systems and innovative propulsion systems.

Validating these technologies in orbit is a crucial step in preparing for more complex space missions. This paves the way for the development of new satellite constellations dedicated to Earth observation.

From a pedagogical point of view, CubeSats are an excellent learning tool. They meet higher education needs by providing students with scientific and technical knowledge. By using concrete examples linked to different engineering disciplines, CubeSats stimulate young people's interest in space exploration and inspire new generations of space enthusiasts. The INSPIRE program demonstrates the multiple possibilities and objectives that can be achieved through the use of CubeSats are CubeSats. Five satellites of the INSPIRE program have been launched into orbit an excellent since January 2021. The small satellites developed under the INSPIRE program have learning tool masses ranging between 1 kg and several tens of kilograms. The following chapters provide a description of the various INSPIRE satellites.

1. Inspire-Sat 1, a new type of satellite developed in universities – launched in February 2022 The scientific objectives of Inspire-Sat 1 encompass two primary goals.

abundances in the solar corona during flares and the enhancement of our comprehension of the process responsible for the Sun's coronal heating.

The initial objective involves the utilization of the Compact Ionosphere Probe (CIP), a comprehensive The first annual INSPIRE workshop was held at NCU plasma sensor, to investigate ion composition, in July 2016. The initial design phase for Inspiredensity, velocity, and temperature Sat 1, the program’s inaugural of the ionosphere in eclipse. CIP is CubeSat, started towards the end The first annual expected to provide ionospheric of 2017, and the necessary funding INSPIRE workshop measurements, which will advance was secured in 2018. The inaugural was held at NCU our understanding of ionosphere mission of INSPIRE was marked by in July 2016 dynamics and plasma transport. the collaborative development of a The secondary objective is to capture small satellite by LASP, IIST and NCU. the soft X-ray (SXR) spectrum emitted This satellite was equipped with the by the Sun during periods of solar quiescence CIP instrument developed by NCU and the Taiwan through to the solar maximums, employing the Space Agency (TASA). The DAXSS instrument, was Dual Aperture X-ray Solar Spectrometer (DAXSS). funded by the National Aeronautics and Space This undertaking aims to yield valuable data for the Administration (NASA) Heliophysics division. examination of solar flares, solar cycles, elemental The launch service for this satellite was provided by Space Research Today

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the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

The program has a unique organizational structure with verticals at the three main university partners and principal investigators, program managers and system engineers at each university. Student, program managers and systems engineers at each university held weekly meetings and escalated action items to the faculty principal investigators for management decisions and to student subsystem leads for action item resolution.

In 2017, LASP hosted 11 students from three universities (CU Boulder, NCU, and IIST) for an eight-week summer training program, at the end of which the students had the preliminary design review (a 3U CubeSat). In 2018, CU Boulder-LASP and CU’s Department of Aerospace Engineering

Sciences (AES) hosted 17 students from six universities (CU Boulder, NCU, IIST, SQU, NTU, and UoA) for an eight-week training program (also a six-credit graduate course in AES) at the end of which the students had critical design review in July 2018.

The satellite had changed to a ~ 9U satellite with the addition of DAXSS and to be deployed from a ring deployer. The spacecraft category fit microsat better than CubeSat since it was ring deployed rather than from a canister. By end of summer 2019, the Engineering Model (EM) integration and testing was completed and Flight Model (FM) build had started.

Inspire-Sat 1 was launched on 14 February 2022 on the ISRO PSLV C52 mission.

2. Inspire-Sat 2, a satellite for the observation of the ionosphere – launched in January 2021 detection of plasma irregularities that can disrupt Ionospheric Dynamics Explorer and Attitude satellite and terrestrial radio communications Subsystem Satellite (IDEASSat) – named also through scintillation. IDEASSat was successfully Inspire-Sat 2 – is a CubeSat project led by TASA. deployed into a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) on 24 Its primary objective was to measure ionospheric January 2021, initiating mission operations. activity, which has implications for both satellite The satellite effectively showcased its capabilities and terrestrial communication, while also providing in three-axis attitude stabilization a hand-on learning opportunity and control, tracking, telemetry, for students. It complements and The satellite and command (TT&C), along with forms a constellation with Inspiredemonstrating the functionality of Sat 1 to gather data on ionospheric showcased its flight software and ground systems structure and plasma irregularities, capabilities in to support autonomous operation. essential for monitoring radio three-axis attitude communications. The scientific stabilization However, the mission encountered a instrument aboard IDEASSat is the critical anomaly approximately 22 CIP instrument, an all-in-one in-situ days after launch, followed by a communications plasma sensor developed at NCU and built upon blackout lasting 1.5 months (Chiu et al., the heritage of the Advanced Ionosphere Probe 2022). During a brief recovery period from the (AIP) used on FORMOSAT-5. The CIP is designed blackout, flight data was replayed, leading to the to monitor the thermal, chemical, and electroidentification of the root cause behind the blackout. dynamic properties of the ionosphere, enabling the Space Research Today

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It was determined that the blackout resulted from the electrical power subsystem reset circuit's inability to recover from a single-event latch-up induced by ionizing radiation.

While the mission was not fully accomplished, the data collected during the mission will contribute to enhancing the designs of upcoming spacecraft projects under development at NCU.

3. Inspire-Sat 3, a satellite for education and research – under development Inspire-Sat 3 is a MicroSat mission being developed for launch in 2025. It involves collaboration primarily between LASP, IIST, UoA and FZ Jülich to provide opportunities for students and researchers to gain hands-on experience in satellite development and research. Inspire-Sat 3, like its predecessors, is designed to serve as an educational and research platform. The spacecraft will carry the NASA Heliophysics funded Occultation of Wave Limb Sounder (OWLS) instrument from LASP for

Thermospheric Gravity Wave (GW) studies, a flux gate magnetometer for studying auroral magnetic fields from UoA and thermospheric gravity waves using the AtmoLite infra-red imager from FZ Jülich on a 30x30x30 (27U) MicroSat being Inspire-Sat 3 built by IIST and is designed to designated for launch serve as an on board an ISRO educational and launch vehicle. research platform

4. Inspire-Sat 4, a satellite for observing the atmosphere – launched in July 2023 The Atmospheric Coupling and Dynamics Explorer (ARCADE), also known as Inspire-Sat 4 (Figure 2), is an experimental microsatellite mission initiated by Singapore. This project is an integral part of NTU's Undergraduate Satellite Program, providing engineering students with a valuable opportunity to engage in a hands-on, multidisciplinary space project.

Most nano-satellite and small satellite missions are typically designed for altitudes of 400 km or higher. This is due to the limitations imposed by the mass, volume, and power constraints of small satellites, which hinder their ability to counteract the significant aerodynamic drag experienced at lower altitudes. Consequently, there has been a lack of in-situ scientific data collection within the altitude range of 200 to 300 km by small satellite missions.

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Inspire-Sat 4, is a 27U CubeSat spacecraft (30x30x30 cm) deployed in a ring configuration. Its primary mission objective is to carry an ionospheric plasma payload capable of conducting measurements related to ion temperature, velocity, density, and electron temperature. This mission is particularly significant as it offers a unique opportunity to study the equatorial

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ionosphere at low altitudes, where ion and electron company 'Thrust Me' to transit the spacecraft from density are considerably higher. The ionosphere, its initial orbit to VLEO, as well as for Earth imaging situated around the Earth at altitudes between 100purposes. This ambitious project has involved the 700 km, consists mainly of charged particles and dedicated efforts of a team of 15 NTU students, electrons. In-situ measurements of ions below 400 both undergraduate and graduate, over a span km altitude are limited, and such measurements of five years in collaboration with the School of can provide valuable insights into the composition Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE). and dynamics of ion generation and evolution within this region of Earth's atmosphere. This knowledge is crucial for understanding the impact of the ionosphere on phenomena such as Global Positioning System (GPS) signal scintillation, electromagnetic wave propagation, and communication disruptions caused by ionospheric effects.

The ion plasma payload, known as the CIP instrument, has been developed by NCU. Additionally, the mission incorporates a Spatial Heterodyne Interferometer (SHI) Infra-Red Imager designed for imaging the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere (MLT) region, spanning altitudes from 60 to 120 km. The SHI The satellites VELOX-AM, ARCADE and instrument provides temperature data critical for SCOOB-II serve as demonstrations of NTU's understanding MLT dynamics. This instrument was leading capabilities in satellite engineering and developed in collaboration with Forschungszentrum undergraduate space engineer training. Since 2011, Jülich, affiliated with the University of Wuppertal NTU has successfully built, launched and operated in Germany. Combined with CIP, Atmolite 13 satellites, including these three launched in measurements will contribute to our understanding July 2023 by ISRO on the Polar Satellite Launch of the lower atmosphere's impact on the ionosphere Vehicle. Inspire-Sat 4 was successfully launched and the structures observed within the equatorial by an ISRO PSLV-C56 rocket on 30 July 2023. ionosphere. Furthermore, the spacecraft will carry a third payload from NTU, aimed at studying the effects of atomic oxygen on material degradation and perovskite solar cells in Very Low Earth Orbit Figure 2 (VLEO). ARCADE will also employ (a) Inspire-Sat-4 (ARCADE) being integrated with the launch vehicle. an electric propulsion hall effect (b) Inspire-Sat-4 on the ISRO Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). thruster developed by the French (c) Spacecraft being deployed in space.

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5. Inspire-Sat 5, a satellite for observing the Earth – launched in January 2021 UltraViolet & Infrared Sensors at High Quantum This satellite, comparable in size to a Rubik’s Cube Efficiency Onboard a Small Satellite (Uvsq-Sat), and weighing around 2 kg, was successfully also known as Inspire-Sat 5, is a mission developed launched into orbit in January 2021 via the

by Laboratoire Atmosphères, Observations SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Since February Spatiales (LATMOS) of UVSQ with support from the 2021, Uvsq-Sat has been performing various INSPIRE consortium (Meftah et measurements, including al., 2020). It aims to showcase assessing the reflection of advanced technologies for It is outfitted with solar radiation from Earth and measuring the Earth Radiation measuring Outgoing Longwave multiple photodiodes and Budget and Solar Spectral Radiation (OLR). The satellite Earth Radiation Sensors Irradiance (SSI) in the Herzberg does not possess an active continuum (200 – 242 nm). attitude control system; instead, Uvsq-Sat (Figure 3) is a nanosatellite project it is outfitted with multiple photodiodes and Earth following the CubeSat standard, specifically Radiation Sensors (ERS) on every side to conduct designed as a 1U CubeSat. The LATMOS team scientific measurements. serves as the project owner and primary contractor Six photodiodes facilitate the measurement of for the 1U CubeSat project, with collaboration from both Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) and Outgoing the manufacturer, Isispace, responsible for building Solar Radiation (OSR). Albedo is calculated from dedicated satellite subsystems. The main scientific these measurements, with TSI considered a known goals of the mission encompass the measurement parameter, measured by other instruments in space. of incoming solar radiation (total solar irradiance) For just under three years, the satellite has been and outgoing terrestrial radiations (the outgoing fully operational and conducting its observations longwave and shortwave radiations at the top from space. of the atmosphere) utilizing twelve compact thermopile sensors. Additionally, monitoring the Herzberg solar continuum at 215 nm of solar spectral irradiance is another pivotal objective.

Beyond these scientific objectives, the project also seeks to validate the space-worthiness of a medical device designed for utilization by astronauts. UvsqSat was designed, manufactured, and tested by LATMOS in collaboration with its academic and industrial partners, as well as the French-speaking amateur radio community.

Figure 3 Inspire-Sat-5 (Uvsq-Sat) during integration in May 2020.

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6. Inspire-Sat 6, a satellite for atmospheric and ionospheric science – under development Small satellites offer a practical platform for various communication systems. Furthermore, the mission scientific investigations, the testing of new scientific will serve as a platform for the flight qualification instruments, and can serve as precursors for future and calibration of a hyperspectral imager extensive missions or satellite constellations. developed at NCU. This imager will be used to We introduce the mission concept and initial identify the sources and composition of PM2.5 design of the SCintillation and aerosols in the lower atmosphere, IONosphere eXtended mission contributing to air quality SCION-X aims to (SCION-X), a project currently studies. In summary, SCION-X provide in-situ sampling in development at NCU in will enhance our knowledge collaboration with partners of the ionosphere of both ionospheric and upper within the INSPIRE consortium atmospheric conditions, as well as its sixth spacecraft. SCION-X as facilitate the development of aims to provide in-situ sampling of the ionosphere remote sensing instruments for air quality research. using the CIP instrument, as well as measurements of UVSQ-LATMOS is interested in SCION-X, which thermospheric optical depth using a Solar Extreme could deliver vertical profiles and direct sampling Ultraviolet Probe (SEUV). of the ionosphere using the CIP instrument, along with a possible Global Navigation Satellite System This will yield valuable data for understanding radio occultation (GNSS RO). The Inspire-Sat 6 how the ionosphere affects satellite navigation and satellite is currently under development.

7. Inspire-Sat 7, a new INSPIRE program satellite placed in orbit in April 2023 Inspire-Sat 7 (Meftah, Boust et al., 2022) is a French nanosatellite based on the CubeSat standard (Twiggs, 2000), a satellite format defined in 1999 by California Polytechnic State University and Stanford University (USA). This CubeSat 2U satellite (11.5 × 11.5 × 22.7 cm) is an educational, technological and scientific d e m o n s t ra t o r This space mission is dedicated to an integral part of the Earth and Sun INSPIRE programme observation. It was conceived, Space Research Today

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designed, built and tested by LATMOS and the Office National d'Études et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA), in collaboration with their academic and industrial partners, and the French-speaking amateur radio community. This space mission is an integral part of the INSPIRE programme, an initiative that brings together several universities including CU Boulder-LASP, NTU, NCU, and UVSQ, among others. Weighing just 3 kg, InspireSat 7 was placed in orbit on 15 April 2023 from the US military base at Vandenberg, California, aboard SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle–the Transporter 7 "sherpa" mission (Figure 4).

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The Inspire-Sat 7 space programme bears many similarities to that of FR-1, the very first French scientific satellite, which was successfully launched from Vandenberg by an American Scout rocket on 6 December 1965.

Figure 4: (left) Validation tests on the Inspire-Sat 7 satellite. (right) Transporter 7 space ride-sharing mission with 51 commercial and government satellites on board, including Inspire-Sat 7.

Since April 2023, Inspire-Sat 7 has joined Uvsq-Sat (Meftah, Damé et al., 2020), another INSPIRE satellite already at an altitude of around 500 km (Figure 5), creating one of the first university constellations of CubeSats dedicated to observing essential climate variables.

In sun-synchronous orbit, these two satellites observe from space: solar radiation; solar radiation reflected at the top of the Earth's atmosphere at short wavelengths (UV, VIS, NIR); OLR, OSR; as well as the Earth's magnetic field.

Inspire-Sat 7 can also measure ionospheric disturbances at high frequencies (HF) from 10 to 20 MHz. Three frequencies have been successfully tested during the first five months in orbit.

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Figure 5: Altitude of Uvsq-Sat and Inspire-Sat 7 satellites since their launch.

Program organisation and key dates LATMOS acts as both prime contractor and owner of the satellite, with responsibility for designing, building and managing the entire space programme. This project has been built around a simplified organizational structure, favouring an ‘Agile’ approach, while avoiding the vertical management model, which often proves ineffective for rapidly driving a space programme from its definition and analysis phase (Phase 0/A) through to its exploitation phase (Phase E). The mission's Principal Investigator encouraged the active participation of the scientific team throughout the project, emphasizing flexibility when facing possible changes and minimizing the importance of traditional procedures.

The organization of the Inspire-Sat 7 programme is a complex process that nevertheless requires meticulous planning, precise coordination and the consideration of many variables. The scientific objectives of the programme were determined as early as 2020. Several phases were then undertaken to develop the various space mission concepts, including the ground segment (comprising the mission operation centre, UHF/ VHF ground stations and data processing systems, the scientific operation centre) and the space segment (encompassing the satellite platform and its scientific instruments). The technical, financial and time feasibility of the project was rapidly assessed. In mid-2020, the first financing arrangements were put in place. The design and engineering of the programme got off to a very early start, involving numerous partners from a wide variety of fields, including LATMOS, ONERA, CNES, Belgium's Royal Institute for Space Aeronomy (IASB), ESA, AMSAT-F, F6KRK, Electrolab, ACRI-ST, Adrelys, Oledcomm, Nanovation, and Institut Lafayette, Space Research Today

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Mecano Id, among others. Each has contributed its own specific scientific, technological and educational expertise to the project. In mid-2021, the choice of launcher was made, so that the satellite could take to the skies as early as 2023. At the end of 2021, integration and environmental testing of the satellite began. The resources of the Plateforme d'Intégration et de Tests (PIT) at the Observatoire de Versailles Saint-Quentinen-Yvelines (OVSQ) and LATMOS were used (clean rooms, shaker table for testing, thermal vacuum tank, ground stations, etc.). Tests were also carried out at Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) in Toulouse (France) to characterize the satellite's magnetic field. Calibration of the satellite's instruments was carried out at LATMOS and in Belgium at the Institut d’Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique (IASB). By the end of 2022, the satellite was ready for launch–all the necessary checks, tests and preparations had been successfully completed, confirming that the satellite was in good working order and could be safely deployed in space.

Inspire-Sat 7 was ready for flight. The satellite's in-orbit operations planning and ground control procedures were ready by January 2023. On 7 February 2023, Inspire-Sat 7 was integrated into its ejection device used to deploy satellites in orbit. This was the final step before integration into the launcher fairing. A large number of students from various disciplines and backgrounds (ESTACA, SupOptique, IUT de Mantes-enYvelines, Master NewSpace) took part in this programme, which is supported in particular by the French town of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (SQY) and the département of Yvelines (78).

Satellite description The platform of the Inspire-Sat 7 satellite includes various essential The main objective is systems such as the physical structure, solar panels, power supply and to quantify the Earth's batteries, communication with its antennas, attitude control, telemetry and energy imbalance commands, on-board computer, scientific instruments, thermal control, as well as radiation protection devices. The satellite's payload comprises several scientific instruments. Inspire-Sat 7 is equipped with miniaturized ERS sensors, which are used to measure the ERB components (reflected solar radiation, OLR, OSR). The main objective is to quantify the Earth's energy imbalance, which is the main driver of global warming and is fueled by the increase in greenhouse gases. Inspire-Sat 7 is equipped with photodiodes specially designed to observe the Sun in the Herzberg continuum (200 – 242 nm), enabling solar radiation to be measured in the UV. This innovative technology was developed by LATMOS, Nanovation and their industrial partners. Inspire-Sat 7 is also equipped with an HF receiving antenna and SDR card (CU-IONO1) developed by ONERA in collaboration with LATMOS. CU-IONO1 is an HF receiver able to pick up signals emitted from the ground

by ONERA equipment, in particular a vertical probe and an HF radar. These measurements will help to improve ionospheric modelling and to quantify more precisely ionospheric disturbances which are not yet well understood. These disturbances can then be correlated with observations made by a network of magnetometers and other orbiting satellites.

On another note, Inspire-Sat 7 carries the first LiFi module aboard a CubeSat. Oledcomm and LATMOS aim to demonstrate that light-based wireless communication is a credible alternative to traditional copper harnesses. Finally, an amateur radio payload (SPINO) is part of the Inspire-Sat 7 satellite.

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An amateur radio payload is part of the Inspire-Sat 7 satellite

This is a device designed for all radio amateurs on the planet. Adrelys, Electrolab, AMSAT-F and LATMOS decided to design a complete "free" bidirectional telemetry card for CubeSats. This device (SPINO) is associated with the audio transponder already validated on board UVSQ-SAT, and which already offers the possibility of communication between radio amateurs. Since its launch, the audio transponder of INSPIRE has been activated on multiple occasions, similar to the one on Uvsq-Sat, which has been in operation since February 2021.

Launch and orbit operations After several days of weather-related delays, the Inspire-Sat 7 satellite was finally put into orbit on 15 April 2023 at 09:52 (Paris time). The satellite was successfully deployed at an altitude of 508 km. It was placed in the orbit requested by the LATMOS scientific team (inclination 97.71 ±0.5°, eccentricity less than 0.004, local time at the descending node 10:00 ±00:30). LATMOS teams quickly took control of the satellite. The first signal emitted by Inspire-Sat 7 was picked up by amateur radio operators (Fredy Damkalis, PE0SAT).

On 15 April 2023, Inspire-Sat 7 began its mission to observe the Earth and the Sun. A team from LATMOS manages in-orbit operations. It manages the mission in progress, monitors systems and collects scientific data. It reacts to potential Data reception is problems and makes adjustments in real time. Data reception is handled by handled by LATMOS LATMOS ground stations (Hermes and Elsa), as well as by ACRI-ST and ground stations the amateur radio community. Data analysis is carried out by LATMOS (all observations) and ONERA (ionospheric observations) teams.

First observations and results Inspire-Sat 7 has been operational since its launch. Its functional life is at least two years. Inspire-Sat 7 is a passive satellite, meaning it cannot actively adjust its orientation or position in space. Using several sensors on board the satellite, the LATMOS team has developed methods for measuring reference vectors in space, such as the Sun-Earth and Magnetometer-Earth vectors. By using the TRIAD method in conjunction with the Kalman filter (MKF), precise estimates of the satellite's attitude are obtained, which is essential for restoring the satellite's attitude in space. The TRIAD method is a common algorithm used for attitude determination, where the attitude of a spacecraft is found using vector observations, typically of the magnetic field and gravity vectors. The Kalman filter, on the other hand, is a mathematical method to estimate the state of a system based on measurements and statistical noise models.

Solar radiation reflected by the Earth and the outgoing radiation (IR) data are obtained based on knowledge of the satellite's attitude and the measurements made by the ERS detectors (Figure 6).

The map of OSR at the top of the atmosphere during August 2023 shows the presence of surfaces that strongly reflect solar radiation (snow, ice, sand and deserts). Areas that are generally cloudy tend to reflect Space Research Today

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more energy, while the land surface reflects less than clouds, and the ocean reflects less than land and forests. Atmospheric aerosols, These maps provide an such as dust, soot or pollution particles, can interact with solar excellent tool for monitoring radiation. They can act as "condensation points" for water, forming global cloud cover clouds or water droplets. As these clouds are highly reflective, these maps provide an excellent tool for monitoring global cloud cover, which plays a major role in the Earth's radiation budget. For over 20 years, solar radiation reflected at the top of the atmosphere has been decreasing (by at least 1 Wm-2). This is one of the variables to be monitored over time. OLR at the top of the atmosphere also represents a variable to be monitored over time. It is latitude-dependent (Figure 6). High latitudes are colder and emit less IR radiation. Humid tropical regions are clearly visible. In tropical and equatorial regions, the weak radiation emerging at the top of the atmosphere is due to the presence of high-altitude clouds. These clouds absorb the radiation emitted by the Earth's surface. Consequently, because they are cold, they emit little outgoing radiation into space.

Outgoing radiation data centred on equatorial zones, from 160°E to 160°W longitude, can be converted into a standardized anomaly index. Negative (positive) values of OLR indicate increased (suppressed) convection and therefore more (less) cloud cover, typical of El Niño (La Niña) episodes. Greater (lesser) convective activity in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific implies higher (lower), colder (warmer) cloud tops, which emit much less (more) infrared radiation into space. Since May 2023, outgoing radiation (IR) anomaly values at the top of the atmosphere have been negative (decreasing), indicating the link with the arrival of the El Niño phenomenon in the tropical Pacific for the first time in seven years. This could lead to a rise in global temperatures and disrupt weather and climate conditions.

Figure 6: Observations carried out by Inspire-Sat 7 in August 2023.

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Figure 6: Observations carried out by Inspire-Sat 7 in August 2023.

Since April 2023, all the satellite's scientific instruments have been tested. The UV detectors are working. The HF receiver (CU-IONO1) is able to pick up signals emitted from the ground. The amateur radio payload (SPINO) has been activated very frequently.

A future constellation of nanosatellites?

A large fleet of small, low-orbiting satellites and sinks, in order to better understand global (Gaïa Y78) would enable observation of any warming. changes on Earth with While we have a sound an unprecedented level understanding of the A large fleet of small, low-orbiting of detail, both in spatial greenhouse effect satellites would enable observation and temporal resolution mechanism and the of any changes on Earth (Meftah, 2023a). Several contributions of various variables would then be man-made greenhouse simultaneously observed by this armada, such gases (GHGs) to global warming, certain as the Earth's radiation balance and spectral interactions and feedback involving clouds, polar solar irradiance. Monitoring CO2 and CH4 from ice and oceans remain less well understood. As space is also very important for characterizing GHG concentrations rise, less infrared radiation the spatiotemporal distribution of these main is able to escape to space, leading to a decrease greenhouse gases and quantifying their sources in outgoing infrared radiation (OLR), a build-up Space Research Today

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of energy in the climate system, and ultimately a warming of the Earth's surface. Observations and model simulations reveal that the direct impact of GHGs on warming is amplified by climatic feedbacks, such as the melting of Arctic ice,

which exposes more ocean, thereby enhancing the absorption of solar radiation. It is therefore becoming essential to observe several key climate variables simultaneously in order to better characterize climate change.

8. Inspire-Sat X, a satellite to observe climate change Climate change stands as one of the most urgent and critical challenges confronting humanity in the 21st century. Within this context, the monitoring of Earth's Energy Imbalance (EEI) is of paramount importance, in conjunction with greenhouse gases (GHGs), to gain a comprehensive understanding of climate change and devise effective solutions.

The pioneering Uvsq-Sat NG mission (Meftah, Clavier et al., 2023b), led by LATMOS and supported by INSPIRE, addresses this imperative. This mission will be launched in 2025 and centres on a 6-Unit CubeSat with dimensions of 111.3 cm x 36.6 cm x 38.8 cm in its unstowed configuration.

Figure 7: Computer-aided design of the Uvsq-Sat NG satellite with its platform and its scientific payloads (NIR Spectrometer, NanoCam, Earth Radiative Sensors, Photodiodes).

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Uvsq-Sat NG, also known as Inspire-Sat X, aims to ensure the seamless continuation of ERB measurements, building upon the groundwork laid by the Uvsq-Sat and Inspire-Sat satellites.

The monitoring of Earth's Energy Imbalance is of paramount importance

One of its primary objectives is to conduct broadband ERB measurements, leveraging state-of-the-art yet user-friendly technologies. Furthermore, the Uvsq-Sat NG mission seeks to conduct precise and comprehensive monitoring of global atmospheric gas concentrations, focusing on CO2 and CH4, and examining their correlation with Earth's Outgoing Longwave Radiation.

The satellite (Figure 7) carries multiple payloads, including ERS sensors for monitoring incoming solar radiation and outgoing terrestrial radiation.

Uvsq-Sat NG is equipped with a high-definition camera to capturing visible range images of Earth

Additionally, it incorporates a Near-InfraRed (NIR) Spectrometer designed to assess GHGs atmospheric concentrations through observations in the wavelength range of 1200 to 2000 nm. A new method was developed for retrieving atmospheric gas column data (CO2, CH4, O2, H2O) from the Uvsq-Sat NG NIR Spectrometer. These retrievals are based on simulated spectra encompassing various environmental conditions (surface pressure, surface reflectance, vertical temperature profile, gas mixing ratios, water vapour levels, other trace gases, cloud and aerosol optical depth distributions) and spectrometer parameters (Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and spectral resolution ranging from 1 to 6 nm). Moreover, Uvsq-Sat NG is equipped with a high-definition camera, NanoCam, dedicated to capturing visible range images of Earth. This capability aids in post-processing spectrometer data by ensuring precise geolocation of observed scenes. NanoCam also offers the potential to observe the Earth's limb, enabling rough estimations of the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere. UVSQLATMOS acts both as the prime contractor and owner of the satellite, and it receives invaluable assistance from its INSPIRE partners. This satellite is currently under development (Figure 8) and will be launched in 2025 or 2026.

One of the objectives of the Uvsq-Sat NG mission is to measure incoming solar radiation, solar radiation reflected by Earth, as well as outgoing infrared (IR) radiation at the top of our planet's atmosphere (Meftah, Clavier et al., 2023b). Moreover, this mission aims to enhance the detection, tracking, and understanding of human-made greenhouse gases through space observations.

One of the aspirations is to perform global monitoring of atmospheric gas concentrations Figure 8: Inspire-Sat X (Uvsq-Sat NG) during integration in October 2023.

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(CO2 and CH4) on a planetary scale and to study their relationship with Earth's outgoing radiation.

The simultaneous observation of these vital climate variables is crucial as it provides a better assessment of the various stages of the global warming mechanism and, consequently, a deeper understanding of climate change.

A constellation of small satellites is garnering increased interest in the context of climate change observation, as it allows for a more global and continuous spatio-temporal coverage of the Earth than what a single large satellite can provide. This setup would ensure real-time observations (revisiting the same point every hour) for all areas of the globe, including those hard to access from the ground, such as polar regions. This is crucial for better monitoring of climate variations.

Uvsq-Sat NG is an INSPIRE mission that seeks to bring the scientific teams of the programme closer together.

Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) ought to initiate a mechanism where International Teams can collaborate to set science objectives and guidelines for a modular, global small satellite constellation for Earth observations.

The role of COSPAR is one of an honest broker, focusing on orchestration rather than financing. The outcome of a collective endeavour to construct small satellite constellations would benefit all involved parties and prove more significant than the sum of its parts. COSPAR is in a position to help foster this international collaboration, creating a precedent for setting up community science in a very open way.

To learn more...

- Branz F., Cappelletti C., Ricco A., Hines J. (eds), 2023.

Next Generation CubeSats and SmallSats: Enabling Technologies, Missions and Markets. Elsevier, Chapitre 27, 978-0-12-824541-5.

- Chiu Y.-C., Chang L., Chao C.-K., Tai T.-Y., Cheng K.-L., Liu H.-T., Tsai-Lin R., Liao C.-T., Luo W.-H., Chiu G.-P., Hou K.-J. et al., 2022. Lessons Learned from IDEASSat: Design, Testing, on Orbit Operations, and Anomaly Analysis of a First University CubeSat Intended for Ionospheric Science.

Aerospace, 9, pp.110.

- Meftah M., Damé L., Keckhut P., Bekki S., Sarkissian A., Hauchecorne A., Bertran E., Carta J.-P., Rogers D., Abbaki S., Dufour C. et al., 2020. UVSQ-SAT, a Pathfinder CubeSat Mission for Observing Essential Climate Variables. Remote Sensing, 12 (1), art. 92 (24 p.).

- Meftah M., Boust F., et al., 2022. Inspire-Sat 7, a Second CubeSat to Measure the Earth's Energy Budget and to Probe the Ionosphere. Remote Sensing, 14 (1), pp.186.

10.3390/rs14010186 - insu-03506566.

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- Twiggs R.J., 2000. Space system developments at Stanford University: From launch experience of microsatellites to the proposed future use of picosatellites.

SPIE 4136. Small Payloads in Space, 4136, 79-86. doi: 10.1117/12.406646.

- Meftah M., Damé L., et al., 2020. UVSQ-SAT, a Pathfinder CubeSat Mission for Observing Essential Climate Variables. Remote Sensing, 12 (1), art. 92 (24 p.).

10.3390/rs12010092 - insu-02424399.

- Meftah M., 2023a. L’espace et le NewSpace au service du climat. Books On Demand – NewSpace Éditions, 9782322119530 / 2322119539 - insu-04053151.

- Meftah M., Clavier C., et al., 2023b. Uvsq-Sat NG, a New CubeSat Pathfinder for Monitoring Earth Outgoing Energy and Greenhouse Gases. Remote Sensing, 2023, 15 (19), pp.4876. 10.3390/rs15194876 - insu-04233745.

- http://uvsq-sat.projet.latmos.ipsl.fr 83

News in Brief NASA-ISRO Radar Mission to Provide Dynamic View of Forests and Wetlands (JPL release, October 2023)

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ISAR is a joint mission by NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO, and when in orbit, its sophisticated radar systems will scan nearly all of Earth’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. The data it collects will help researchers understand two key functions of both ecosystem types: the capture and the Tracking these release of carbon. Once it launches in early 2024, the NISAR radar satellite mission will offer detailed insights into two types of ecosystems–forests and land-cover wetlands–vital to naturally regulating the greenhouses gases in the atmosphere changes will help that are driving global climate change. researchers study

the impacts on the carbon cycle

Forests hold carbon in the wood of their trees; wetlands store it in their layers of organic soil. Disruption of either system, whether gradual or sudden, can accelerate the release of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.

Tracking these land-cover changes on a global scale will help researchers study the impacts on the carbon cycle–the processes by which carbon moves between the atmosphere, land, ocean, and living things.

“The radar technology on NISAR will allow us to get a sweeping perspective of the planet in space and time,” said Paul Rosen, the NISAR project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “It can give us a really reliable view of exactly how Earth’s land and ice are changing.”

Forestry and other land-use changes account for about 11% of net human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

NISAR’s data will improve our understanding of how the loss of forests around the world influences the carbon cycle and contributes to global warming.

“Globally, we do not understand well the carbon sources and sinks from terrestrial ecosystems, particularly from forests,” said Anup Das, an ecosystems scientist and co-lead of the ISRO NISAR science team. “So we expect that NISAR will greatly help address that, especially in less dense forests, which are more vulnerable to deforestation and degradation.”

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Forestry and other land-use changes account for about 11% of net human-caused greenhouse gas emissions

The signal from NISAR’s L-band radar will penetrate the leaves and branches of forest canopies, bouncing off the tree trunks and the ground below. By analysing the signal that reflects back, researchers will be able to estimate the density of forest cover in an area as small as a soccer field.

With successive orbital passes, it will be able to track whether a section of forest has been thinned or cleared over time. The data–which will be collected in early morning and evening and in any weather–could also offer clues as to what caused the change, such as disease, human activity, or fire.

It’s an important set of capabilities for studying vast, often cloud-covered rainforests such as those in the Congo and Amazon basins, which lose millions of wooded acres every year. Fire releases carbon into the air directly, while the deterioration of forests reduces the absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The data could also help improve accounting of deforestation and forest degradation–as well as forest growth–as countries that rely on logging try to shift toward more sustainable practices, said Josef Kellndorfer, a member of the NISAR science team and founder of Earth Big Data LLC, a provider of large data sets and analytic tools for research and decisions support.

Wetlands present another carbon puzzle: Swamps, bogs, peatlands, inundated forests, marshes, and other wetlands hold 20 to 30% of the carbon in Earth’s soil, despite constituting only 5 to 8% of the land surface.

When wetlands flood, bacteria go to work digesting organic matter (mostly dead plants) in the soil. Through this natural process, wetlands are the planet’s largest natural source of the potent greenhouse gas methane, which bubbles to the water’s surface and travels into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, when wetlands dry out, the carbon they store is exposed to oxygen, releasing carbon dioxide.

Less well understood is how changing temperature and precipitation patterns due to climate change–along with human activities such as development and agriculture–are affecting the extent, frequency, and duration of flooding in wetlands. NISAR will be able to monitor flooding, and with repeated passes, researchers will be able to track seasonal and annual variations in wetlands inundation, as well as long-term trends.

By coupling NISAR’s wetlands observations with separate data on the release of greenhouse gases, researchers should gain insights that inform the management of wetland ecosystems, said Bruce Chapman, a NISAR science team member and JPL wetlands researcher. “We have to be careful to reduce our impact on wetland areas so that we don’t worsen the situation with the climate,” he added.

NISAR is set to launch in early 2024 from southern India. In addition to tracking ecosystem changes, it will collect information on the motion of the land, helping researchers understand the dynamics of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and subsidence and uplift (when the surface sinks and rises). It will also track the movements and melting of both glaciers and sea ice.

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Wetlands hold 20 to 30% of the carbon in Earth’s soil

NISAR is an equal collaboration between NASA and ISRO and marks the first time the two agencies have cooperated on hardware development for an Earthobserving mission. JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, leads the U.S. component of the project and is providing the mission’s L-band SAR. NASA is also providing the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem. ISRO’s U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, which is leading the ISRO component of the mission, is providing the spacecraft bus, the S-band SAR electronics, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services and satellite mission operations.

See links below : nisar.jpl.nasa.gov nisar.jpl.nasa.gov/news/55/nasa-isro-radar-mission-to-provide-dynamic-view-of-forests-wetlands/

NISAR will track wetland flooding to study how these carbon-rich ecosystems are reacting to climate change. It will generate images like this one from an airborne radar that flew over Peru in 2013. Black indicates water, gray is rainforest, green is low vegetation, and red and pink are flooded plants. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) Space Research Today

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ISRO Call for Capacity Building in Space-based Disaster Management Support (from ISRO call, August 2023)

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n 20 August 2023 the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, from ISRO, issued an announcement of opportunity for capacity building in space based disaster management support. In the Indian sub-continent, nearly a billion people suffer yearly from natural and man-made disasters. Rapid population growth, unprecedented development, extreme climatic events along with complex geo-environmental setting contribute to the increasing effect of disasters. The frequency and impact of natural disasters are increasing day by day. Therefore, there is an urgent need to use both technology and suitable administrative measures along with societal response to mitigate or reduce the impact of disasters.

ISRO’s Disaster Management Support Programme (DMSP) has been actively supporting the central and state governments by providing operational services during pre-disaster, during disaster and postdisaster time-frames, including experimental forecasts, using space systems. Capacity Building in space technology for disaster management has been identified as a key element of sustainable and effective disaster management. However, it is a challenging task considering the diverse background of stakeholders and different types of disasters to deal with. Further, it becomes challenging as the issue of disaster management is interwoven with activities related to development, socio-economic conditions, adaptation to climate change scenarios, etc.

Considering the above, ISRO has initiated an exciting capacity building (CB) programme which is funded under ISRO DMS program since 2021. This program invites proposals on Capacity Building programmes in different areas of space-based disaster management support from scientists, engineers and faculty members from ISRO/ Department of Space (DOS) Centres & Units, R&D institutions and recognized Academic Institutes in India, for financial support byISRO under the DMSP. The 4th Announcement of Opportunity (AO) recently invited proposals for 2023-24.

Cyclone Biparjoy INSAT-3D image, 12 June 2023, 05:00 (Image credit: ISRO) Space Research Today

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Gaganyaan Mission Completes Another Milestone (ISRO release, November 2023)

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successful test of the crew escape system for Gaganyaan was carried out on 21 October 2023, in the run-up to India's first human spaceflight.

The Gaganyaan project envisages the demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching a crew of three members to an orbit of 400 km for a 3-day mission and bringing them back safely to Earth by landing in Indian sea waters.

The project is accomplished through an optimal strategy by considering in-house expertise, experience of Indian industry, intellectual capabilities of Indian academia and research institutions along with cutting edge technologies available with international agencies. The pre-requisites for Gaganyaan mission include development of many critical technologies including human rated launch vehicle for carrying crew safely to space, Life Support System to provide an Earth-like environment to the crew in space, crew emergency escape provision and evolving crew management aspects for training, the recovery and rehabilitation of crew.

The Gaganyaan Various precursor missions are planned for demonstrating the Technology project envisages Preparedness Levels before carrying out the actual Human Space Flight the demonstration mission. These demonstrator missions include Integrated Air Drop Test of human spaceflight (IADT), Pad Abort Test (PAT) and Test Vehicle (TV) flights. Safety and capability reliability of all systems will be proven in uncrewed missions preceding a crewed mission. On 21 October 2023 the Gaganyaan spacecraft was launched at 10:00 local time (04:30GMT) from Sriharikota, India, and successfully performed the Flight Test Vehicle Abort Mission-1 (TV-D1) and crew escape system, ensuring that in the event of a problem either at the launch pad or during the ascent phase the Crew Module along with the crew can be taken to a safe distance. This successful test clears the way for sending a humanoid in an uncrewed Gaganyaan spacecraft next year, in preparation for India becoming the fourth nation to send astronauts into space. www.isro.gov.in/Gaganyaan.html

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NASA’s Lucy Surprises Again (NASA release, November 2023)

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t turns out there is more to the asteroid Dinkinesh and its newly discovered satellite than first meets the eye. As NASA’s Lucy spacecraft continued to return data of its first asteroid encounter on 1 November 2023, the team was surprised to discover that Dinkinesh’s unanticipated satellite is, itself, a contact binary–that is, made of two smaller objects touching each other.

In the first downlinked images of Dinkinesh and its satellite, taken at closest approach, the two lobes of the contact binary happened to lie one behind the other from Lucy's point of view. Only when the team downlinked additional images, captured in the minutes around the encounter, was the true nature of this object revealed. (Figure 1)

The two lobes of the contact binary happened to lie one behind the other

“Contact binaries seem to be fairly common in the solar system,” said John Spencer, Lucy deputy project scientist, of the Boulder, Colorado, branch of the Southwest Research Institute. “We haven’t seen many up-close, and we’ve never seen one orbiting another asteroid. We’d been puzzling over odd variations in Dinkinesh’s brightness that we saw on approach, which gave us a hint that Dinkinesh might have a moon of some sort, but we never suspected anything so bizarre!”

Lucy’s primary goal is to survey the never-before-visited Jupiter Trojan asteroids. This first encounter with a small, main belt asteroid was only added to the mission in January 2023, primarily to serve as an in-flight test of the system that allows the spacecraft to continually track and image its asteroid targets as it flies past at high speed. The excellent performance of that system at Dinkinesh allowed the team to capture multiple perspectives on the system, which enabled the team to better understand the asteroids’ shapes and make this unexpected discovery.

This image shows the asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite as seen by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) as NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft departed the system. This image was taken at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 UTC) Nov. 1, 2023, about 6 minutes after closest approach, from a range of approximately 1,010 miles (1,630 km). From this perspective, the satellite is revealed to be a contact binary, the first time a contact binary has been seen orbiting another asteroid.

(Image credit : NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL) Space Research Today

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Lucy’s primary goal is to survey the Jupiter Trojan asteroids

This second image was taken about 6 minutes after closest approach from a distance of approximately 1,010 miles (1,630 km). The spacecraft travelled around 960 miles (1,500 km) between the two released images.]

The team is continuing to downlink and process the remainder of the encounter data from the spacecraft. Dinkinesh and its satellite are the first two of 11 asteroids that Lucy plans to explore over its 12-year journey.

Lucy is now After skimming the inner edge of the main asteroid belt, Lucy is now heading heading back back toward Earth for a gravity assist in December 2024. That close flyby will toward Earth for propel the spacecraft back through the main asteroid belt, where it will observe a gravity assist asteroid Donaldjohanson in 2025, and then on to the Trojan asteroids in 2027.

A diagram showing the trajectory of the NASA Lucy spacecraft (red) during its flyby of the asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite (gray). “A” marks the location of the spacecraft at 12:55 p.m. EDT (1655 UTC) Nov. 1, 2023, and an inset shows the L’LORRI image captured at that time. “B” marks the spacecraft’s position a few minutes later at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 UTC), and the inset shows the corresponding L’LORRI view at that time.

(Image credits: Overall graphic, NASA/Goddard/SwRI; Inset “A,” NASA/Goddard/SwRI/ Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab; Inset “B,” NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL)

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Largest Solar Storm Identified in 14,300-year-old Tree Rings (University of Leeds release, October 2023)

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n international team of scientists have discovered a huge spike in radiocarbon levels 14,300 years ago by analysing ancient tree-rings found in the French Alps. The radiocarbon spike was caused by a massive solar storm, the biggest ever identified.

A similar solar storm today would be catastrophic for modern technological society–potentially wiping out telecommunications and satellite systems, causing massive electricity grid blackouts, and costing us billions of pounds. The academics are warning of the importance of understanding such storms to protect our global communications and energy infrastructure for the future.

A team of researchers from the Collège de France, CEREGE, IMBE, Analysis of these Aix-Marseille University and the University of Leeds measured radiocarbon rings identified an levels in ancient trees preserved within the eroded banks of the Drouzet unprecedented spike River, near Gap, in the Southern French Alps. in radiocarbon levels The tree trunks, which are subfossils–remains whose fossilization process is not complete–were sliced into tiny single tree-rings. Analysis of these individual rings identified an unprecedented spike in radiocarbon levels occurring precisely 14,300 years ago. By comparing this radiocarbon spike with measurements of beryllium, a chemical element found in Greenland ice cores, the team proposes that the spike was caused by a massive solar storm that would have ejected huge volumes of energetic particles into Earth’s atmosphere.

Nine such extreme solar storms, known as Miyake Events, have now been identified as having occurred over the last 15,000 years. The most recent confirmed Miyake Events occurred in 993 AD and 774 AD. This newly-identified 14,300-year-old storm is, however, the largest that has ever been found – roughly twice the size of these two.

The exact nature of these Miyake Events remains very poorly understood as they have never been directly observed instrumentally. They highlight that we still have much to learn about the behaviour of the Sun and the dangers it poses to society on Earth. We do not know what causes such extreme solar storms to occur, how frequently they might occur, or if we can somehow predict them.

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Edouard Bard, Professor of Climate and Ocean Evolution at the Collège de The exact nature France and CEREGE, and lead author of the study, said “Direct instrumental of these Miyake measurements of solar activity only began in the 17th century with the counting Events remains very of sunspots. Nowadays, we also obtain detailed records using ground-based poorly understood observatories, space probes, and satellites. However, all these short-term instrumental records are insufficient for a complete understanding of the Sun. Radiocarbon measured in tree-rings, used alongside beryllium in polar ice cores, provide the best way to understand the Sun’s behaviour further back into the past.”

The largest, directly-observed, solar storm occurred in 1859 and is known as the Carrington Event. It caused massive disruption on Earth–destroying telegraph machines and creating a night-time aurora so bright that birds began to sing, believing the Sun had begun to rise. However, the Miyake Events (including the newly discovered 14,300-yr-old storm) would have been a staggering entire order-of-magnitude greater in size.

The collaborative research was published on 9 October 2023 in The Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

Asteroid Ryugu Grains On Public Display in France and UK (ISAS – JAXA release, October 2023)

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his autumn, three grains from asteroid Ryugu that were returned by the Hayabusa2 mission went on public display in Europe. One grain can be seen at the Science Museum in London (UK), and two grains are being exhibited at Cité de l'espace in Toulouse (France).

In London, the Ryugu grain is displayed inside the Facility-to-Facility Transfer Container (FFTC), alongside a 1:20 scale model of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft that JAXA delivered.

In France they will be on display with a model of asteroid Ryugu and MASCOT, with one grain under a microscope displayed on a big screen. The second grain can be viewed inside an (FFTC): the same type used when transporting the grains for scientific study to laboratories around the world. ISAS Deputy Director Fujimoto Masaki attended the openings of both displays to present the grains and take part in panel discussions and even talk visitors through the exhibits. Both displays will run for most of 2024.

Des échantillons de Ryugu à la Cité de l’espace - Cité de l'espace (cite-espace.com) 4.6-billion-year-old asteroid sample unveiled at the Science Museum - Science Museum Blog Space Research Today

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Telescope Array Detects 2nd Highest-energy Cosmic Ray (University of Utah release, November 2023)

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n 1991, the University of Utah Fly’s Eye experiment detected the highest-energy cosmic ray ever observed. Later dubbed the Oh-My-God particle, the cosmic ray’s energy shocked astrophysicists.

Nothing in our galaxy had the power to produce it, and the particle had more energy than was theoretically possible for cosmic rays traveling to Earth from other galaxies. Simply put, the particle should not exist.

The Telescope Array has since observed more than 30 ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, though none approaching the Oh-My-God-level energy. No observations have yet revealed their origin or how they are able to travel to the Earth.

On 27 May 2021, the Telescope Array experiment detected the second-highest extreme-energy cosmic ray. At 2.4 x 1020eV, the energy of this single subatomic particle is equivalent to dropping a brick on your toe from waist height. Led by the University of Utah, USA, and the University of Tokyo, the Telescope Array consists of 507 surface detector stations arranged in a square grid that covers 700 km2 (~270 miles2) outside of Delta, Utah in the state’s West Desert. The event triggered 23 detectors at the north-west region of the Telescope Array, splashing across 48 km2 (18.5 mi2).

Its arrival direction appeared to be from the Local Void, an empty area of space bordering the Milky Way galaxy.

Surface detectors being deployed by helicopter.

(Image credit: Institute for Cosmic Ray Research, University of Tokyo)

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“The particles are so high energy, they shouldn’t be affected by galactic and Its arrival direction extra-galactic magnetic fields. You should be able to point to where they come appeared to be from in the sky,” said John Matthews, Telescope Array co-spokesperson at from the Local Void the U and co-author of the study. “But in the case of the Oh-My-God particle and this new particle, you trace its trajectory to its source and there’s nothing high energy enough to have produced it. That’s the mystery of this—what the heck is going on?”

In their observation published on 23 November 2023, in the journal Science, the international Telescope Array researchers describe the ultra-high-energy cosmic ray, evaluate its characteristics, and conclude that the rare phenomena might follow particle physics unknown to science. The researchers named it the Amaterasu particle after the sun goddess in Japanese mythology. The Oh-My-God and the Amaterasu particles were detected using different observation techniques, confirming that while rare, these ultra-high energy events are real.

Cosmic rays are echoes of violent celestial events that have stripped matter to its subatomic structures and hurled it through the universe at nearly the speed of light. Essentially, cosmic rays are charged particles with a wide range of energies consisting of positive protons, negative electrons, or entire atomic nuclei that travel through space and rain down onto Earth constantly.

Cosmic rays hit Earth’s upper atmosphere and blast apart the nucleus of oxygen and nitrogen gas, generating many secondary particles. These travel a short distance in the atmosphere and repeat the process, building billions of secondary particles that scatter to the surface. The footprint of this secondary shower is massive and requires that detectors cover an area as large as the Telescope Array. The surface detectors utilize a suite of instrumentation that gives researchers information about each cosmic ray; the timing of the signal shows its trajectory and the amount of charged particles hitting each detector reveals the primary particle’s energy.

Because particles have a charge, their flight path resembles a ball in a pinball machine as they zigzag against electromagnetic fields through the cosmic microwave background. It’s nearly impossible to trace the trajectory of most cosmic rays, which lie on the low- to middle-end of the energy spectrum. Even high-energy cosmic rays are distorted by the microwave background. Particles with Oh-My-God and Amaterasu energy blast through intergalactic space relatively unbent. Only the most powerful of celestial events can produce them.

Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays must exceed 5 x 1019 eV—the equivalent of a single subatomic particle carrying the kinetic energy of a major league pitcher’s fast ball, and has tens of millions of times more energy than any human-made particle accelerator can achieve. Astrophysicists calculated this theoretical limit, known as the Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff, as the maximum energy a proton can hold traveling over long distances before interactions of the microwave background radiation slow it down.

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Known source candidates, such as active galactic nuclei or black holes with accretion disks emitting particle jets, tend to be more than 160 million light years away from Earth. The new particle’s 2.4 x 1020 eV and the OhMy-God particle’s 3.2 x 1020 eV easily surpass the cutoff.

The Telescope Array is uniquely positioned to detect ultra-high-energy cosmic rays

Researchers also analyse cosmic ray composition for clues of its origins.

Heavier particles, like iron nuclei, have more charge and are more susceptible to bending in a magnetic field than a lighter particle made of protons from a hydrogen atom.

The new particle is likely a proton. Particle physics dictates that a cosmic ray with energy beyond the GZK cutoff is too powerful for its path to be distorted by the microwave background, but back tracing Amaterasu’s trajectory points towards empty space.

“Maybe magnetic fields are stronger than we thought, but that disagrees with other observations that show they’re not strong enough to produce significant curvature at these ten-to-the-twentieth electron volt energies,” said John Belz, professor at the University of Utah and co-author of the study. “It’s a real mystery.”

The Telescope Array is uniquely positioned to detect ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. It sits at about 1,200 m (4,000 ft), the elevation sweet-spot that allows secondary particles maximum development, but before they start to decay. Its location in Utah’s West Desert provides ideal atmospheric conditions in two ways: the dry air is crucial because humidity will absorb the ultraviolet light necessary for detection; and the region’s dark skies are essential, as light pollution will create too much noise and obscure the cosmic rays.

Astrophysicists are still baffled by the mysterious phenomena. The Telescope Array is in the middle of an expansion that that they hope will help crack the case. Once completed, 500 new scintillator detectors will expand the Telescope Array to sample cosmic ray-induced particle showers across 2,900 km2 (1,100 mi2 ). The larger footprint will hopefully capture more events that will shed light on what’s going on.

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SPACE SNAPSHOTS Ireland’s First Satellite (University College Dublin release, December 2023)

EIRSAT-1, a student-built satellite from University College Dublin (UCD), has been successfully launched into space, officially becoming Ireland's first-ever satellite. The miniature cube satellite, or CubeSat, designed, built, and tested at UCD under guidance of the European Space Agency (ESA), took flight at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, USA, aboard a Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket on 1 December.

It was successfully deployed around 8pm IST when it was confirmed that EIRSAT-1 was correctly injected into low Earth orbit.

(Image credit: courtesy of UCD/ESA)

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Our Beautiful Earth (NASA release)

Sometimes you come across images that just strike you as being impressive and beautiful and, in this case, despite being two years old, are really worth sharing on these pages. This is a NASA image of Earth from the International Space Station. Yet again, it shows us that our own planet is indeed one of the most beautiful sights in space. [SRT General Editor] (Image credit: NASA)

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MEETINGS

of Interest to COSPAR 6-10 December 2023 Kurashiki and Tottori, Japan 7th Global Moon Village Workshop & Symposium https://mva2023.jp/

8-13 April 2024 Monterrey, Mexico 14th COLAGE 2024 and International Space Sciences School (ISSS) www.rice.unam.mx

9- 11 January 2024 ESA-ESTEC, Netherlands Workshop on Understanding the Atmospheric Effects due of Re-entry Spacecraft https://indico.esa.int

10-12 April 2024 Barcelona, Spain 2024 Ocean Decade Conf. https://oceandecade-conference.com

17-18 January 2024 Bern, Switzerland ISSI / World Trade Institute Workshop on The Economics and Law of Space-Based Commerce www.issibern.ch

14-19 April 2024 Vienna, Austria EGU General Assembly https://egu24.eu

5-9 February 2024 Ahmedabad, India Int. Conf. on Planets, Exoplanets and Habitability https://icpeh.ipsa-asso.in

23-26 April 2024 Munich, Germany European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar (EUSAR 2024) www.eusar.de

14-16 February 2024 Singapore Global Space and Technology Conv. (GSTC) www.space.org.sg

19-24 May 2024 Gran Canaria, Spain 4th URSI Atlantic / Asia-Pacific Radio Science Meeting (AT-RASC 2024) www.atrasc.com

18-19 March 2024 Washington DC, USA Space Generation x SGx 2024 https://spacegeneration.org/sgx2024

5-9 June 2024 Berlin, Germany Berlin Int. Airshow (ILA 2024) www.ila-berlin.de

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MEETINGS OF INTEREST TO COSPAR

[Meetings organized or sponsored by COSPAR are shown in bold face]

24 June-5 July 2024 Chiang Mai, Thailand JWST Data Analysis and Processing Workshop (South East Asia) https://indico.narit.or.th

22-26 September 2024 Melbourne, Australia 26th IUBMB Meeting https://iubmb.org

13-21 July 2024 Busan, South Korea 45th COSPAR Scientific Assembly www.cospar2024.org

17-19 October 2024 Bern, Switzerland 3rd Int. AstroMeet www.albedomeetings.com/2024/astromeet

6-15 August 2024 Cape Town, South Africa 22nd IAU General Assembly https://astronomy2024.org

13-18 July 2025 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia IUPAC World Chemistry Congress https://iupac.org

25-30 August 2024 Daegu, South Korea 26th International Congress of Theoretical & Applied Mechanics (ICTAM 2024) https://iutam.org

17-22 August 2025 Sydney, Australia 2025 URSI Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference www.ursi.org

25-31 August 2024 Busan, South Korea 37th International Geological Congress www.igc2024korea.org

4-11 July 2026 Toronto, Canada 25th ISPRS Congress: From Imagery to Understanding www.isprs.org

26-30 August 2024 Padova, Italy European Crystallographic Meeting (ECM34) www.ecm34.org

1-9 August 2026 Florence, Italy 46th COSPAR Scientific Assembly E-mail: cospar@cosparhq.cnes.fr

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Meeting Announcements Understanding the Atmospheric Effects of Spacecraft Re-entry Workshop, ESTEC, Netherlands, 10-11 January 2024 The aim of this workshop is to bring together atmospheric chemists and physicists, material experts, the space industry, and international space research-related organizations to highlight the gaps in our understanding of the modelling and how we can improve testing to obtain relevant data and suggest appropriate mitigation and regulatory measures.

New measurements show that about 10% of the aerosol particles in the stratosphere contain aluminium and other metals that originated from satellite re-entry. In the next few decades, we are set for an increase globally of emissions for thousands of satellite launches and re-entry events. The influence of this sustained and increased level of metallic content on the properties of stratospheric aerosol is unknown, and there are only limited studies on the atmospheric effects of propellants. Aerosol particles in the atmosphere have a significant impact on the Earth's radiative energy balance.

These particles in the stratospheric aerosol layer play an important role in stratospheric ozone depletion and in addition affect the Earth’s climate by absorbing and scattering solar-radiation. They serve as condensation nuclei for cloud droplets and ice-nucleating particles for ice crystals, and quickly alter a number of environmental variables.

The roles of aerosols, such as aerosol–radiation interactions, the active aerosol–cloud interactions, and human driven contamination effects must be addressed. Understanding the direct and indirect impact of space industry activities on Earth’s climate is of utmost importance if we want to lead future exploration in a sustainable manner.

Places on this workshop are limited and the deadline for registration is 23 December 2023.

See the link below https://indico.esa.int Space Research Today

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MEETINGS ANNOUNCEMENTS

COSPAR-Co-sponsored Capacity Building Workshop: JWST Data Analysis and Processing Workshop (South East Asia)

24 June-5 July 2024, Chiang Mai, Thailand If you want to use data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in your research, but do not know how, this workshop is for you!

JWST Data Analysis and Processing Workshop (South East Asia) is one of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR)'s Capacity Building Activities and the International Astronomical Union (IAU)'s Hands-On Workshops. The workshop trains participants to use public JWST data for scientific research. Participants will download, reduce, and analyse data from all JWST instruments (NIRCam, NIRISS, NIRSpec, and MIRI), using examples from different scientific cases.

The workshop aims to foster collaboration among Southeast Asian astronomers. We welcome final-year undergraduates, master's students, PhD students, post-doctoral fellows and researchers from ASEAN and the vicinity with backgrounds in astronomy research. Applicants should be comfortable with a programming language (preferably Python). We aim to have 3 to 4 participants per lecturer and a total attendance of 30-40 participants.

Full details can be found at https://indico.narit.or.th/event/203/ Application deadline: 15 February 2024.

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Meeting Reports Third ISSI-BJ and APSCO Space Science School on Exploring the Moon

T

he 3rd joint space science school was organized between the International Space Science Institute in Beijing (ISSI-BJ) and the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) with the aim of training students in data reduction, analysis and interpretation of various space missions by learning through hands-on exercises.

The focus of this year’s school was Exploring the Moon, which aligned with the renewed interest within the scientific community in exploring this celestial body for the upcoming Chang’E, Artemis and other lunar missions. The School was held at the Sirindhorn Center for Geo-Informatics (SCGI) located in the Space Krenovation Park (SKP), Si Racha, Chon Buri Province, Thailand from 17 – 24 October 2023. Throughout the School, six lecturers and four tutors from China shared their knowledge and experience with 25 students from eight countries.

Figure 1: Group photo of the School Participants (Image credit: ISSI–BJ)

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Overview The School started with a short introduction to the school, given by the organizers: Prof. Maurizio Falanga, Executive Director of the International Space Science Institute (ISSI), Dr. Ebrahimi Mohammad Seyedabadi, Director General of Education and Training of the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO), and Ms Pranpriya Wongsa from the Geo-informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA).

The first two days of the School were dedicated to introductory lectures focusing on craters, water and the geology of the Moon. These lecturers were given by invited speakers, all experts and well-recognized scientists and engineers with an excellent reputation in teaching and supervising participants. Before the start of the lecturers, Prof. Falanga gave a short speech, thanking the sponsors of the School: National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Science (NSSC– CAS), International Space Science Institute (ISSI), and Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). The opening lectures, given by Prof.

Liu Yang from the National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, revolved around the introduction to the China's Lunar Exploration Program and new insights of water on the Moon from the Chang-E missions.

Figure 2: Opening speech given by Prof. Maurizio Falanga (Image credit: ISSI–BJ)

On the following days, experts such as Prof. Xiao Long, from the China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, and Prof. Huang Jun, from the China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, gave an overview of the Chang E space exploration mission and data, with a particular focus on imaging and spectral data. The lecture of Prof. Huang Jun was later promoted as the introduction of the second Working Group, focusing on the field geology of the Moon. After Prof. Xiao Zhiyong’s (Sun Yat-sen University, China) talk on the impact craters and crater chronology on the moon, and the lecture on the shallow subsurface of the moon by Prof. Xu Yi (Macau University of Science and Technology, China), the following lectures by Prof. Ding Min from the Macau University of Science and Technology, China, introduced the topic of the first Working Group. During her speech, Prof. Ding Min talked about understanding the gravity field of the Moon, and geodynamic simulation of post-impact viscoelastic relaxation on the Moon.

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On Saturday afternoon, 21 October, the School participants had the pleasure of learning more about the Sirindhorn Center for Geo-Informatics during the visit around the Space Inspirium Laboratories, in GISTDA campus facilities.

They could learn about their greatest achievement in space science, as well as trying some of their tools such as the Moon gravity simulator.

Figure 3: Visiting Space Inspirium Laboratories of GISTDA (Image credit: ISSI–BJ) After two days of lectures, the students were divided into two Working Groups, according to their expertise and background: one group was Understanding the Gravity Field of the Moon, and the other Field Geology of the Moon. The groups were to analyze evolution and geological events of the Moon. Each group had its own theme and agenda using actual observations, as well as computer models. The different groups were supported and guided by expert tutors.

The main task of the working groups during the School was to prepare the presentations of their results, serving as a basis to produce the final reports which are to be merged and published after the school. All the groups finished the task with excellence, and presented their outcome on the last day of School, chaired by Prof. Maurizio Falanga and Dr. Ebrahimi Mohammad Seyedabadi.

Figure 4: Students during the group work (Image credit: ISSI–BJ)

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Students Working Groups Group 1 The purpose of Students Working Group 1 on Understanding the Gravity Field of the Moon was doing research on high-resolution gravity data from the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission and compared those data with other terrestrial planets. These data have made it possible to investigate spatial variability of crustal porosity, depth-dependent megaregolith structure, and internal structures of small-scale geologic features from impact craters to lava tubes and rifts. Comparison between the Moon and the other terrestrial planets help us obtain deeper insights into their internal structures and evolution histories and identify primary influencing factors. This working group aims to understand the lunar gravity field by focusing on different wavelengths and geologic features.

The group focused on five main topics: (a) gravity forward modeling and inversion for crustal thickness; (b) inversion for lateral and vertical variations of crustal density/porosity; (c) impact structures: large impact basins and small impact craters; (d) procellarum border rift system and lava tubes; (e) comparison with other terrestrial planets. Tutors showed them the main resources for previewing and downloading data, explained the basics of the data processing methods.

Students were also divided into small subgroups to work on individual, but related mini-projects. There were 14 students (including two teaching assistants) in the group, divided then further into three subgroups.

Figure 5: Students of Group 1 (Image credit: ISSI–BJ)

Group 2 The main focus of the Students Working Group 2 was the Field Geology of the Moon. The topics included identifying the geological features of the Moon, which primarily consists of highlands and maria, impact craters, and various volcanic features. Students also had to create related geological maps that help analyze the Moon's geological evolutionary history, providing a geological background reference for in-situ explorations. The data for the geological mapping course includes the lunar surface elevation data and orthoimages obtained by China's Chang E 1, as well as the lunar surface spectral data obtained internationally by Clementine.

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The main tasks of the group were to identify the geological features within the Von Kármán crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, draw regional geological maps and profile maps, and narrate the regional geological evolutionary history. In order to do that, they had to first identify lunar surface features and map regional geological maps; they focused on the following main topics: a) introduction of QGIS; b) mappy for geological mapping; c) drawing profile map. Each student had their own laptop, in which they had installed software that allowed them to conduct their research, such as QGIS, Inkscape, and IDL. Students were also divided into small subgroups to work on individual, but related mini-projects. There were 12 students (including 1 teaching assistant) in the group, divided then further into three subgroups.

Figure 6: Students of Group 2 (Image credit: ISSI–BJ)

Achievements The School provided the young space researchers and engineers with an opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge of the gravity, water, craters and geology of the Moon. The students actively contributed to the School not only with questions and constructive comments after the lectures, but also with intensive, weeklong group work resulting in presentations and reports. During the students’ presentations sessions, young scientists had an occasion to present their research results, and receive invaluable comments and advice from the experts in the field. The final report including the reports written by all the working groups, will be published in the TAIKONG ISSI-BJ magazine. This TAIKONG issue will be provided to all the School participants, sponsors, and will be widely distributed to the media.

Apart from the strictly scientific aspect, the School also helped in building links between students and experts from different countries. Young scientists could develop a professional network during coffee breaks and everyday meals, as well as through such events as social dinners, a technical tour, and the excursion on Sunday. It was a wonderful one-of-a-kind experience to see the space science research and engineering students and lecturers from all over the world brought together, exchanging their ideas also outside of the lecture hall, in the breathtaking surroundings of Si Racha. During the closing ceremony, with the lights dimmed, the students had a moment of emotion while watching the video with the most memorable moments of the School.

More information and materials from the School are available on the website: www.issibj.ac.cn Space Research Today

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COSPAR Extended Abstracts COSPAR publishes scientific papers in both Advances in Space Research (ASR) and Life Sciences in Space Research (LSSR). In this regular section we invite the author or authors of one or more recent papers that have been particularly significant in terms of scientific impact to write extended abstracts that summarise these papers.

Here we have invited Jeyan Arthur Moses to summarise his paper on "3D Printing for Space Food Applications", which is currently in press and available online in Life Sciences in Space Research, as of August 2023 (link).

Richard Harrison, General Editor SRT

3D Printing for Space Food Applications [Santhoshkumar P., Aditi Negi and J. A. Moses (National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management – Thanjavur, Ministry of Food Processing Industries, India)]

Introduction Apart from nourishment, space foods closely relate to the performance and mental health of astronauts.

Given the differences in food manufacturing processes, consumption conditions, and response behaviour by the human body, in addition to quality changes in the foods in space in comparson with on-Earth conditions, during the past decades, several advancements have happened in this field (Figure 1). Among these, of late, food 3D printing has gained prominence as an additive manufacturing approach with capabilities to revolutionize food manufacturing processes. In particular, 3D printing can provide excellent levels of personalization and customization. In long-duration human-crewed space missions, under microgravity conditions and exposure to space, psychological factors heavily affect food consumption patterns, and 3D food printing can address the concern, being a print-on-demand, print-on-site technology. While the concept of 3D printing has been explored for various industrial applications, including aeronautics and space missions, food 3D printing is relatively new.

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Figure 1. Chronological timeline of selected developments in space foods (curated from various sources and published in Santhoshkumar et al., 2023)

*Values in parentheses indicate mission durations

Food 3D printing Typically, food 3D printing involves the layer-by-layer fabrication of foods and by far, among various food printing approaches, the extrusion-based approach is the most popular. All food types are not natively printable; some require suitable pre-processing to make them printable.

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In addition to the 3D printability of foods, post-printing and post-processing behaviour are important. In a typical printing process, the food material supply is sheared through a nozzle, and this can be done at higher temperatures (hot extrusion 3D printing). Often, once the printed constructs are obtained, they require post-processing to make them edible/palatable/digestible, and post-processing can be done using conventional food processing methods. Overall, 3D printing has proven capabilities to complement existing food manufacturing processes, particularly when the need is towards personalization and/or customization.

3D food printing for space missions Applications of 3D printing for space foods are a decade old. There have also been insights reported on the kind of raw materials to be used for such applications and the conditions thereof. A variety of foods have been explored, and studies have also considered time requirements for food 3D printing processes.

Later, non-conventional products such as cell-cultured meats were also 3D printed, with reports indicating their similarities with natural meat, though printed under extreme environmental conditions. Recent studies emphasize an enhanced focus on human-computer interaction (HCI) and human-food interaction (HFI) to provide a more comprehensive understanding of gastronomic experiences. The recognition of space kitchens and their positive impact on astronauts is widespread. Incorporating 3D food printing technology in space kitchens can make the food consumption process engaging, allowing astronauts to independently create their meals, offering potential benefits.

As an alternative approach, in response to specific sensory perceptions on individual days and times of the day, if the crew requires a new personalized design model, communication from the ground station can facilitate the customization process.

3D printing technology holds the potential to create nutrient-rich foods that are more readily absorbed by the body, supporting astronaut health and reducing the risk of nutritional deficiencies. The incorporation of bio-sensing systems and real-time health assessment through nutritional biomarkers shows promise in customizing printed foods to meet specific needs. These technologies effectively bridge the gap between digital and biochemical analyses, paving the way for the successful implementation of personalized nutrition for crew members.

Conclusion Contrary to 3D printing on Earth, to make the technology viable, printing foods in space must deal with another unique set of challenges. With zero gravity of the environment as the biggest issue, all stages of the process (pre-processing, printing, post-printing and post-processing) are expected to be significantly different from conventional food 3D printing. Further, aspects of sustainability, particularly in terms of energy, water and material usage, are important considerations.

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Here, Norman J. Kleiman summarises his paper "Radiation cataract after γ-ray or HZE ion exposure" currently in press and available online in Life Sciences in Space Research, as of September 2023 (link).

Radiation Cataract After γ-ray or HZE ion Exposure [Norman J. Kleiman (Eye Radiation and Environmental Research Laboratory, Columbia University, NY, USA), Elijah F. Edmondson (Colorado State University, CO, USA and Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, MD, USA), Michael M. Weil (Colorado State University, CO, USA), Christina M. Fallgren (Colorado State University, CO, USA), Adam King (Colorado State University, CO, USA and MedVet Chicago, IL, USA), Catherine Schmidt (Colorado State University, CO, USA and Veterinary Eye Specialists, NY, USA), and Eric J. Hall (Center for Radiological Research, Columbia University, NY, USA)]

Introduction During space missions, astronauts have increased risk of long-term late effects such as cancer or cataract arising from exposure to galactic cosmic rays (1). In particular, there is a significant association between exposure to space radiation and a specific type of lens opacity called radiation cataract, with HZE exposure having greater associated risk than low-LET irradiation (2).

Ionizing radiation exposure to the eye lens, one of the most There is a significant radiosensitive tissues in the body, induces characteristic transparency association between changes in its posterior subcapsular region (3). The clinical and exposure to space radiation histopathological changes accompanying radiation-induced and radiation cataract lens damage are characteristic, dose dependent, and similar in all vertebrate lenses examined. The ability to non-invasively track this response over time in experimental animal models of radiation cataract is valuable for testing radioprotective or radio-mitigating countermeasures, for example those designed to protect astronauts against radiation exposures received during long-term space missions (4). Furthermore, murine models of radiation cataract, using genetically homogeneous, inbred strains, have proved useful for examining the role of specific genes in the radiation response, with particular emphasis on those regulating DNA repair, and cell cycle checkpoint control (5). Studies involving manipulations of only one or several genes, however, ignore the cumulative effects of naturally occurring polymorphisms throughout the genome, which play a significant role in cataract development in genetically diverse populations (6).

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Newer studies, using genetically diverse murine populations, have identified genomic loci that confer increased risk or resistance to particular environmental challenges, such as radiation exposure. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and quantify lifetime radiation cataract risk in a genetically heterogeneous mouse population in order to define differences in response following γ-ray or HZE irradiation, as compared to unirradiated controls. We further evaluated the effect of sex on cataract risk, and whether individual susceptibility to cancer overlaps with that for cataractogenesis. This manuscript is the first to define and compare the time of onset and prevalence of both HZE ion and low-LET radiation-induced lens changes in a genetically heterogeneous mouse strain in order to better model radiation cataract risk in genetically diverse human populations. It is also the first to report use of quantitative optokinetic measures of visual acuity and contrast sensitivity, in addition to conventional dilated slit lamp examinations, to assess the severity of radiation-induced lens damage.

Results Groups of ~600 genetically heterogeneous mice (HS/Npt) were exposed to 0.4 Gy of HZE ions or 3 Gy of γ-rays at Brookhaven’s NASA Space Radiation Laboratory and compared to unirradiated controls.

Prevalence of radiation-associated lens damage was monitored by dilated slit lamp exam for up to 26 months following exposure. A more than two-fold increased risk of cataract was observed following either exposure as compared to unirradiated mice. Lifetime risk for tumour formation was also followed and individual tumour type determined. Mice at risk for cancer are also at increased risk for cataracts.

Irradiated mice exhibited more severe lens changes at earlier times than unexposed controls. By 800 days of age, more than 75% of either HZE ion or γ-ray irradiated populations had a grade 2.0 opacity in one or both eyes, significantly greater than unexposed animals. Relative to unexposed controls, Cox proportional hazard regression analysis indicated hazard ratios of 2.6 (95% CI 2.1-3.2) for HZE ion irradiated mice and 2.2 (95% CI 1.7-2.7) for γ-ray irradiated mice. There was considerable overlap in the prevalence of grade 2.0 opacities in either HZE ion or γ-ray irradiated mice, suggesting that 0.4 HZE ions and 3 Gy γ-rays were similarly effective doses for radiation damage to the lens. Statistical analysis indicated there was no significant difference in cataract prevalence when HZE ion and γ-ray exposures were compared overall, with a Cox proportional hazard ratio for HZE ions of 1.11 (95% CI 0.91-1.36) relative to γ-rays (Fig 1).

HS/Npt mice in this study were also evaluated for tumorigenesis (7), and they often developed more than one tumour during their lifespan. Of the mice evaluated for cataractogenesis, 20% did not develop tumours (n = 356), 63% developed 1 tumour (n = 1,118), 14% developed 2 tumours (n = 253), and 3% developed 3 or more tumours (n = 54). Cataract risk increased as a function of the number of tumours diagnosed (95% CI 1.03-1.56); mice with 2 tumours had a HR of 1.59 (95% CI 1.25-2.04), and mice

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Differences in cataract susceptibility were observed within families of mice that were more closely related

with 3 or more tumours had a HR of 1.94 (95% CI 1.33-2.83).

Cataract risk was specifically associated with certain tumours, including osteosarcoma, Harderian gland tumours, AML, histiocytic sarcoma, lymphoma, thyroid tumours, and pulmonary adenocarcinoma, but only mice with Harderian gland adenomas were at a significantly increased risk.

Because the Harderian gland is periocular, it is possible that Harderian tumours could produce local changes in the eye that may predispose to cataractogenesis. This was disproven using multivariate analysis, which demonstrated that mice with tumours were at independently increased risk.

Male HS/Npt mice were at greater risk of developing cataracts regardless of exposure. Males had a greater relative risk of cataract development than females within all treatment groups (HR = 1.35, 1.151.59). Furthermore, irradiated males had increased risk of cataract (HR = 1.42, 1.17-1.73) compared to unirradiated males (HR 1.23, 0.92-1.65), even when controlling for Harderian gland tumours (Fig. 1).

Of particular note, differences in cataract susceptibility were observed within families of mice that were more closely related. Three of 47 families, 34 (p<0.003), 20 (p<0.013), and 47 (p<0.036), were found to have significantly higher risk for cataract development (Fig. 2). Furthermore, in some families, (e.g., families 15 and 17), overall risk for cataract was noted, even in unirradiated individuals.

One criticism of using dilated slit lamp examinations and subjective observer grading of radiation-induced lens damage is that there is little direct quantitative information about visual disability. To address this shortcoming, a new approach, Virtual OptoMotry™ (VOT) (8), using optokinetic methods, was examined for its utility in radiation cataract studies. The results demonstrated concordance between conventional Merriam-Focht lens opacity grading after slit lamp examination and VOT measurements. Decrements in contrast sensitivity (significantly decreased frequency threshold and increased contrast threshold) were well correlated with subjective grading of lens opacification.

Figure. 1: Multivariate Cox Proportional Hazards model including radiation exposure and sex for Merriam-Focht grade 2.0 lens opacities in HS/Npt mice.

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Figure 2: Bubble plot of depicting cumulative cataract scores for each family overall, by radiation exposure and by sex. The male-to-female ratio of cumulative cataract scores is also presented.

Conclusions Consistent with earlier studies, the prevalence and severity of lens changes was considerably higher in both HZE ion and γ-ray irradiated groups of mice, as compared to similarly treated but unexposed controls, Analysis of the time of onset and rate of progression of lens changes suggest that 0.4 Gy HZE ions and 3 Gy γ-rays are equivalent in terms of radiation-associated lens damage.

Mice with cataracts were also at greater risk for tumours. This finding is important because human epidemiologic data associating cataract and cancer risks is rare (9). This observation suggests there may be shared underlying genetic susceptibilities for cataractogenesis and carcinogenesis, at least for some tumour types. Experimental animal data support this hypothesis. ATM (Ataxia Telangiectasia Mutated) encodes a cell cycle checkpoint kinase that is activated by DNA damage and regulates proteins involved in the DNA-damage response. Atm heterozygous knockout mice are more susceptible to both radiationinduced cataracts (10) and radiation-induced mammary ductal dysplasia (a mammary tumour precursor) (11) than control mice with two functional Atm alleles.

In conclusion, cataract risk is increased by an average of 2.5-fold following 0.4 Gy HZE ion or 3.0 Gy γ-ray exposures in genetically diverse mice as compared to unirradiated controls. Certain families of mice are at increased risk for lens opacities after exposure, demonstrating genetic susceptibility to radiation cataract. This work demonstrates an overlap in susceptibility to cancer and cataractogenesis within large, outbred populations of mice.

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References 1.

Hellweg CE, Baumstark-Khan K. Getting ready for the manned mission to Mars: the astronauts’ risk from space radiation. Naturwissenschaften 2007; 94: 517–26.

2.

Chylack LT Jr, Feiveson AH, Petersen LE, Tung WH, Wear ML, Marak LK, Hardy DS, Chappell LJ, Cucinotta FA. NASCA report 2: Longitudinal study of relationship of exposure to space radiation and risk of lens opacity. Radiat Res 2012; 178:25-32.

3.

Kleiman NJ. Radiation cataract. Annals of ICRP 2012; 41:80-97.

4.

Kleiman, NJ, Hall EJ, Stewart FA. Modifiers of Radiation Effects in the Eye. Adv Space Res 2017; 15:43-54.

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Hall EJ, Brenner DJ, Worgul B, Smilenov LB. Genetic susceptibility to radiation. Adv Space Res. 2005; 35:249-53.

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Choquet H, Melles RB, Anand D, Yin J, Cuellar-Partida G, Wang W; 23andMe Research Team, Hoffmann TJ, Nair KS, Hysi PG, Lachke SA, Jorgenson E. A large multiethnic GWAS meta-analysis of cataract identifies new risk loci and sex-specific effects. Nat Commun. 2021 Jun 14;12(1):3595. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23873-8. PMID: 34127677; PMCID: PMC8203611.

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Edmondson EF, Gatti DM, Ray FA, et al. Genomic mapping in outbred mice reveals overlap in genetic susceptibility for HZE ion- and γ-ray-induced tumours. Sci Adv. 2020;6 (16): eaax5940.

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Prusky GT, Alam NM, Beekman S, Douglas RM. Rapid quantification of adult and developing mouse spatial vision using a virtual optomotor system. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2004; 45: 4611-16.

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Chiang CC, Lin CL, Peng CL, Sung FC, Tsai YY. Increased risk of cancer in patients with earlyonset cataracts: a nationwide population-based study. Cancer Sci. 2014 Apr; 105(4):431-6. doi: 10.1111/ cas.12360. Epub 2014 Mar 11. PMID: 24450445; PMCID: PMC4317801.

10. Worgul BV, Smilenov L, Brenner DJ, Junk A, Zho u W, Hall EJ. Atm heterozygous mice are more sensitive to radiation-induced cataracts than are their wild-type counterparts. Proc Natl Acad Sci. USA 2002; 99:9836-39.

11. Weil MM, Kittrell FS, Yu Y, McCarthy M, Zabriskie RC, Ullrich RL. Radiation induces genomic instability and mammary ductal dysplasia in Atm heterozygous mice. Oncogene. 2001 Jul 19;20(32):4409-11. doi: 10.1038/sj.onc.1204589. PMID: 11466622.

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COSPAR Publication News Life Sciences in Space Research celebrates the recent recognitions of its editorial board members

Henry S. Kaplan Distinguished Scientist Award Dr. Marco Durante, associate editor of Life Sciences in Space Research, was recognized by the International Association for Radiation Research (IARR) with the Henry S. Kaplan Award at the 17th meeting held from 27-30 August in Montreal, Canada. The IARR established the Henry S. Kaplan Distinguished Scientist Award in 1985 to honour outstanding contributions of individuals to the field of radiation research in physics, chemistry, biology, or medicine. Marco joined the editorial board of LSSR at its inception in 2014 and is currently the Director of the Biophysics Department at GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany, and a full professor of physics at the Technical University of Darmstadt and at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. Marco has won many awards including the 2020 Failla Award from the US Radiation Research Society and the 2013 Bacq and Alexander Award from the European Radiation Research Society.

Radiation Research Inaugural Fellow In addition, two other editors, Drs. Tom Hei and Francis Cucinotta were elected Inaugural Fellow of the Radiation Research Society at the RRS/ ICRR meeting in Montreal, Canada this year. The RRS Fellow recognizes its members for their significant contributions within the field of radiation research.

Congratulations to our distinguished editors!

Life Sciences in Space Research (LSSR) Articles in Open Access Articles in LSSR that are in Open Access, free to read, can be found via this link.

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COSPAR PUBLICATION NEWS

Advances in Space Research (ASR) Special Issues Free to Read The following special issues of Advances in Space Research are available in open access: • COSPAR Space Weather Roadmap 2022-2024: Scientific Research and Applications, Preface, Vol. 72, Number 12, edited by Mario M. Bisi and Margaret Ann Shea • Space Environment Management and Space Sustainability, Vol. 72, Number 7, edited by Massimiliano Vasile • Space and Geophysical Observations and Recent Results Related to the African Continent, Vol. 72, Number 3, edited by Andrew Akala and Chigomezyo Ngwira • New Results from DORIS for Science and Society, Vol. 72, Number 1, edited by D. Dettmering and E.J.O. Schrama • Application of Artificial Intelligence in Tracking Control and Synchronization of Spacecraft, Preface, Vol. 71, Number 9, edited by Hadi Jahanshahi and Oscar Castillo • Recent Advances in Space Research in Monitoring Sustainable Development Goals, Preface, Vol. 71, Number 7, edited by Bülent Bayram Other ASR articles that are free to read can be found at this link.

ASR Special Issues A running list of recently or soon-to-be published Special Issues can be found on this page of the COSPAR website.

APC for ASR, LSSR Stable Very good news for all COSPAR Associates: your Open Access Article Publishing Charge (APC) for publication in Advances in Space Research has been kept stable (even slightly decreasing) despite a context of high inflation. For Life Sciences in Space Research, with no increase since 2020, the increase has been kept much below inflation level, at 4%. The discount for Associates was increased from 25% previously to 30% today.

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Book Review "To the Stars – Women Spacefarers’ Legacy"

By Umberto Cavallaro, 2023, Springer Praxis, ISBN-13 978-3031198595

[Mary L. Snitch, COSPAR IDEA Coordination Officer (ICO), and Lockheed Martin Space Company]

W

hen I was invited by COSPAR to offer a review for “To the Stars – Women Spacefarers’ Legacy” I couldn’t imagine what an opportunity this would be. In the course of reading “Stars” for the sole purpose of this review, I quickly realized I would be reading the book again. The stories of the many women spacefarers serve as a true inspiration to any young person who has ever dreamed of being a part of the global space community, on Earth or reaching for the stars.

Serving in my position as COSPAR IDEA Coordination Officer (ICO), I was very attuned to how Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility had a significance in the lives and careers of the 75 featured Spacefarers. It is astonishing to recall that not until 1976 did the US Space Agency open the door for women to apply to the astronaut corp.

Until that year, astronaut candidates were selected only from the field of test pilots–accessible only to men. By 1976 NASA had created the “job” of Space Research Today

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Mission Specialist, decreeing a strong sciences background would set the new bar for candidates.

In that initial call, over 8,300 people applied, with almost 12% of the applicants being women.

“To the Stars” fairly notes that in the 1970s, and before, many highly-skilled technical and also executive positions were not open to women and minorities. The jobs were not available because the necessary university engineering and sciences degrees were not accepting women in equitable numbers. Perhaps the space program and the chance for brilliant women to be included on a spacecraft with their male counterparts was the

turning point for women and minorities across all industries. These women were at the forefront of a new Space Age and recognized for their extraordinary skills and dedication to excellence.

They are accomplished astronauts who just happen to be women.

The book is beautifully written, complete with humour and sadness, immense challenges and opportunities, making up each one of the 75 stories of previously unimagined accomplishments. I have the privilege of personally knowing a couple of these astronauts and salute them as a role model to this day.

Signing off now to order my paper copy of

“To the Stars – Women Spacefarers’ Legacy”.

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What Caught the Editor’s Eye [Richard Harrison, Space Research Today General Editor]

O

ne paper that caught my eye recently was a Letter in Astronomy and Astrophysics (volume 677, L6, September 2023, doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202347205)

by Regály, Fröhlich and Berczik, entitled “Mitigating potentially hazardous asteroid impacts revisited”.

The authors discuss Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHA’s) and the threat they pose to Earth.

Apparently the favoured technique for dealing with PHA’s is disintegration by explosive penetrators and the current paper was dealing with the orbital dynamics of the cloud of resulting fragments and the threat that they might pose. In terms of the interested, but non-expert reader (and I am no expert in this topic!), this is rather depressing stuff, but necessary, and it holds some kind of morbid fascination. The authors compute the orbits of huge numbers of fragments and varying interception dates. Without going into too much detail, the main conclusion seems to be that, in their words “to minimise the lethal consequences of a PHA’s impact, a wellconstrained interception timing is necessary”. OK, it is clear that such Earth-impacting events are

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extremely rare, but if there is something coming our way, you really need to get it right in terms of the disintegration and the timing. We don’t want the asteroid to impact Earth, of course, but we also want to avoid a large shower of small but significant impacts on Earth of the resulting The favoured technique debris cloud. for dealing with PHA’s Let’s hope we is disintegration by don’t need to put explosive penetrators these plans into action, but we do have to be ready.

One fascinating website that I have come across recently (but perhaps you might know about already) is the NASA Exoplanet Archive at https:// exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/ exonews_archive.html. It consists of a long list of updated entries as new exoplanets are discovered.

I know the total is over 5,500 but reports seem to be coming in all the time, for example, with an additional seven being recorded on 26 October 2023 (as I write). I read the entries with wonder;

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The detection of exoplanets has exploded

it seems like just yesterday (it was actually 1992) that we just had our nine planets and no others were known. Of course, one of those was demoted to be a dwarf planet, but the detection of exoplanets has exploded and it is mind-blowing to consider the numbers. Of course, the big ones have been dominating the discoveries but we are seeing more ‘smaller’ planets. All of these planets are of interest, but there is always the fascination of the Earth-like planets where water could exist in liquid form. Given the numbers out there, they must exist. Of course, for any chance of life anything like something we would recognise, we must be looking for stability and a magnetic field. A planet in a multi-star system in a wild orbit exposed to dramatic changes is hardly likely to be conducive to life, so I suppose we need to focus on relatively quiet single stars, but even they will be active enough to demand that any life will need the protection of a magnetosphere.

by Thomas, et al on the “Detection of the infrared aurora at Uranus with Keck-NIRSPEC” has just been published by Nature Astronomy (doi:10.1038/ s41550-023-02096-5). Near Infrared auroral observations have been observed on Jupiter and Saturn, but attempts in the past have failed to detect an infrared aurora on Uranus. One of the intriguing aspects of detecting such an aurora on Uranus is the fact that its magnetic field is tilted from the rotational axis by 59° …and, remember that Uranus has a rotational axis that is tilted by 98° to the plane of the Solar System. The reported detection clearly has implications for the study of the magnetosphere-ionosphere-thermosphere on Uranus, relative to our knowledge about Jupiter, Saturn and, indeed, the Earth, but I was drawn to the comment about studies of the Uranus aurora presenting a laboratory for observing conditions during magnetic-field reversal, with the magnetic axis changing with respect to the solar wind over a single Uranian day. Perhaps of relevance to Earth in the future.

On a completely different topic, I note that a paper

Attempts in the past have failed to detect an infrared aurora on Uranus

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Letter to the Editor Lares-2, the "Next Generation" Lageos [David A. Arnold, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, USA (Retired)]

Introduction The LAGEOS (Laser Geodynamics Satellite or Laser Geometric Environmental Observation Survey) satellites, LAGEOS-1 and LAGEOS-2, are passive scientific research NASA satellites providing orbiting laser ranging capabilities for geodynamical studies of the Earth. Orbiting at an altitude of 5,900 km, at inclinations of 109.8o and 52.6o, these spherical spacecraft carry an array of reflectors that enable measurements using pulsed laser beams transmitted from the ground. The two spacecraft were launched in 1976 and 1992, respectively.

Following on from LEGEOS, the LARES-1 and LARES-2 (Laser Relativity Satellite) spacecraft use the same approach. Developed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), they were launched aboard ESA Vega rockets in 2012 and 2022, respectively.

LARES-1 was inserted into an orbit of altitude 1,451 km with an inclination of 69.49o whilst LARES-2 occupies an orbit at 5,899 km at inclination 70.16o.

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A global network of satellite laser ranging stations has been established to exploit these spacecraft (though laser ranging can also be used to track spacecraft and debris without dedicated reflectors). The International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS) provides global satellite and also lunar laser ranging data and products to support geodetic and geophysical research activities.

Figure 1. The LARES-2 spacecraft.

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Brief history of my participation in the development of Lares-2 As noted above, LAGEOS-1, LAGEOS-2, and LARES-1, use the same basic design. With an extremely accurate counter or an event timer, measurement of the round-trip time of the flight could be established with an accuracy in distance measurement of a few millimeters. In 2002, the ILRS workshop was entitled “Toward millimeter accuracy” and, now, 20 years later we finally have a one-millimeter satellite.

LAGEOS and LARES-1 used the 1.5inch uncoated retroreflector and floating mount designed for the Apollo Lunar retroreflector arrays. The 1.5inch size was chosen to match the low Lunar velocity aberration. Instead of changing the size, a dihedral angle offset was added to account for the larger velocity aberration in Earth orbit. The dihedral angle offset was increased a little more for LARES-1 which is in a lower Earth orbit.

LARES-2 started with an offer from ESA to provide a free launch on the maiden flight of the Vega-C rocket. A redesign of the LARES-1 spacecraft needed to be done to fit the size and weight requirements of the Vega-C rocket. The project required the help of the ILRS to do this.

My basic proposal was to reduce the size of the retroreflector from 1.5 inches to 1.0 inches, remove the dihedral angle offset, and increase the number of retroreflectors to fill the sphere. This would increase the cost and procurement time, and would create a very tight schedule to meet the launch date.

The charter of the ILRS is published in the paper, “The International Laser Ranging Service”, M.R.Pearlman, J.J.Degnan, and J.M.Bosworth, (2002, Adv. Space Res. 30, 2, 135-143 www. sciencedirect.com). Indeed, the abstract states that “the ILRS works with new satellite missions in the design and building of retroreflector targets to maximize data quality and quantity.” In keeping with this charter, in March of 2016 Erricos Pavlis asked me to provide some preliminary analyses on possible designs. I was happy to help. Erricos is a Research Professor at the University of Maryland, USA, is a co-investigator on the relativity experiment to be performed on LARES-2 and is Chair of the ILRS Analysis Standing Committee.

I proposed using COTS (commercial-off-theshelf) retroreflectors but they would have to be tested to see if they have the necessary optical quality. Reinhart Neubert and Ludwig Grunwaldt, both from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum GFZ, though the latter was retired at the time) agreed to test samples of the COTS cubes. The testing showed COTS retroreflectors to have nearly the same optical quality as custom made retroreflectors.

This made it possible to have faster procurement at lower cost. Ludwig Grunwaldt also published a paper, “Optical Tests of a Large Number of Small COTS Cubes”. cddis.nasa.gov In July of 2016 there was a major change of scope to study the feasibility of a complete redesign of the satellite to achieve one millimeter accuracy.

The placement of the retroreflectors needed to accommodate the rods supporting the satellite in the rocket.

I pointed out that LARES-1 could be redesigned to provide the one millimeter accuracy needed by space geodesy. This suggestion fits within the defined aims of the ILRS. This possibility was met with enthusiasm by all the parties.

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This meant modifying the ring structure to either omit retroreflectors or increase the spacing between the rings. I pointed out that the only requirement was to have the spacing be as uniform as possible.

retroreflectors as closely as possible around the support rods without using a ring structure. I tested each configuration he developed to make sure the range correction met the desired accuracy.

Antonio Paolozzi of the Sapienza University of Rome developed a method for packing the

By the fall of 2017 the new design was essentially complete. It was approved by ASI.

Velocity aberration The most important factors in the performance of a retroreflector array are the diffraction pattern of the array and the velocity aberration that determines the position of the receiver in the diffraction pattern.

An understanding of velocity aberration is necessary for understanding this paper.

Figure 2. Velocity aberration.

A transmitter emits a pulse of light at point A (Figure 2) which travels in time Δt at velocity c to a retroreflector. The center of the reflected beam returns to point A after another time interval Δt.

In time 2Δt, the transmitter moving at velocity v at an angle ϕ from a line perpendicular to the line of sight moves to point B. In order for the transmitter to receive any of the reflected light at point B, the angular radius ϑ of the reflected beam must be at least where ϑ is the velocity aberration.

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In laser ranging the retroreflector is moving and the transmitter is stationary. The displacement of the reflected beam is in the direction of motion of the satellite. The receiver is somewhere within a ring in the diffraction pattern of radius ϑ. The width of the ring is determined by the variation of cos(ϕ) and the orbital velocity v.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Using smaller retroreflectors The size of the diffraction pattern is inversely proportional to the diameter of the retroreflector. The 1.5 inch retroreflectors used on LAGEOS and LARES-1 are too large to match the velocity aberration. A dihedral angle offset was used to provide the necessary beam spread. This creates a messy diffraction pattern and an asymmetry when linear polarization is used in an uncoated retroreflector. The large size creates more thermal problems because the optical path length in the glass is longer.

If there is no dihedral angle offset, an uncoated cube still has a ring of spots around the central peak due to phase changes from total internal reflection. The size of the retroreflector can be chosen to put the ring of spots at the required velocity aberration. For the LAGEOS altitude, the optimum size is about 1.0 inches.

The pattern is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Diffraction pattern of a one inch uncoated retroreflector with no dihedral angle offset (axes in microradians, cross section in million sq m). The retroreflectors can be clocked to form a uniform ring.

Polarization asymmetry The following simulations have been done for a spherical satellite approximately 40 cm in diameter covered with uncoated retroreflectors. The diffraction pattern is averaged over a large number of orientations.

Figure 4. (left) (right) Space Research Today

Centroid (m), circular polarization, 1.5 inch retroreflectors, 1.25 arcsecond dihedral angle offset.

Centroid (m), linear vertical polarization, 1.5 inch retroreflectors, 1.25 arcsecond dihedral angle offset.

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Figure 5. (left) (right)

Centroid (m), circular polarization, 1.0 inch retroreflectors, no dihedral angle offset.

Centroid (m), linear vertical polarization, 1.0 inch retroreflectors, no dihedral angle offset.

The polarization asymmetry can be eliminated by using circular polarization or by removing the dihedral angle offset. The next four far field patterns are the cross section patterns corresponding to the four centroid patterns shown above.

Figure 6 (left) Cross section (million sq m), circular polarization, 1.5 inch retroreflectors, 1.25 arcsecond dihedral angle offset. (right) Cross section (million sq m), linear vertical polarization, 1.5 inch retroreflectors, 1.25 arcsecond dihedral angle offset.

Figure 7. (left) (right) Space Research Today

Cross section (million sq m), circular polarization, 1.0 inch retroreflectors, no dihedral angle offset.

Cross section (million sq m), linear vertical polarization, 1.0 inch retroreflectors, no dihedral angle offset.

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The pattern in the last figure has good circular symmetry since there is no dihedral angle offset. This makes tracking easier since the signal is consistent and independent of polarization angle.

The maximum and minimum values of the centroid have been computed around circles of increasing

radius in the far field. The asymmetry has been computed as the maximum minus the minimum around the circle. This difference has been plotted vs the magnitude of the velocity aberration.

A comparison of the asymmetry for Figures 4 (right) and 5 (left and right) is plotted in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Asymmetry in the centroid vs velocity aberration.

The red line (top) is for the 1.5 inch retroreflector with a 1.25 arcsecond dihedral angle offset and linear polarization. The green line (middle) is for a 1.0 inch retroreflector with linear polarization and no dihedral angle offset.

The blue line (bottom) is for a 1.0 inch retroreflector with circular polarization and no dihedral angle offset.

With the 1.0 inch retroreflectors and no dihedral angle offset the asymmetry is less than 0.5 mm.

Centroid vs velocity aberration This section computes the dependence of the centroid on velocity aberration for a 1.5 inch retroreflector and a 1.0 inch retroreflector. Linear vertical polarization is used since this is the worst case. The variation of the centroid around circles of

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increasing radius in the far field has been computed.

The average, maximum, and minimum around the circles has been computed at each point. The results for a 1.5 inch retroreflector (Figure 4) are plotted in Figure 9.

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Figure 9. Centroid vs velocity aberration for a 1. 5 inch cube with linear polarization.

The red line (middle) is the average centroid around a circle in the far field. The green line (bottom) is the minimum. The blue line (top) is the maximum.

centroid up to almost 3 mm depending on the angle between the velocity aberration and the polarization.

The average (red curve) for the 1.5 inch cube changes by 0.74 mm from 32 to 40 microradians.

In principle, a correction could be applied as a function of velocity aberration. However, the asymmetry of the pattern can cause changes in

The same analysis has been done for a 1.0 inch uncoated cube with no dihedral angle offset and linear polarization (Figure 5 (right)). The results are plotted in Figure 10.

Figure 10. Centroid vs velocity aberration for a 1.0 inch retroreflector with linear polarization.

The red line (middle) is the average centroid around a circle in the far field. The green line (bottom) is the minimum. The blue line (top) is the maximum. The change of the red curve is .47 mm for the 1.0 inch retroreflector.

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Thermal simulations If there were no thermal gradients the range correction would be constant. It could be measured in the lab before launch. It could be computed theoretically using the parameters of the retroreflectors and the measured dihedral angle offsets. The objective of the thermal design is to reduce the thermal gradients to a level where their effect can be neglected.

Antonio Paolozzi ran a number of thermal simulations under different conditions for a 1.0 inch circular uncoated retroreflector. Reinhart Neubert computed far field patterns from the phase fronts of the thermal simulations. I also plotted and analyzed the far field patterns. Four of those simulations have been selected as representing particularly significant conditions.

Due to manufacturing errors, there is always some dihedral angle offset that may be either positive or negative. The phase difference due to thermal gradients and dihedral angle offsets can be additive, or the effects can partially cancel each other. This analysis includes the combined effect of both thermal gradients and dihedral angle offsets.

The fractional change in cross section has been computed for the four selected cases. The results are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Data for the four thermal cases. Temperature in deg. Kelvin.

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The fractional change is plotted vs temperature of the retroreflector in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Fractional change in cross section vs retroreflector temperature.

This figure shows that the thermal gradients depend primarily on the temperature of the retroreflector.

At 250 deg Kelvin, the thermal effect is small enough to be neglected.

The point that lies above the curve is case 12 with conduction between the mount and the retroreflector.

This conduction is avoided by having a floating mount. I worked with Antonio to develop a new floating mount that would constrain the cube without causing conduction, or significantly obscuring the front face, or causing loss of total internal reflection at the back faces. I proposed a way to test the floating mount in a gravity environment.

In order to be able to compute the temperature of the retroreflectors I have derived a set of equations for the equilibrium temperature of the satellite and retroreflectors from the physical parameters of the satellite and the retroreflectors. The equations are given in my ASR paper “Thermal-Optical design of a geodetic satellite for one millimeter accuracy.” www.sciencedirect.com I wish to thank Richard Matzner for kindly checking the derivation of the equations.

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Optimization of the cube corner size The simulations are done with a 50 cm diameter satellite having 1084 cubes 0.8 inch in diameter.

The cube diameter D is changed from 0.7 to 1.2 inches. The cross section is multiplied by (0.8/D)2 to get the cross section if the number of cubes were changed to fill the sphere.

Table 2. Maximum cross section vs cube corner size.

Figure 12. Cross section vs cube corner diameter for a 50 cm sphere assuming the number of cubes changes by the ratio of the squares of the cube corner diameter to fill the sphere.

The maximum occurs at 1.1 inches. However, the range correction changes the least at 1.0 inches. Therefore the 1.0 inch size was chosen.

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SUMMARY The use of small retroreflectors eliminates the need for dihedral angle offsets. This allows the use of inexpensive COTS retroreflectors. The small retroreflectors produce a much more accurate isothermal range correction. If the temperature of the retroreflector is less than about 250 deg K the percent change in cross section due to thermal gradients should be negligible. In this case the isothermal range correction will be very close to the actual range correction in orbit.

On July 13, 2022, at 13:13:17 UTC, the LARES 2 satellite was successfully launched from the ESA spaceport at Kourou in French Guyana aboard the validation flight of VEGA C, the new ESA-ASIAVIO launch vehicle.

The launch was very successful in achieving the precise orbit needed for the relativity experiment.

This is described in the paper “The LARES 2 satellite, general relativity and fundamental physics”, by Ignazio Ciufolini, Antonio Paolozzi, Erricos C. Pavlis, John C. Ries, Richard Matzner, Claudio Paris, Emiliano Ortore, Vahe Gurzadyan, Roger Penrose (link.springer.com/article). The design of the satellite is discussed in section 5 “The LARES 2 structure”. Unfortunately, the acknowledgements and references do not mention the contributions to the design by myself, Reinhart Neubert, and Ludwig Grunwaldt.

With regard to space geodesy, in order to take advantage of the one millimeter accuracy, it is

necessary to compute very precise histograms and center of mass (CoM) corrections for the laser ranging data. This requires having the coordinates of the retroreflectors. These data are not freely available. The design of LARES-2 is protected

by Article 10 of the agreement between ASI and Sapienza University. This did not happen on the LAGEOS and LARES-1 satellites. All information was public.

For my contribution to LARES-2, I was working on a small, long term contract with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. This ended up as a nearly full time effort for over a year to support the design of LARES-2, because it was a real-time mission with a short deadline to meet the launch date. I note that the final design with a 424 mm diameter (212 mm radius) does not correspond to any of the designs I was asked to check for one millimeter accuracy. The closest case was an optical radius of 208 mm (416 mm diameter). The optical radius is the distance from the center of the satellite to the center of the front face of the retroreflectors.

Given a proposed mounting with a 2 mm recess, this would give an optical radius of 210 mm for the actual satellite. This is a discrepancy of 210 – 208 = 2 mm between the last case I studied and the actual radius of the satellite. This is a concern when the goal is one millimeter. This is going to need a concerted effort on the part of those involved with the design to achieve the 1 mm accuracy.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David A. Arnold is a physicist/system analyst. From 2003-2018 he was a consultant for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), USA, working on laser satellite tracking including the design of retroreflector arrays, analysis of laser tracking systems, and processing of laser tracking data. This period included several short consultation activities Space Research Today

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at the National Laboratory of Frascati, Italy, working on retroreflector arrays. Prior to his term at the SAO he held many consultation roles associated with tethered satellites and retroreflector arrays, notably for companies such as Martin Marietta and the Naval Research Laboratory.

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Submissions to Space Research Today Anyone is welcome, indeed encouraged, to submit an article or news item to Space Research Today. As we are the main information bulletin of COSPAR, we are particularly focused on issues and news related to COSPAR business, to space research news and events, including meetings, around the world. In the spirit of a bulletin publication, we aim to be as flexible as possible in the submission procedures. Submission should be made in English, by e-mail to any member of the Editorial Team (see contact details given earlier).

Submissions may be made in (i) e-mail text, with attached image files if required, and (ii) As Word files with embedded images (colour is encouraged). Other formats can be considered; please contact the editorial team with your request. If you are submitting an article, please include ‘about the author’ information, i.e. a paragraph about yourself with an image.

The nominal deadlines are 1 February for the April issue, 1 June for the August issue, and 1 October for the December issue, but material can be submitted at any time.

The editors will always be pleased to receive the following types of inputs or submissions, among others: Research Highlight articles: These are generally substantial, current review articles that can be expected to be of interest to the general space community, extending from two pages to over five pages, with figures and images (again, colour encouraged). These could be reports on space missions, scientific reports, articles on space strategy or history.

In Brief articles: short research or news announcements up to three pages, with images as appropriate.

COSPAR News and COSPAR People: articles related to COSPAR business, reporting on particular activities, meetings or events.

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In Memoriam submissions: Articles extending to a few pages, including an image, about a significant figure in the COSPAR community.

Letters to the Editor: Up to two or three pages on any subject relevant to COSPAR and space research in general. These can cover news, opinions on strategy, or scientific results.

Meeting announcements: meeting reports and book reviews all welcome.

Articles are not refereed, but the decision to publish is the responsibility of the General Editor and his editorial team.

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COSPAR – Committee on Space Research

Furthering research, exploration, and the peaceful use of outer space through international cooperation

COSPAR was established by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), now the International Science Council (ISC), in October 1958 to continue the cooperative programmes of rocket and satellite research successfully undertaken during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-1958. The ICSU resolution creating COSPAR stated that its primary purpose was to "provide the world scientific community with the means whereby it may exploit the possibilities of satellites and space probes of all kinds for scientific purposes, and exchange the resulting data on a cooperative basis". Accordingly, COSPAR is an interdisciplinary scientific organization concerned with the promotion and progress, on an international scale, of all kinds of scientific research carried out with space vehicles, rockets and balloons. COSPAR’s objectives are carried out by the international community of scientists working through ISC and its adhering National Academies and International Scientific Unions. Operating under the rules of ISC, COSPAR considers all questions solely from the scientific viewpoint and takes no account of political considerations.

Composition of COSPAR

COSPAR Members are National Scientific Institutions, as defined by ISC, actively engaged in space research and International Scientific Unions federated in ISC which desire membership. The COSPAR Bureau manages the activities of the Committee on a day-to-day basis for the Council – COSPAR’s principal body – which comprises COSPAR’s President, one official representative of each Member National Scientific Institution and International Scientific Union, the Chairs of COSPAR Scientific Commissions, and the Finance Committee Chair.

COSPAR also recognizes as Associates individual scientists taking part in its activities and, as Associated Supporters, public or private organizations or individuals wishing to support COSPAR’s activities. Current members in this category are Airbus Defence and Space SAS, Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM), Germany; China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), China; China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), China; Groupement des Industries Françaises Aéronautiques et Spatiales (GIFAS), France; the International Space Science Institute (ISSI), Switzerland.

COSPAR also has an Industry Partner programme to encourage strategic engagement with relevant industries who wish to be involved in the activities of COSPAR and support its mission.

The current Industry Partner is Lockheed Martin Corporation, USA.

COSPAR Bureau (2022-2026) President: P. Ehrenfreund (Netherlands/USA) Vice Presidents: C. Cesarsky (France), P. Ubertini (Italy) Other Members: V. Angelopoulos (USA), M. Fujimoto (Japan), M. Grande (UK), P. Rettberg (Germany),

I. Stanislawska (Poland), C. Wang (China) COSPAR Finance Committee (2022-2026) Chair: I. Cairns (Australia) Members: C. Mandrini (Argentina), J.-P. St Maurice (Canada) COSPAR Publications Committee Chair: P. Ubertini (Italy) Ex Officio: P. Ehrenfreund (Netherlands/USA), J.-C. Worms (France), R.A. Harrison (UK),

T. Hei (USA), M. Shea (USA), P. Willis (France) Other Members: A. Bazzano (Italy), M. Klimenko (Russia), G. Reitz (Germany), M. Story (USA), P. Visser (Netherlands) COSPAR Secretariat Executive Director: J.-C. Worms Associate Director: A. Janofsky Administrative Coordinator: L. Fergus Swan Accountant: A. Stepniak

COSPAR Secretariat, c/o CNES, 2 place Maurice Quentin 75039 Paris Cedex 01, France Tel : +33 (0) 1 44 76 74 41, +33 (0)4 67 54 87 77 E-mail: cospar@cosparhq.cnes.fr, Web: https://cosparhq.cnes.fr

Visit the website for details of COSPAR governance Space Research Today

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Chairs & Vice-Chairs of COSPAR’s Scientific Commissions

SC A on Space Studies of the Earth's Surface, Meteorology and Climate R. Kahn (USA, Chair) J. Benveniste (ESA/ESRIN)

SC E on Research in Astrophysics from Space P. Ubertini (Italy); (ad interim 2023-2024) E. Churasov (Germany), B. Schmieder (France), W. Yu (China)

SC B on Space Studies of the EarthMoon System, Planets, and Small Bodies of the Solar System

SC F on Life Sciences as Related to Space

H. Yano (Japan; Chair) B. Foing (Netherlands), R. Lopes (USA)

T.K. Hei (USA; Chair) G. Baiocco (Italy), J. Kiss (Germany), P. Rettberg (Germany), Y. Sun (China)

SC C on Space Studies of the Upper Atmospheres of the Earth and Planets, including Reference Atmospheres A. Yau (Canada, Chair) P.R. Fagundes (Brazil), D. Pallamraju (India), E. Yigit (USA)

SC D on Space Plasmas in the Solar System, including Planetary Magnetospheres N. Vilmer (France, Chair) A. Gil-Swiderska (Poland), J. Zhang (USA)

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SC G on Materials Sciences in Space M. Avila (Germany; Chair) K. Brinkert (UK), J. Porter (Spain), A. Romero-Calvo (USA)

SC H on Fundamental Physics in Space M. Rodrigues (France; Chair) O. Bertolami (Portugal), S. Hermenn (Germany), P. McNamara (ESA/ESTEC)

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Chairs & Vice-Chairs of COSPAR’s Panels Panel on Capacity Building (PCB) J.C. Gabriel (Spain; Chair) D. Altamirano (UK), J. Benvéniste (ESA), D. Bilitza (USA), M. C. Damas (USA), N. Kumar (India) D. Perrone (Italy), R. Smith (USA), M. Tshisaphungo (S. Africa)

Panel on Planetary Protection (PPP) A. Coustenis (France; Chair) P. Doran (USA), N. Hedman (UNOOSA)

Panel on Education (PE) R. Doran (Portugal; Chair) M.C. Damas (USA), S. Benitez Herrera (Spain), G. Rojas (Portugal)

Panel on Radiation Belt Environment Modelling (PRBEM) Y. Miyoshi (Japan, Chair) A. Brunet (France), Y. Shprits (Germany), Y. Zheng (USA)

Panel on Potentially Environmentally Detrimental Activities in Space (PEDAS) C. Frueh (USA), C. Pardini (Italy)

Panel on Technical Problems Related to Scientific Ballooning (PSB) M. Abrahamsson (Sweden; Chair) V. Dubourg (France), H. Fuke (Japan), E. Udinski (USA)

Panel on Exploration (PEX) M. Blanc (France; Chair), B. Foing (Netherlands), C. McKay (USA), F. Westall (France)

Technical Panel on Satellite Dynamics (PSD) H. Peter (Germany; Chair) A. Jäggi (Switzerland), S. Jin (China), F. Topputo (Italy)

Panel on Interstellar Research (PIR) R. McNutt (USA; Chair) R. Wimmer-Schweingruber (Germany)

Panel on Social Sciences and Humanities (PSSH) I. Sourbès-Verger (France; Chair) N. Hedman (Austria)

Panel on Innovative Solutions (PoIS) E.H. Smith (USA, Chair) G. Danos (Cyprus), I. Kitiashvili (USA)

Panel on Space Weather (PSW) M. Kuznetsova (USA; Chair) J.E.R. Costa (Brazil), S. Gadimova (UNOOSA), N. Gopalswamy (USA), H. Opgenoorth (Sweden)

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CHAIRS OF COSPAR / JOINT TASK GROUPS (TG): URSI/COSPAR Task Group on the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) Chair: Vladimir Truhlik (Czech Rep.), 2022 – 2026 COSPAR/URSI Task Group on Reference Atmospheres, including ISO WG4 (CIRA) Chair: Sean Bruinsma (France), 2021 – 2024 Task Group on Reference Atmospheres of Planets and Satellites (RAPS) Chair: Hilary Justh (USA), 2021 – 2024 Task Group on the GEO (TG GEO) Chair: Suresh Vannan (USA) 2022 – 2026 Task Group on Establishing a Constellation of Small Satellites (TGCSS) Chair: Dan Baker (USA), 2020 – 2024 Sub-Group on Radiation Belts (TGCSS – SGRB) Chair: Ji Wu (China), 2021 – 2025 Task Group on Establishing an International Geospace Systems Program (TGIGSP) Chair: Larry Kepko (USA), 2021 – 2025 Task Group on IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) Initiative (TGII) Chair: Mary Snitch (USA), 2022 – 2026 Advisory board: Committee on Industry Relations Chair: Nelson Pedreiro (Lockheed Martin, USA) ---------------Space Research Today Editorial Officers General Editor: R.A. Harrison, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, UK. Tel: +44 1235 44 6884, E-mail: richard.harrison@stfc.ac.uk Executive Editor: L. Fergus Swan (leigh.fergus@cosparhq.cnes.fr) Associate Editors: J.-C. Worms (France; cospar@cosparhq.cnes.fr), D. Altamirano (UK; d.altamirano@sotonac.uk), Y. Kasai (Japan; ykasai@nict.go.jp), E.C. Laiakis (USA; ecl28@georgetown.edu), H. Peter (Germany; heike.peter@positim.com)

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