Space Research Today, Issue 219

SPACE RESEARCH TODAY

MESSAGE from the General Editor

Richard Harrison

It has long been my aim to entrench Space Research Today (SRT) into the regular business culture of COSPAR. By that, I mean that I want to see SRT as a tool that is used by COSPAR officials and the Scientific Commission, Panel and Task Group chairs, indeed anyone, as a vehicle to do COSPAR business, such as the distribution of information, the publication of reports or meeting announcements, the publication of strategy documents and updates, and the publication of formal policy documents. After all, SRT is the information bulletin of COSPAR! Thus, we are always seeking out items for each issue that relate to COSPAR business and COSPAR people and, as always, ask you the readers and COSPAR community to use SRT in this way.

In that spirit, this issue includes an introduction and a link to the COSPAR Strategic Plan 20242028, which is entitled ‘The COSPAR Spirit’. Anyone wanting to know how COSPAR sits within our community, what relevance it has to the international scene and how that can develop, indeed flourish, should read this document …and I guess that is most of you! This is an important step in cementing COSPAR’s position in space research world-wide and in making it both unique and key to the future of space research.

Once again, this issue has a widely varied topical content ranging from an article on the legal and political future of the Planetary Protection Guidelines to one on the close approach to Earth of the asteroid Apophis in 2029. We also bid farewell to ERS-2 as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere, we include a letter on the formation of Saturn’s rings, and report on the re-entry campaign and tracking of the Aeolus spacecraft. In terms of COSPAR business, I have already mentioned the Strategic Plan, we have a report on the activities of Scientific Commission H (Fundamental Physics in Space), and include two extended abstracts of key papers from COSPAR journals. This is just a fraction of the content and I hope it inspires you to read on! I also hope it inspires you to consider submitting articles and reports to future issues.

Cover image:

"Hera, her CubeSats, and their rocky target destination" (Image credit: ESA / Science Office)

COSPAR COMMUNITY

In this section we include profiles of COSPAR personalities, principally officers, and other articles relevant to persons active in COSPAR’s affairs.

C. K. Shum - Vice Chair of COSPAR’s Sub Commission A.2, Ocean Dynamics, Productivity, and the Cryosphere

C.K. Shum is a Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Division of Geodetic Science, School of Earth Sciences, at The Ohio State University. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the International Association of Geodesy. He has received several awards, including his contribution to the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, co-shared with Albert Gore, Jr., and over 1,000 scientists during the past four Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessments; and the 2012 Vening Meinesz Medal from the European Geosciences Union for his

“distinguished research in geodesy applied to sealevel science”.

His research focuses on interdisciplinary satellite geodesy and Earth Sciences, including sea-level and climate science, precision orbit determination, and gravity field modeling. He is the Vice Chair of COSPAR’s Sub Commission A.2, Ocean Dynamics, Productivity, and the Cryosphere.

Congratulations to our ICO !

He has published over 350 papers, with Google Scholar citations at 20,731, Hirsch (H-) index of 68, and i10 index of 253.

Congratulations to Mary Snitch , our Coordination Officer for the Task Group on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility. She has received the International Astronautical Federation (IAF)’s Distinguished Service Award this year in recognition of her hard work as a volunteer within the Federation.

In Memoriam

J. Bernard Blake (1935-2023)

Dr J. Bernard Blake, a pioneer in space research, passed away on 21 October 2023. He was born on 14 December 1935 in New York. He completed his PhD in physics under the direction of Hans Frauenfelder at the University of Illinois, USA, in 1962, joining the newly created Aerospace Corporation that year.

During his more than 60-year career at the Aerospace Corporation, he was a leader in the studies of the Earth's radiation belts, cosmic ray physics and nuclear astrophysics. He designed complex instrumentation that flew aboard innumerable Air Force, NASA and ESA satellites near the Earth and as far away as the Moon. He was skilled in the interpretation of the data from these instruments and the author or contributor to more than 1,400 scientific publications and presentations at conferences at home and abroad. For his many scientific contributions he was recognized as both an APS and AGU Fellow. During his career he made many significant contributions to the Nation in development and operation of National Security Space Systems.

Dr. Blake worked with many colleagues in the US and abroad in different subfields of space and nuclear astrophysics. He was an active COSPAR Associate and generous in contributing his data to countless research projects over the six decades of his career and the inspiration and mentor to generations of space scientists and engineers.

[by George Paulikas, Mary Hudson, Janet Luhmann and Geoff Reeves]

Know Your COSPAR Icons!

Over the coming months, you’ll be seeing a number of icons in COSPAR publications and on our website. These are to represent the different COSPAR Scientific Commissions and the 12 Technical Panels and will help give cohesion to COSPAR communications. It wasn’t easy to condense the fields of space science that are covered by COSPAR into single images, but we hope they will prove useful.

Here they are, with their related Commission or Panel:

Scientific Commission A

Space Studies of the Earth’s Surface, Meteorology and Climate

Scientific Commission C

Scientific Commission B

Space Studies of the Earth-Moon System, Planets, and Small Bodies of the Solar System

Space Studies of the Upper Atmospheres of the Earth and Planets Including Reference Atmospheres

Scientific Commission E

Research in Astrophysics from Space

Scientific Commission G

Materials Sciences in Space

Scientific Commission D

Space Plasmas in the Solar System, Including Planetary Magnetospheres

Scientific Commission F

Life Sciences as Related to Space

Scientific Commission H

Fundamental Physics in Space

Information about all Scientific Commissions can be found on this page of the COSPAR website.

PCB PE

Panel on Capacity Building

Panel on Education

PEDAS PEX

Panel on Potentially Environmentally Detrimental Activities in Space

Panel on Exploration

PIR PoIS

Panel on Interstellar Research

Panel on Innovative Solutions

Panel on Planetary Protection

Panel on Radiation Belt Environment Modelling PPP PRBEM

PSB

Panel on Technical Problems Related to Scientific Ballooning

Technical Panel on Satellite Dynamics PSD

PSSH PSW

Panel on Social Sciences and Humanities

Panel on Space Weather

To find out about the work of the Panels, go to the website

COSPAR BUSINESS

The COSPAR Spirit: Strategic Plan 2024-2028

In March last year, the COSPAR President, Pascale Ehrenfreund, gathered a team of experienced COSPAR Associates and external experts in Paris for a strategic seminar to explore a new strategy for COSPAR. This group of 30+ Scientific Commission, Panel and Task Group Chairs, alongside a few key experts and COSPAR supporters, discussed the impact of the first Strategic Action Plan, 2019-2023. During parallel discussions in four thematic groups in the seminar, they analysed the Key Performance Indicators of COSPAR activities and laid down the foundation for a new strategy. The Strategic Plan is the result of those discussions, highlighting the findings and recommendations of the strategic seminar, and has been ratified by the COSPAR Bureau.

Here is an extract of page 11, outlining the four pillars of the plan.

The Action Plan is a dynamic document guiding the directions and actions of the next five years, keeping pace with the rapid developments in the space sector.

The full report is now available at this link.

NEW MISSIONS FOR COSPAR

•A Space Climate Initiative

•Space Weather

•A new age of space exploration and of astronomy

•Space environmental stewardship

•Education and outreach

ROLE IN THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE SECTOR

•Broaden role to encompass enabling technology, engineering and mission development

•Advise decision-makers through available network of experts

•IR Officer to develop and enhance relations with Members

•Diversify membership

•Develop new types of interdisciplinary or focussed events

NEXT GENERATION

•Intra-COSPAR network of PoCs and Ambassadors

•More support to early-career scientists (funds, training)

•New panel on Communication (or new position)

•Expand activity to universities

•Set up ad hoc training events/schools with teachers

•Roadmap on Space Education

SUSTAINABILITY & GROWTH

•Diversify event types

•More active role in defining topics for Symposia

•Set-up innovation ecosystems to facilitate exchanges between science and technology Associates

•Market studies for new journals and impact of Open Access

•Set-up Project Office and Development Board

COSPAR’s Scientific Commission H is concerned with Fundamental Physics in Space. The Commission Chair provides a summary here of the state of the field.

Fundamental Physics in Space

Overview

COSPAR Scientific Commission H on Fundamental Physics in Space explores the basic laws governing our Universe from the microscopic domain as the largest dimensions. Quantum mechanics, statistics, gravity and fundamental interactions of the Standard Model are the basic laws addressed here. This is particularly relevant given the well-known inconsistency of quantum theory with General Relativity as the knowledge and exploration of the Universe including galaxy clusters, galaxies, stars and solar systems, neutron stars and black holes, can help us in resolving this contradiction. High particle energy astronomy and gravitational wave astronomy, associated with conventional optical and radio astronomy, contribute to a better understanding of our Universe. Dark Energy and Dark Matter are, in the context of the Standard Cosmological Model based on General Relativity, crucial to account for the observations. Research on Fundamental Physics in Space provides us the means to go beyond Laboratory limits.

Testing gravity in different regimes from Earth scale to cosmological scales is at the heart of fundamental physics. Thanks to the development of new technologies in space, opportunities for more accurate missions have emerged. Cold atoms, for instance, as a quantum device are of particular relevance in the panorama of metrology.

Gravitation, Dark Energy and Matter

In the last decade, the search for dark matter experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) did not show any evidence of supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model and supersymmetric up to several TeV in mass. On the other hand, indirect searches show that primordial black holes are almost excluded as dark matter candidates as particles with mass less than 200 GeV annihilating via weak interaction should have been detected in high-energy photons. Other limits have been determined on high and low masses. Some results were also obtained in the ultra-light dark matter with MICROSCOPE.

[Manuel Rodrigues, Chair of Scientific Commission H, Michele Armano, Orfeu Bertolami, Sven Hermann, Claus Lammerzahl]

Indirect evidence of dark energy is predominantly sought via optical astronomy. At the heart of the observations is the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. Supernovae and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations provide the best probes in the search of the implications of dark energy. The recently launched EUCLID mission promises a new era of observations and advances. EUCLID, together with instruments like the VRO may also allow the testing of General Relativity at large scales.

Fundamental Physics in space

Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) was the first space experiment of fundamental physics. Thanks to the laser retroreflector arrays placed on the Moon and a network of four laser stations spread over USA, France, Germany and Italy, LLR goes on operating and delivers accurate measurements on major fundamental topics: gravitational constant/G, weak and strong equivalence principle (WEP and SEP), Nordtvedt effect, geodetic precession, space-time distortion, Lorentz symmetry, etc. Some papers raised recently the possibility to use the Moon as a gravitational wave probe in the µz band thanks to LLR.

In terms of other space missions, GAIA makes high precision astrometric measurements that also test General Relativity, and AMS on the ISS delivers data on the antimatter content of the Universe.

MICROSCOPE, the French space mission dedicated to the WEP test in space, delivered in 2022 its last results showing no evidence of a violation 10 to the power of minus 15. It has improved the best tests as LLR and ground torsion balance by a significant factor hardly reachable even with future ten times better LLR systems. It demonstrates that experimental tests in space can lead to a breakthrough in accuracy and sensitivity, and a better test of General Relativity. It also brought new limits in Lorentz Symmetry, Inverse square laws, ultra-light dark-matter.

Previous experiments as GPA, GPB, LAGEOS, LARES or CASSINI have provided some inputs to test the other aspects of GR: gravitational redshift, Lense-Thirring effect, gravitational time delay and Schiff effect.

CASSINI offered the best test of GR at a Solar system level: an example of interplanetary mission contribution to Fundamental Physics.

The ACES project, expected to launch soon, should provide accurate data to test gravitational redshift (10 times better than current measurements).

Future envisaged missions such as MICROSCOPE 2 and STE-QUEST are aiming to improve upon MICROSCOPE by 2 orders of magnitude.

Gravitational waves

Gravitational waves provide a new window to observe astrophysical and cosmological phenomena. Gravitational radiation encodes information from black holes and enable high precision tests of their horizons and beyond (e.g. the no-hair theorem), bring relic information from the early Universe and is conducive to the physics of neutron star mergers and to the underlying Standard Model for elementary particles and interactions, all the way to the study of new gravitational theories.

The first detection of gravitational waves by the joint ground interferometer VIRGO (France-Italy), LIGO (USA) and KAGRA (Japan) associated with the outstanding success of LISA-Pathfinder have inspired ESA to implement its LISA mission. Recently adopted for phase B, ESA and NASA have agreed in the distribution of responsibilities and subsystems. This is one of the major projects gathering more than 1,700 persons in its European consortium. LISA should detect gravitational waves in the milli-Hz to 0.1 Hz band. It complements the ground base detectors sensitive in the band higher than 1 or 10 Hz. At even lower frequencies, at the nano-Hz level, Pulsar Timing Array observations (an array of millisecond pulsars can be used to detect low-frequency gravitational waves by searching for a correlated signatures) may advance the field of observation from supernovae (ground based interferometers), compact objects falling into supermassive black holes (LISA) and the merging of supermassive black-holes (PTA).

Cold atoms

Quantum science has made a significant advances with technology improvements. Quantum sensors, quantum computers, and quantum cryptology are examples of future breakthroughs in our daily life and have become strategic science in different programs in Europe.

Using cold atom interferometer in space is one of the paths to access new fundamental sciences. The concerned projects are:

CAL = Cold Atom Laboratory: a multi-user facility deployed on the ISS by NASA+JPL in 2018. It produced the first BEC (Bose-Einstein Condensation) in orbit. It has since been used for fundamental physics research on quantum gases and atom interferometry on Rubidium and Potassium atoms.

BECCAL = Bose-Einstein Condensate and Cold Atom Laboratory: a prospective follow-on for CAL, currently being prepared by a German-US collaboration (NASA/DLR)

CARIOQA = Cold Atom Rubidium Interferometer in Orbit for Quantum Accelerometry – Pathfinder Mission Preparation: European activity, coordinated by CNES and DLR, aims at developing an accelerometer based on atom interferometry to be used in space within the next decade. While the focus of CARIOQA is on satellite-based Earth science, the technology it provides will also provide an important push for future fundamental physics missions.

Chinese Space Station: Several quantum technology payloads deployed in 2022: Cold Atom Physic Rack CAPR: An Experiment for research on quantum degenerate gases. Also: A Sr lattice clock, which could be used for tests of gravitational redshift.

NASA decadal survey on fundamental physics: Many proposals suggesting the use of quantum technology (atomic clocks and atom interferometers) for tests of fundamental physics. (e.g. test of gravitational redshift with an optical clock, quantum test of equivalence principle with atom interferometers, space tests using entangled photon pairs, etc.)

RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

THE END OF ESA’S AEOLUS MISSION

[Tommaso Parrinello, Libe Jauregui, Viet Duc Tran, Benjamin Bastida Virgili, Tim Flohrer, for the Aeolus re-entry team, ESA]

Overview

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) wind mission, Aeolus, was selected in May 1999 as the second Earth Explorer Core Mission. Earth Explorer missions address the Earth Observation Science Strategy for ESA [1] to demonstrate new technologies and their suitability to address the mission scientific objectives. The Aeolus mission was motivated by the need for more direct wind profile measurements in the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Global Observing System (GOS), which is used as input to weather forecast models world-wide [2] .

Aeolus carried the first space-based Doppler Wind Lidar (DWL), called ALADIN (Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument) that used laser light to measure the wind by observing the backscattered signal from air molecules and particles [3]

Figure 1: ESA's Aeolus wind profiling mission (Image credit: ESA)

Aeolus data has been used to improve our understanding of atmospheric data

The primary objective of the Aeolus mission was to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts by providing detailed information about global wind patterns. The primary data products of Aeolus are profiles of horizontally projected line-of-sight of Rayleigh and Mie winds, from the surface up to about 30 km, and spin-off products are profiles of cloud and aerosol optical properties. ECMWF (the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) started to assimilate Aeolus data in their operational forecast system from 2020 [4] , [5] , and this was followed by other important numerical weather prediction (NWP) centres in Europe.

The data have proven to be crucial for understanding atmospheric dynamics and improving the models used in weather prediction. Aeolus is considered to be the mission that has paved the way for future operational meteorological satellites dedicated to study Earth's wind profiles. Aeolus data has been also used for a handful of scientific research topics, primarily to improve our understanding of atmospheric dynamics and its interaction with the atmospheric energy and water cycle [6] .

Aeolus was launched on 22 August 2018 with a designed lifetime of 3.5 years. The mission was extended for another two years. On 30 April 2023, all nominal operations were concluded in preparation for a series of end-of-life activities which lasted for two months, with the objective to test several in-orbit scientific and technological experiments to prepare also for its follow-on EPS/Aeolus-2.

At the end of its extended lifetime in July 2023, Aeolus would have re-entered in an uncontrolled way. Aeolus had not been designed to re-enter in a controlled way and it was built before ESA’s Space Debris Mitigation Policy came into force. It was demonstrated that, during the re-entry, fragments of the satellite were likely to reach the Earth’s surface, with the associated risk of damage to people and buildings. The casualty risk that was evaluated for Aeolus’ uncontrolled re-entry was higher than the limits in place for missions designed today. Based on an original study on the re-entry of satellites with electrical propulsion, and with the aim to minimise the re-entry casualty risk at best effort, an Aeolus re-entry team formed across ESA and industry, which designed, developed and operationally executed, in a limited time, the innovative “assisted re-entry” end-of-life strategy for the satellite.

It was built before ESA’s Space Debris Mitigation Policy came into force

Aeolus re-entered the atmosphere over Antarctica on 28 July 2023 through a semi-controlled re-entry, called “assisted re-entry”, which is considered to be the first-of-its kind, using a mixture of natural air drag and commanded retroactive delta-V.

The Aeolus re-entry campaign

The Aeolus assisted re-entry campaign took shape in about eight months, between April 2022 and January 2023. In this period, a dedicated Working Group of industrial and ESA experts met several times to plan and define the best strategy for the Aeolus re-entry operations in the evolving context of space debris mitigation regulations. The main aspects linked to this strategy were to:

• Retrofit an existing low-thrust, active deorbit operations concept to the Aeolus end of mission, which by design did not foresee any type of controlled re-entry, and thereby significantly reduce the global casualty risk below the currently applicable risk threshold.

• Demonstrate that a fully ground-based deorbit strategy, i.e. no major change of the satellite onboard software, could be worked out and implemented by the ESA teams within a short time, under challenging operational conditions, and with very limited resources.

• Under no circumstances worsen the re-entry situation through the active manoeuvring of the satellite.

The main challenges faced by all involved in the planning phase was that nothing like this has been done by ESA before*, the satellite was not designed for active re-entry operations and time, dictated by the remaining fuel, and increase in solar activity, was running out.

At the end, a clear and feasible strategy was formed, supported by numerous analyses done by industrial partners, the ESA Flight Dynamics and ESA Space Debris Office, as well as in-flight feasibility tests executed by the Flight Control Team with the actual satellite. The outcome is reflected in the baseline assisted re-entry scheme as shown in Figure 2. This scheme foresaw a less than 5-day campaign with increasing operational complexity and operational challenges to assist its safe re-entry into the atmosphere.

Through a combination of retrograde (i.e. anti-flight direction) manoeuvres, the perigee was lowered from an initial altitude of around 280 km to about 150 km. A final manoeuvre lowered it further to about 120 km and phased the satellite descent with the Earth’s rotation with the goal to target a safe re-entry corridor in the Atlantic. With this approach, Aeolus retroactively would comply with the re-entry risk set by the ESA space debris mitigation policy in place in 2023.

The re-entry campaign was supported through an international tracking campaign coordinated by the ESA Space Debris Office (SDO) that involved the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), and was supported by data received from the USSPACECOM, the EU-SST (Space Surveillance and Tracking), Leolabs, and, in particular, observations acquired by the Fraunhofer TIRA system in Germany.

* The last ESA-performed re-entry operation was a planned uncontrolled re-entry of the ESA GOCE satellite after its fuel depletion in October 2013. The campaign of GOCE took several weeks and did not involve active deorbit manoeuvres.

Figure 2: The industry/ESA Aeolus assisted natural re-entry campaign scheme, split in phases (blue = satellite altitude, yellow bars = active perigee lowering manoeuvres, Mx = deorbit manoeuvre(s) per phase, Checkpoint = operational decision points to continue or abort). (Image credit: ESA)

Only by February 2023, when the official green light to proceed with the novel approach was given, could more concrete operations planning, partnerships, and in-flight tests and validations, covering the ground and space segment, be conducted.

The main challenges encountered in this final preparation phase were:

• Preparation of a re-entry operations campaign, which was treated as a reversed launch and early orbit (LEOP), i.e., including establishing operations plans, procedures and simulations campaigns, in parallel to an extensive Science Exploitation phase until the very last moment.

• The many uncertainties and variabilities resulted from:

•the varying and increasing solar activity,

•the limited knowledge and capabilities to simulate how the satellite, especially the Attitude and Orbit Control subsystem, would behave under the dynamic and harsher Earth atmospheric conditions, in combination with large size manoeuvres,

•known satellite limitations, such as:

- The GPS receiver was known to be one of the most vulnerable units,

- he largest delta-v size performed in-flight did not exceed 3 m/s,

- The concept of an aerodynamic torque neutralizing attitude had to be first tested in flight.

The transition to the execution of the campaign (see Table 1 for details) was aggravated by the uncertainty on the campaign start date, which was dictated by the variability of solar activity. The teams could only narrow down the campaign start as they got closer to it.

The final part of the actual execution phase proved to be challenging in ways that had not been expected. The first manoeuvre, which had to be split into two burns, as solar activity was lower than initially expected, had an almost perfect performance, confirming the feasibility of the plan. There were, however, some issues with the GPS receivers, and the three days of waiting, deliberately put in place to be able to recover from minor contingencies, proved to be useful to implement the changes necessary for more robust operations.

And then the final day, 28 July 2023 arrived: all the teams were on console, everyone trained and ready, stations booked and everyone hoping for the Big End. Truth to be said, the last hours were hard, and there had been moments of tension in the operational rooms. During the phase II of the four big manoeuvres there was limited visibility of the satellite. As soon as data arrived it could be confirmed that the manoeuvres had been successfully executed but the thrusting done to keep the attitude control was higher than expected, even to the point of raising slightly the orbit instead of keeping the decay. With this, one single burn would not have been enough anymore to perform the re-entry as planned.

Table 1: Overview on the phases of the Aeolus re-entry campaign.

However, the teams had prepared conscientiously, and the solution was in the pocket for the required very quick decisions and execution. A new attitude (called equilibrium attitude) was commanded. This reduced the thrusting and put the situation back on track. The original plan with one burn was still possible again. The last manoeuvre burn using all remaining fuel was computed, commanded, uplinked and finally executed. It was possible to receive some telemetry during the manoeuvre that showed nominal execution. After that, the satellite was passivated, i.e., any remaining energy onboard removed and the transmitter for active ground communication switched off for good.

Aeolus now being space debris, a final tracking using the TIRA radar system of the Fraunhofer FHR in Germany showed that Aeolus was precisely on track for the re-entry as planned. Aeolus re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on 28 July 2023 at around 18:46UTC above Antarctica, as reported by the US Space Command, and close to entering the Atlantic Ocean on the predicted corridor.

Conclusion

Using an innovative strategy that demonstrated reduction of the on-ground casualty risk, ESA’s Aeolus mission ended on 28 July 2023 with re-entry over Antarctica close to entering the Atlantic Ocean on the predicted corridor. Stricter space debris mitigation practices need to be implemented globally, as the longterm evolution of the space debris environment is affected by the fast-growing launch rates [7] that also lead to a growth in number of re-entry events. ESA has committed to developing and implementing more ambitious measures for space debris mitigation and remediation by 2030 - the Zero Debris approach.

Figure 3: The Aeolus Re-entry Operations Team (Image credit: ESA/J. Mai)

[1] ESA (2015): Earth Observation Science Strategy for ESA, ESA report number ESA SP-1329/1, at this link.

[2] World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Global Observing System, at this link.

[3] ESA (2008): DM-Aeolus Science Report, European Space Agency”, ESA report number SP-1311, at this link.

[4] The impact of Aeolus wind retrievals on ECMWF global weather forecasts. Michael P. Rennie, Lars Isaksen, Fabian Weiler, Jos de Kloe, Thomas Kanitz, Oliver Reitebuch at this link .

[5] See the link.

[6] Aeolus data and their application - Aeolus Special Issue. Jointly organized between Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, and Weather and Climate Dynamics. See the link

[7] ESA’s annual space environment report, GEN-DB-LOG-00288-OPS-SD, Revision 7.1, September 2023, at this link.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Tommaso Parrinello has been Aeolus Mission Manager since January 2019. His main responsibilities were to lead the programmatic and operations execution of the mission, heading the relations with the international scientific community to ensure the accomplishment of the mission objectives. He led the evolution of the mission towards new goals, stimulating new synergies and research in order to maximise the scientific return of the mission and to prepare for future ones. He has been based in ESRIN since 2001 when he moved from ESOC where he had been involved in several launches and operations, mainly being responsible for the platform, orbit and attitude control of satellites. He joined ESA in 1992 as a Space Debris analyst (under the Young Graduate scheme) where he developed models of satellite collision and fragmentation.

He is one of the spokespersons of the Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes. He holds a degree in physics (from the University of Pavia, Italy) and a PhD in remote sensing (University of Dundee, UK).

Libe Jauregui has been the Aeolus Flight Dynamics manager since 2016, supporting all the mission preparations and the whole operations, from launch to re-entry. She joined ESA as a YGT in 2005 and since then she has been involved in many missions, with different roles but always as part of the Flight Dynamics team and since 2007 as part of the Earth Observation section. She holds a masters degree in mathematics from the Basque Country University in Spain (UPV/EHU).

Viet Duc Tran has been the Aeolus Spacecraft Operations Manager since the end of 2019 and was one of the Flight Control Team members that joined the Aeolus mission before launch. He started in planetary mission operations at the European Space Operations Center (ESOC) in 2009 as a university student and moved to Earth Observation operations in 2010 where he worked in the GOCE, SWARM and Aeolus mission Flight Control Teams in various roles and during different, exciting mission operation phases. Prior to his time at ESOC he worked for the Deutsche Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Airbus Defense and Space (former EADS Astrium) and the International Space Sation (ISS) EarthKAM project in the US. He holds a Diplom-Ingenieur degree in aeronautics and aerospace from the Technical University of Berlin, Germany, and is an alumnus from the University of California San Diego, USA.

Benjamin Bastida Virgili joined ESA’s Space Debris Office in 2008. He is involved in a wide spectrum of projects of the section, with expertise in operational conjunction events analysis, orbit determination, controlled and uncontrolled re-entries, future environmental predictions and mitigation analysis, and the development of new space debris related missions. He is part of the ESA delegation to the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), participating actively in WG2 (Modelling). Before joining ESA, Benjamin worked for the French National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) for one year doing research on atmosphere models, and working on improving the conjunction risk detection methods at the Orbital Computation Center (OCC) section. He holds a double degree in telecommunications from the UPC, Barcelona, Spain, and aerospace engineering from Supaero, Toulouse, France.

Tim Flohrer has been Head of the ESA Space Debris Office since 2020; he joined the Office as an engineer in 2007. He is working for ESA's Space Safety Programme where he leads space debris technology development and demonstration, and the competitiveness segment. In parallel he supports operational collision avoidance activities for ESA and third-party missions, re-entry predictions, mitigation analyses, long-term predictions of the space debris environment, and space debris risk assessments. Tim is an ESA delegate to the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), where he is chair of WG1 (Measurements). He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). He holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Bern, Switzerland, and a Diplom-Ingenieur in geodesy from the Dresden University of Technology, Germany.

APOPHIS 2029:

Let’s go!

[Patrick Michel, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, CNRS, France]

The close encounter of Apophis with Earth in 2029 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for scientific exploration and public inspiration

The close approach of the near-Earth asteroid (99942) Apophis of 340 meters in diameter (see. Fig. 1 ) to Earth on Friday 13 April 2029, offers a unique opportunity to investigate how the physical properties of an asteroid can change as a result of external forces from Earth. On that date, nature is performing the “experiment” of subjecting the physical body of Apophis to Earth’s tidal torques as it approaches to within 31,000 km of Earth’s surface, a distance that is closer than orbiting geosynchronous satellites. Because of this event’s incredible rarity, knowledge gained through measurements and outcomes of the Apophis 2029 “natural experiment” are clearly an opportunity for planetary science and defence.

Past near-Earth asteroid missions, such as the recent NASA OSIRIS-REx and JAXA Hayabusa2 , which successfully returned samples to Earth, demonstrated that images alone are not enough to determine the mechanical properties of small asteroids.

In fact, observations of the response of these bodies to external forces are needed to improve

greatly our understanding of their behaviour in their low-gravity environment, which dictates their history from their formation to their current state. This knowledge is not only important for solar system science but is also fundamental for the science supporting planetary defence. In addition, on 13 April 2029, all of Earth will be watching: Apophis will be visible to the naked eye speeding across the evening sky for an estimated 2 billion people spanning western Europe and northern Africa. As orbital calculations show with certainty that Apophis is not an impact threat to the Earth, this impending event must be clearly communicated as a scientific knowledge opportunity for the benefit of humanity’s future.

Figure 1: Close encounter of Apophis with Earth on Friday 13 April 2029. The orbital path of Apophis is indicated in light blue. The dotted circle shows the orbit of geosynchronous satellites and the yellow circle shows the orbit of the Moon.

Time is of the essence for defining and implementing investigations of physical effects on Apophis, particularly if in situ measurements are to be considered. The OSIRIS-APEX spacecraft by NASA will reach Apophis several days after its closest approach and will allow measuring its post-encounter physical and compositional properties (see Fig. 2 ), as well as possibly ongoing long-term changes following the closest passage. A spacecraft (or multiple ones) performing a rendezvous with Apophis before and during the closest approach would allow us to determine its initial properties and their possible immediate change during the encounter, to be compared with those measured by OSIRIS-APEX

The two (or more) missions would then work in

great synergy and complementarity, demonstrating international cooperation at work in the frameworks of science and planetary defence.

Figure 2: Simulated image produced by imaging scientist Dathon Golish of the view of Apophis in the APEX camera, based on a radar shape model produced by JPL’s Marina Brozović and her colleagues. (Image credit: UArizona/JPL/Arecibo)

Several projects are under study to visit Apophis before OSIRIS-APEX , including the RAMSES mission under study at the European Space Agency (ESA), which would launch in April 2028 for an arrival at Apophis in February 2029 and which includes a spacecraft re-using the Hera mission platform and 2 Cubesats, the DROID concept in partnership between CNES and JPL using the same kind of architecture centered on internal structure measurements with a bistatic radar, and other projects. At the moment of writing of this article, intense discussions are ongoing to fund these projects, which must converge rapidly for an implementation allowing a launch in 2028. In particular, for RAMSES , which is developed within the optional Space Safety program of ESA, a so-called bridging phase must be approved by interested delegations to allow the development before a formal approval at the next ESA council at ministerial level planned in 2025. Hopefully, the awareness that such an opportunity cannot be missed will lead to the funding and implementation of one of these projects.

There is a strong motivation of the international small body community to not miss this unique opportunity, as demonstrated by the Apophis T-5 workshop that takes place at ESTEC, the Netherlands, on 21-22 April 2024. This workshop follows the previous three successful workshops called Apophis T-9 years, Apophis T-7 years and Apophis T-6 years. The 2024 workshop received 72 abstracts, which is about twice the number of submitted abstracts for the 2023 workshop, for just a two-day meeting on a single object, covering observations, numerical studies of Apophis, space mission concepts, communication to the public.

It is thus clear that the forthcoming 13 April 2029 close Earth encounter by Apophis presents a once-ina-thousand-years natural science opportunity that will also be a source of inspiration for the public and the young generation who will observe its light with the naked eye while possibly watching on a screen actual images of an asteroid offered by a space mission at the same time, which is the plan of proposed missions and which will remain in the collective memory. This is also why it is proposed that the year 2029 is designated by the United Nations as the “International Year of Planetary Defence 2029 (IYPD2029), providing the opportunity to raise global understanding of asteroids and comets, not only as a precious source of information about the origins of our Solar System, but also regarding planetary defense and its role in keeping our planet safe and societies resilient to potential hazards from space.

It has been 20 years, since its discovery in 2004, that we know that Apophis is coming at such a close distance to the Earth. We cannot miss this opportunity to do something great about it, demonstrating our ability to anticipate and get organized for such an event, offering high visibility to the involved space agencies and providing new knowledge as well as something to remember collectively.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Patrick Michel is an international expert of asteroids. He is Director of Research at CNRS (French Scientific Research National Center) at the Lagrange Laboratory of the Côte d’Azur Observatory in Nice and Global Fellow (Professor with a foreign permanent affiliation) of the University of Tokyo (Japan). With more than 230 publications in international peer-review journals, he develops numerical simulations of the impact process between asteroids and of their surface and interior. He is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the ESA Hera mission (launch in 2024), which contributes to the first asteroid deflection test with the NASA DART mission. He is co-PI of the CNES-DLR IDEFIX rover onboard the Phobos sample return mission MMX (JAXA), which will be the first rover to be deployed and rove on a Martian moon to investigate its surface properties. He is Co-Investigator of the two asteroid sample return missions, Hayabusa2 (JAXA) and OSIRIS-REx (NASA).

He is President of the Near-Earth Object Working Group of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a Steering Committee member of the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) and a Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics. He was awarded the Carl Sagan Medal by the American Astronomical Society for Excellence in Public Communication, the NASA Silver Achievement Award, the Paolo Farinella 2013 Prize, received the Young Researcher 2006 Prize of the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics (SF2A) and the Gold Medal of the City of Nice and of the City of SaintTropez. The asteroid (7561) Patrickmichel is named after him.

HOSTAGE TO FORTUNES

The Legal and Political Future of the Planetary Protection Guidelines

[Christopher J. Newman, Northumbria Law School, Northumbria University, United Kingdom]

Traditionally, missions of exploration within the solar system have been the purview of space agencies, and entirely focused on scientific research. The recent rise of commercial space actors including private space exploration missions has introduced new challenges to planetary protection efforts. The stated ambition of Elon Musk, to make Mars habitable for humans (Berger, 2020), is a view shared by many (Autry and Skran, 2019). With no binding international agreement in place to prevent this, the advice of COSPAR regarding the protection of celestial bodies may seem ill-suited to deal with individuals of sufficient wealth, with access to space who choose to ignore that guidance. There has already been an example of this, as was seen by the ill-fated Beresheet lunar lander, led by Nova Spivack, depositing tardigrades on the Moon (Sample, 2019). Just as there is support for the protection of the outer space environment (Kramer, 2019), there are those who wish to colonise and exploit other celestial bodies, leaving the scar tissue of human activity as a legacy.

The rapid advancement of space technology over the last decade has seen a significant increase in more ambitious space missions of exploration beyond Earth. Engineering advances in the construction of planetary rovers has seen advanced robotics coupled with ever increasing advances in

artificial intelligence (Carter, 2023). This in turn means that the opportunities for exploring celestial bodies within the solar system are increasing, while the cost of such ventures is falling. The finding of a balance between exploration and protection is not a new challenge (Macaulay 2007) but the diverse range of actors, and the increasing access to space by those who wish to challenge rigid adherence to the Planetary Protection Policy does make the issue more pressing. This discussion will assume that the danger of forward contamination of celestial bodies is a real one (Williamson, 2006, p94-96) and that the chances are significantly increased when dealing with human spaceflight (Williamson, 2006, p123). The inquiry will, therefore, start from the premise that unfettered exploration and exploitation of outer space and celestial bodies should not be accepted unconditionally.

This discussion will argue that, over the last 10 years, four key paradigmatic changes have occurred in human space activity that pose a threat to the continued adherence to the Guidelines laid down in the COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy. Specifically, these are: (i) the development of cheaper, enabling technology, (ii) the rise of interest in planetary exploration by commercial entities and non-traditional Nation State actors, (iii) the threat posed by the current geopolitical order and (iv)

the additional expense that planetary protection measures can incur. This is not the first discussion to examine planetary protection, seeking more robust legal underpinnings (see Robinson, 2006 and Sterns and Tennens, 2019), but given the four paradigmatic changes outlined above, it is necessary to revisit the discussion.

This piece will advocate that merely seeking binding and punitive laws will not be sufficient to counter these changes. It is posited that a broader consensus, involving all stakeholders is needed to protect delicate, pristine extra-terrestrial environments from human influence and preserved as areas of scientific inquiry.

Paradigm Shifts in Planetary Exploration

COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy (the Policy) puts in place key recommendations by which missions of exploration within the solar system minimise the risk of contaminating pristine environments with traces of terrestrial materials. The Policy was produced and is continually evaluated by a politically neutral and scientifically reputable Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) and represents the most crucial step in planetary protection thus far. It is not the purpose of this inquiry to evaluate the five categories of mission that comprise the Policy (COSPAR 2024). Suffice to say, these mission-specific guidelines have been lauded as the ‘focal point of international activities relating to planetary protection’ (Rummel and Billings, 2004, p.52).

Nonetheless, the way in which humans explore space has gone through significant changes over the last ten years. The first of these developments has already been alluded to above and comes from engineering and technological advancements. Emerging technologies such as AI-led rock sampling (Nowogrodzki, 2016), reusable spacecraft, and multiple vehicles within a single hub, such as the Mars Perseverance Rover and Ingenuity Helicopter, (Berger, 2024) do indeed have the possibility to enable more frequent and ambitious missions of exploration. As technology develops, such as through the development of SpaceX and Starship, the problems of transporting large numbers of humans on an interplanetary journey, may be resolved (Williamson, 2016). With the creation of such a space vehicle, the hypothetical damage to the Martian environment caused by the influx of humans could become a very real possibility.

The Policy represents the most crucial step in planetary protection thus far

The second change in human activity, connected to this rise of cheaper technology, is the sheer diversity of actors who are now able to engage in deep space exploration. Although still a nascent capability, it does not require a large leap of faith to imagine companies like SpaceX, as well as providing launch services to NASA, gaining the capability to launch their own deep space missions. It is not just SpaceX, there are numerous companies looking to break into deep space exploration (Weinzierl and Sarang, 2021). Most of these have struggled to secure investment that is substantial enough to engage in exploration for commercial exploitation. This may not always be the case, and as the price and scarcity of precious, rare Earth metals increase, investors may be more inclined to speculate (Knapp, 2023).

There are countries now looking to space to enhance international prestige

The third of the paradigmatic changes in human space activity emanate from the current fragmented geopolitical situation. As with the rise of the number of commercial non-state actors, there are countries who, hitherto, have not been involved with space activity now looking to space to enhance international prestige. Any one of a number of these new countries could embark upon a scientifically ambitious planetary exploration mission. Whether this is done in isolation or in cooperation with other nations, divergent national interests and strategic considerations may overshadow concerns for planetary protection, leading to a race to exploit celestial bodies for geopolitical advantage and increased international standing. In the current geopolitical environment, there is a heightened risk of non-compliant activities and disregard for international norms and guidelines (Botti and Garco 2023).

Finally, and more prosaically, one of the accepted consequences of following the COSPAR guidelines is that it adds additional expense to any deep space mission. This contrasts sharply with focus of private companies, on profits and shareholders. Once commercial entities, whose overriding concern is profit, enter the arena of interplanetary exploration, there may be little incentive for them to spend money on compliance with guidelines. Similarly, whilst developing nations may have the ambition for exploration within the solar system, they may not have the requisite budget to achieve such lofty goals. “As these [countries’] nascent space programmes struggle to join the new millennium space race, it is easy to foresee the temptation to cut corners. Planetary protection could be one such corner.” (Butler, 2006-7, p.1388)

It is not contended that all new countries or commercial entities will ignore the Planetary Protection Policy. There will undoubtedly be those whose motives are collaborative and wish to work within the established framework and respect the threat to the integrity of the science posed by forward contamination. Nonetheless, the Planetary Protection Policy provides guidelines, no more than that. A mission planner is not required to follow these recommendations. Similarly, while some might do so, national regulators are under no obligation to consider the Policy before issuing a licence for a space mission. The discussion will therefore examine the legal framework for outer space activity by humans and evaluate what, if any, protection can be found for delicate, pristine environments.

Legal Framework for Outer Space and Planetary Protection Policy

Thus far, the discussion has concentrated on the circumstances which give rise to concerns that the rapid advancement of space technology, coupled with the involvement of private space actors could pose a threat to continued adherence to planetary protection policy advocated by COSPAR (see for example, Butler 2006-7 and more recently Nugraha 2022). Yet COSPAR guidelines provide comprehensive recommendations for minimising the risk of contamination in space missions exploring celestial bodies. They are not intended to bind or place legal obligations on States or individuals and, as such, have no enforcement mechanism. Instead, compliance with these guidelines relies largely on voluntary adherence by space-faring nations and scientific organisations. The next part of the inquiry will look at the position in international law, as to what States are obliged to do, and how the COSPAR guidelines fit into the current international order.

To establish what legal protection should be offered to underpin the guidelines, it is necessary to unpick the different elements of the legal framework which governs human activity. The first element to be considered is to be found at the global level in the form of treaties. A treaty is an international agreement concluded between states in written form and governed by international law (Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969, Article 2(1)(a)). This primary form of international law is a binding agreement, whereby the contracting States intended to create legal rights or duties as a result of the Treaty. Negotiations on the treaties that would become the legal basis of international space law emerged principally during the 1960s through the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS).

The central trunk of International Space law is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. Despite this being written and ratified at a time when both the USA and the USSR were sending probes to planets within the solar system, nowhere in the Outer Space Treaty is there specific mention of protection of the environment of celestial bodies. Article IX requires States parties to the Treaty to conduct their activities in outer space and on celestial bodies, “so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the earth resulting from the introduction of extra-terrestrial matter and where necessary to adopt appropriate measures for this purpose.” This measure is clearly designed to protect the earth from contamination coming back to Earth from outer space (back-contamination), the Treaty fails to give any guidance as to what is meant by both ‘harmful contamination’ and indeed how that differs from mere ‘contamination’ (Viikari, 2008, p.60). Aside from this provision, there is no other mention of environmental protection of planets, nor is there an explicit legal duty on States to prevent contamination of celestial bodies.

This measure is clearly designed to protect the earth from contamination coming back

What the 1967 Treaty did do was to establish a series of fundamental principles, such as the right of states in respect of the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes, the prohibition of nuclear weapons stationed in orbit or on celestial bodies, and the principle of non-appropriation of outer space or other celestial bodies. Article VI of the Treaty provides that Signatory States are internationally responsible for their national space activities and that nations are responsible for assuring that national activities are carried out in accordance with the Treaty. Article VI goes on to provide that the activities of non-governmental entities shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate state.

The effect of Article VI is that it places a requirement on countries to have oversight of space activities either conducted within its territory or by its nationals. That oversight is usually accomplished by a licensing regime whereby national regulators examine proposals from non-governmental entities (such as companies) and, if they are satisfied that they are safe, comply with a country’s international obligation and do not threaten national security, then they can be granted a licence. The grant of a licence can then come with specified conditions, such as post mission disposal requirements and compliance with internationally agreed standards.

The provision of national space laws is the second dimension to the legal framework that can affect planetary protection, that of individual countries putting in place a regulatory framework for their space activity.

The powers of a regulator will be laid down in a national law (statute), but there will be discretion for the regulator of space activity to consider a wide variety of ambient factors, including the opinion of their own scientists and engineers and best practice recognised by the international community. There is an element of enforcement in that, certainly within the United Kingdom, engaging in space activities without a licence is made a criminal offence (Space Industry Act 2018, s3). Similarly engaging in activities outside the scope of the licence will count as unlicensed activity and be similarly punishable upon conviction by a national court.

Non-Treaty Protections

It is tempting to bemoan the state of international law and the lack of binding treaty provisions on the protection of delicate celestial bodies. Such a Treaty, however, might not be the universal panacea it first seems. The COSPAR planetary protection guidelines are drafted, reviewed, and reframed by experts, not by diplomats and politicians. There is no enforcement mechanism built into the Policy, but similarly Nation States are not required to cede any of their freedom of action over to an international organisation, nor is such an organisation required to spend time and resources monitoring and enforcing the provisions of the Policy. That can be left to national regulators and be undertaken on a mission-by-mission basis.

Planetary protection policy, therefore, occupies a slightly nebulous position in the international legal order, in that it is a ‘soft’ agreement that provides influence and guidance on a global level, but has no legal force. It is the lack of legal force that tends to attract attention, especially given the four paradigmatic shifts in space activity identified above. At first blush, it may seem unsatisfactory to trust the protection of pristine and scientifically significant environments to non-binding instruments, especially when individuals such as Elon Musk have been so vocal in their desire to colonise Mars at all costs (Williamson, 2016). Nonetheless, soft law instruments have several significant advantages that make them more suitable for the current geopolitical world order than a Treaty.

Such a Treaty, however, might not be the universal panacea it first seems

First, the negotiations and representations for such an agreement can accommodate a wide range of stakeholders, including states, intergovernmental organizations, private entities, and civil society. Softer agreements can foster inclusive and collaborative approaches to space governance where nations do not necessarily want to commit to binding measures. This can be seen, for example, in the development of the Guidelines for the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities within UNCOPUOS.

Perhaps most crucially, guidelines, such as those found in the COSPAR planetary protection policy, can be added by national regulators as part of the licensing process. By incorporating the guidelines into a licencing framework, enforcement and oversight can be brought within the ambit of national regulators. Malpractice can be disincentivised by either enforcement action or adverse consequences for future licensing applications. This, of course, does not always happen (Johnson et al, 2019) but is an essential part of the licensing matrix. The only enforcement currently available in the legal framework for outer space lays with national regulators. In their haste to empower their own national space industry, regulators must not

forget their wider duties to the space environment. It will be up to those lobbying for more robust planetary protection on missions to hold regulators and governments to account.

Nonetheless, by enabling voluntary fulfilment and cooperation, coupled with promotion and political pressure lobbying for the need for compliance, soft law mechanisms facilitate the development of best practices, standards, and norms. These can be tailored to specific space activities and contexts, such as planetary exploration. Moreover, the non-binding nature of soft law allows for iterative adjustments and revisions in response to emerging challenges and technological developments, ensuring the relevance and effectiveness of regulatory frameworks over time. Similarly, having a flexible mechanism which can consider changes in developments in scientific techniques is surely preferable to having planetary protection protocols that are calcified in a rigid, bound treaty.

Conclusions

The COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy retains both the flexibility of a soft law instrument and the integrity of an accepted global standard

It is tempting to see a ‘Planetary Protection Treaty’ with stringent requirements, guaranteed monitoring, and enforcement alongside harsh, punitive sanctions for malpractice as the way in which to guarantee all stakeholders will comply. The current geopolitics of the new global order means that this simply will not work. International treaties are extremely time-consuming to conclude, usually require significant compromises, are inflexible and compliancemonitoring becomes politically charged and a hostage to geopolitics.

Concerns that private companies and individuals may decide to ride roughshod over the Policy would not be in anyway diminished by the creation of a binding Treaty. There is no indication that Elon Musk or Nova Spivack would feel any more bound to a Treaty negotiated between countries than they would the current COSPAR guidelines. The problems of enforcement would remain just as prominent, and the Treaty would exist in a state of limbo, fixing planetary protection protocols to current technology and scientific understanding, whilst being ignored by key stakeholders.

As with everything else, support for enforcement of Treaty provisions would more than likely fracture along traditional alliance fault lines, with the USA and its allies drawn into further conflict with Russia and China. Such a dispute could lead to one side or another completely rejecting the planetary protection treaty and leading to wider non-compliance. As unpalatable as this might be, without widespread momentum for a Treaty, and with the current geopolitical conflict between the major powers, COSPAR planetary protection policy will remain as guidelines for the foreseeable future.

There is cause for optimism though and curiously it comes from accepting the status quo and realising what can be done with the current order. By being drawn up and re-evaluated by the scientific community, the COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy retains both the flexibility of a soft law instrument and the integrity of an accepted global standard. It also provides those who are interested with a tangible, recognised series of principles through which regulators and governments can be lobbied.

Rather than facing the uphill struggle of trying to persuade the global community to try a pitch for an all new, uncertainly configured international treaty that could take decades to finalise, the Planetary Protection Policy represents a realistic and achievable benchmark from which to lobby individual governments and regulators. The need for domestic enforcement is clear when considering the Beresheet private lunar lander and its contamination of the barren lunar landscape with Tardigrades (Oberhaus, 2019). The need for a more robust approach to regulatory enforcement has been recognised (Johnson et al 2019) and must form part of the conversation between stakeholders.

As can be seen from instruments like Guidelines for the Long-Term Sustainability of Outer Space, the future of space governance lies in the flexible and adaptive mechanisms of soft law and political agreements. As space activities continue to evolve and diversify, traditional treaty-based approaches will continue to prove unresponsive and inflexible when considering emerging challenges and opportunities. Soft law instruments offer flexibility, inclusivity, and the adaptability necessary for governing the complexities of space exploration and planetary protection.

It is up to those who are concerned with the future of planetary protection to identify the opportunities within the current, flexible framework and use them to exercise political rather than legal influence. Addressing the challenges identified in this discussion will require concerted efforts by the international science community to make the COSPAR Guidelines come alive to those who wish to engage in planetary exploration and those who have oversight and enforcement responsibilities.

References

Alex Knapp, “This Asteroid Mining Start-up Is Ready To Launch The First-Ever Commercial Deep Space Mission” , Forbes Online, 18 October 2023, available online at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/ alexknapp/2023/10/18/this-asteroid-mining-startup-is-ready-to-launch-the-first-ever-commercialdeep-space-mission/?sh=9445df0674af> access 29 February 2024.

Anna Nowogrodzki, “How does Mars rover Curiosity’s new AI system work?” Astronomy.com, 1 August 2016, available online at: <https://www.astronomy.com/science/how-does-mars-rover-curiositys-newai-system-work/> access 29 February 2024

Christopher D. Johnson, Daniel Porras, Christopher M. Hearsay and Sinead O’Sullivan, “The curious case of the transgressing tardigrades” , (2019) The Space Review Part 1 available online at: <https:// www.thespacereview.com/article/3783/1>. Part 2 available online at: <https://www.thespacereview. com/article/3786/1>. Part 3 available online at: <https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3794/1> access 29 February 2024

Daniel Oberhaus, “A Crashed Israeli Lunar Lander Spilled Tardigrades on the Moon” , Wired, 5 August 2019, available online at <https://www.wired.com/story/a-crashed-israeli-lunar-lander-spilledtardigrades-on-the-moon/>

Eric Berger, “Before Ingenuity ever landed on Mars, scientists almost managed to kill it” , Ars Technica, 12 February 2024, available online at: <https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/before-ingenuity-everlanded-on-mars-scientists-almost-managed-to-kill-it/> access 29 February 2024

Greg Autry abd Dake Skran, “Humanity can’t afford to keep space pristine” , Foreign Policy, 30 October 2019 available online at: <https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/30/nasa-space-exploration-mars-citymusk-humanity-keep-space-pristine/> access 29 February 2024

Jeb Butler, “Unearthly Microbes and the Laws Designed to resist them” 41 Georgia Law Review 1355-1394

John D Rummel & Linda Billings, Issues in Planetary Protection: Policy, Protocol and Implementation , 20 SPACE POLY 49, 52 (2004)

Mark Williamson, “Can Musk Achieve his Mars Dream?” Engineering & Technology, Nov 2016, 18-19

Mark Williamson, The Fragile Frontier , 2006, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Matthew Weinzierl and Mehak Sarang, “The Commercial Space Age is Here” , Harvard Business Review, 12 February 2021, available online at: <https://hbr.org/2021/02/the-commercial-space-age-is-here> access 29 February 2024

Taylor Locke, “Elon Musk on planning for Mars: ‘The city has to survive if the resupply ships stop coming from Earth’” , CNBC Online, 9 March 2020, available online at: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/ spacex-plans-how-elon-musk-see-life-on-mars.html access 29 February 2024

William Kramer, “Extraterrestrial environmental impact assessments - A foreseeable prerequisite for wise decisions regarding outer space exploration, research and development.” (2014) 30 Space Policy 215-222

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christopher Newman is currently working as Professor of Space Law and Policy at Northumbria University at Newcastle in the United Kingdom. He is active in the teaching and research of space law and has published extensively on the legal and ethical underpinnings of space governance. He has presented his research on the legal dimensions of discovery of alien life to the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). He has also been invited to be an observer member of the UK delegation to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. He was appointed Visiting Professor of Space Law at the Open University working on the legal and ethical dimensions of planetary protection. He is an academic consultant to 3SNorthumbria, a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) consultancy company based in the North East of England and has made numerous TV and radio appearances in the UK speaking as an expert on space law and policy issues.

News in Brief

A BIG COSMOLOGICAL MYSTERY

(from

University of Central Lancashire release, January 2024)

Agigantic, ring-shaped structure in space has been spotted by scientists at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. The discovery of a second ultra-large structure in the remote universe has further challenged some of the basic assumptions about cosmology.

The Big Ring on the Sky is 9.2 billion light-years from Earth. It has a diameter of about 1.3 billion lightyears, and a circumference of about four billion light-years. If we could step outside and see it directly, the diameter of the Big Ring would need about 15 full Moons to cover it. It is the second ultra-large structure discovered by University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) PhD student Alexia Lopez who, two years ago, also discovered the Giant Arc on the Sky. Remarkably, the Big Ring and the Giant Arc, which is 3.3 billion light-years across, are in the same cosmological neighbourhood – they are seen at the same distance, at the same cosmic time, and are only 12 degrees apart on the sky. Alexia said: “Neither of these two ultra-large structures is easy to explain in our current understanding of the universe. And their ultralarge sizes, distinctive shapes, and cosmological proximity must surely be telling us something important – but what exactly?

The Big Ring on the Sky is 9.2 billion light-years from Earth

“One possibility is that the Big Ring could be related to Baryonic Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs). BAOs arise from oscillations in the early universe and today should appear, statistically at least, as spherical shells in the arrangement of galaxies. However, detailed analysis of the Big Ring revealed it is not really compatible with the BAO explanation: the Big Ring is too large and is not spherical.”

Read the rest of the story here.

ASTEROID 2024 BX1

Spotted 3 hours before impact

(from ESA release, January 2024)

At 22:48 CET on Saturday 20 January veteran asteroid hunter Sárneczky discovered a new asteroid using the 60-cm Schmidt Telescope at Piszkéstető Mountain Station, part of Konkoly Observatory in Hungary. He immediately sent his data on the asteroid’s trajectory to the Minor Planet Center, but with just three initial observations, it was impossible to know for sure whether it was on a collision course with Earth. He continued tracking the asteroid, and just a few minutes later, he shared four more observations that clearly indicated a 100 % chance of an imminent impact.

Automatic impact monitoring systems around the world, including ESA’s ‘Meerkat’, responded to these new data and sprang into action, issuing an alert to astronomers and asteroid experts. More than a dozen observatories turned their eyes towards the incoming object. With their help, it soon became clear that the small asteroid, roughly one metre in size, would impact Earth in less than two hours, approximately 50 km west of Berlin, Germany.

Asteroid 2024 BX1 tracked prior to impact (Image credit: L. Buzzi, G. V. Schiaparelli Observatory)

Asteroids of this size strike Earth on average every couple of weeks. They pose no significant danger, and most are never detected. But they can help us understand how many small asteroids are out there and we can study the fireballs they produce to determine what they are made of – if we catch them on camera.

As Saturday night became Sunday morning, astronomers continued to track asteroid 2024 BX1 until, at 01:25 CET, it entered Earth’s shadow and disappeared from view. Just a few minutes later, at 01:32 CET, 2024 BX1 struck Earth’s atmosphere and burned an explosive streak through the night sky. Many people in the Berlin area and across central Europe were able to witness the fireball, and a handful of people and automated camera systems even managed to record it.

Only eight asteroids have ever been detected before impact with Earth’s atmosphere. The first of these discoveries took place in 2008, and four were detected in just the last two years. As humankind’s ability to detect smaller space objects continues to improve, this number is likely to rise exponentially in the coming years.

Read the full article here.

Meerkat alert for the impact of object Sar2736 (later designated asteroid 2024 BX1) (Image credit: ESA)

NASA’s Ingenuity Helicopter Mission Ends

(from NASA release, January 2024)

NASA’s history-making Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has ended its mission at the Red Planet after surpassing expectations and making dozens more flights than planned. While the helicopter remains upright and in communication with ground controllers, imagery of its 18 January flight sent to Earth indicates one or more of its rotor blades sustained damage during landing and it is no longer capable of flight. Originally designed as a technology demonstration to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, the first aircraft on another world operated from the Martian surface for almost three years, performed 72 flights, and flew more than 14 times farther than planned while logging more than two hours of total flight time.

Ingenuity landed on Mars on 18 February 2021, attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover and first lifted off the Martian surface on

19 April, proving that powered, controlled flight on Mars was possible.

After notching another four flights, it embarked on a new mission as an operations demonstration, serving as an aerial scout for Perseverance scientists and rover drivers. In 2023, the helicopter executed two successful flight tests that further expanded the team’s knowledge of its aerodynamic limits.

After its 72nd flight on 18 January 2024, NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter captured this colour image showing the shadow of a rotor blade damaged during a rough landing

(Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Over an extended mission that lasted for almost 1,000 Martian days, more than 33 times longer than originally planned, Ingenuity was upgraded with the ability to autonomously choose landing sites in treacherous terrain, dealt with a dead sensor, cleaned itself after dust storms, operated from 48 different airfields, performed three emergency landings, and survived a frigid Martian winter.

Designed to operate in spring, Ingenuity was unable to power its heaters throughout the night during the coldest parts of winter, resulting in the flight computer periodically freezing and resetting. These power “brownouts” required the team to redesign Ingenuity’s winter operations in order to keep flying.

With flight operations now concluded, the Ingenuity team will perform final tests on helicopter systems and download the remaining imagery and data in Ingenuity’s onboard memory. The Perseverance rover is currently too far away to attempt to image the helicopter at its final airfield.

Read the full story.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter is seen 2 August 2023, in an enhanced-colour image captured by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard the agency’s Perseverance Mars rover.

(Image credit: NASAJPL-Caltech / ASU /MSSS)

for Investigating Moon and Rovers’ Activity IMAGES FROM JAXA’S SMART LANDER

(from JAXA release, January 2024)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), along with the University of Aizu and Ritsumeikan University, has released images captured by the Multi-Band Camera (MBC) onboard the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM).

After the moon landing and before shutting down of the spacecraft power, MBC released the locking mechanism to withstand the impact upon launch and landing, then conducted scanning operations. The scanning is performed by moving the adjustable mirror and is for preliminary examination of the rocks of scientific interest that are situated around the SLIM landing site. Figure 1 shows a landscape image created by synthesizing 257 low-resolution monochrome pictures. Based on this landscape image, the team is sorting out rocks of interest, assigning a nickname to each of them, with the intent of communicating their relative sizes smoothly by the names. Preparation is underway to promptly conduct 10-band highresolution spectroscopic observations once the solar illumination condition improves and SLIM recovers by the power generated by the solar array.

The Lunar Excursion Vehicle (LEV-1), a small robot deployed from SLIM, has successfully conducted activities on the lunar surface. The telemetry data were sent directly from the small robot. According to this data, after deployment from SLIM, LEV-1 executed planned leaping movements and direct communication with ground stations, including inter-robot test radio wave data transmission from the Transformable Lunar Robot (LEV-2, nicknamed "SORA-Q"). On the other hand, image acquisition on the lunar surface has not yet been confirmed.

Currently, LEV-1 has completed its planned operational period on the lunar surface, depleted its designated power, and is in a standby state on the lunar surface. While the capability to resume activity exists contingent on solar power generation from changes in the direction of the sun, efforts will be maintained to continue receiving signals from LEV-1.

Both LEV-1 and LEV-2 have become Japan's first lunar exploration robots. Additionally, the small LEV-1 with a mass of 2.1 kg (including a 90g communication device), achieved successful direct communication with Earth from the moon. This is considered as the world's smallest and lightest case of direct data transmission from approximately 380,000 kilometers away.

Furthermore, the accomplishment of LEV-1's leaping movements on the lunar surface, inter-robot communication between LEV-1 and LEV-2, and fully autonomous operations represent groundbreaking achievement. It would be regarded as a valuable technology demonstration for future lunar explorations, and the acquired knowledge and experience will be applied in upcoming missions. Moreover, the transmission of UHF band radio waves from LEV-1 as part of outreach efforts has encouraged participation from amateur radio operators globally.

For more details, go to JAXA | SLIM Special Site

(Image credit: JAXA, Ritsumeikan University, The University of Aizu)

Figure 1: A lunar surface scan mosaic image captured by the SLIM-mounted MBC (left) and its enlarged view (right) The grey area on the right of the mosaic lacks data due to the discontinuation of scanning operation.

SPACE SNAPSHOTS

ERS-2 Re-enters Earth’s Atmosphere

(From ESA release, February 2024)

(Image credit: Fraunhofer FHR)

Following a hugely successful mission and almost 30 years in orbit, ESA’s ERS-2 re-entered Earth’s atmosphere at approximately 18:17 CET (17:17 UTC) on 21 February 2024. Predicting the exact time and location of ERS-2’s natural re-entry was made more difficult by the lack of new observations of the satellite during its final revolutions around Earth.

This Snapshot shows one of the final images of ERS-2 tumbling through the sky. They were captured by the Tracking and Imaging Radar (TIRA) at the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR in Germany. TIRA’s 34-m antenna tracked the satellite as it passed overhead for few minutes on 19, 20 and 21 February.

The final session took place around 8:00 CET on 21 February, still roughly 10 orbits before final re-entry. By comparing the images from the three TIRA tracking sessions, we can see that ERS-2’s solar array was already coming loose and no longer firmly attached to rest of the satellite the day before final re-entry. When predicting a satellite’s re-entry trajectory, experts treat it as one rigid object until almost the very end.

If ERS-2’s solar array was loose and moving independently a day early, it may have caused the satellite to interact with the atmosphere in ways we did not expect. The colour in these images represents radar echo intensity and not temperature.

Buried Water Ice at Mars’ Equator ?

(ESA release, January 2024)

Mars’s Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF) consists of a series of wind-sculpted deposits measuring hundreds of kilometres across and several kilometres high. Found at the boundary between Mars’s highlands and lowlands, the features are possibly the biggest single source of dust on Mars, and one of the most extensive deposits on the planet.

A team of researchers used Mars Express radar data to peer below the surface. What they found was a top layer of dust that covers what seems to be a thick layer of deposits rich in water ice. This map shows the estimated amount of ice within the

mounds that form the MFF, indicating that the icerich deposits are up to 3000 m thick. The researchers estimate that the layer of dry material (likely dust or volcanic ash) covering the ice is 300–600 m thick. This map shows the ice thickness if we assume that the dust is 300 m thick. In this case, the total volume of water ice contained within the MFF deposits would be 400 000 km3, or if it melted, enough to cover Mars in an ocean of water 2.7 m deep. If the dust layer is instead 600 m thick, the water ice layer would be thinner, and the total volume of water ice contained within the MFF deposits would be 220,000 km3, or if it melted, enough to cover Mars in an ocean of water 1.5 m deep.

(Image credit: Planetary Science Institute/Smithsonian Institution)

Axiom Mission-3 Astronauts Prepare to Leave ISS

(NASA release, February 2024)

Here we see the Expedition 70 and Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) crews calling down to Mission Control on Friday for a farewell ceremony as the four Ax-3 private astronauts target their departure for Saturday morning. The orbital residents aboard the International Space Station worked just half-a-day packing the SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft before going to bed early to get ready for the spacecraft’s undocking.

The Ax-3 private astronauts were in their final day aboard the orbital outpost following two

weeks of science and educational activities. The foursome, led by Commander Michael LópezAlegría, had targeted to undock inside Dragon from the Harmony module’s forward port at 6:05 a.m. EST on Saturday 3 February 2024.

López-Alegría, along with Pilot Walter Villadei and Mission Specialists Alper Gezeravcı and Marcus Wandt, parachuted safely inside Dragon to the splashdown site in the Atlantic Ocean near Daytona, Florida, USA, where support personnel from Axiom Space and SpaceX awaited to retrieve them.

The 11 crew members representing the Expedition 70 (red shirts) and Axiom Space 3 (dark blue suits) crews gather for a farewell ceremony calling down to mission controllers on Earth (Image credit: NASA TV)

of Interest to COSPAR MEETINGS

8-13 April 2024

Monterrey, Mexico

14th COLAGE 2024 and International Space Sciences School (ISSS)

Link here

10-12 April 2024

Barcelona, Spain

2024 Ocean Decade Conf.

Link here

14-19 April 2024

Vienna, Austria

EGU General Assembly

Link here

22-25 April 2024

London, UK

International Planetary Protection Week (IPPW)

Link here

23-26 April 2024

Munich, Germany

European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar (EUSAR 2024)

Link here

6-10 May 2024

Ourense, Spain

12th Int. Workshop on Long-Term Changes and Trends in the Atmosphere (TRENDS 2024)

Link here

19-24 May 2024

Gran Canaria, Spain

4th URSI Atlantic / Asia-Pacific Radio Science Meeting (AT-RASC 2024)

Link here

23-24 May

Krakow, Poland

VIIth Space Resources Conference 2024

Link here

5-9 June 2024

Berlin, Germany

Berlin Int. Airshow (ILA 2024)

Link here

24 June-5 July 2024

Chiang Mai, Thailand

COSPAR PCB/I-HOW CB Workshop

"JWST Data Analysis and Processing Workshop (South East Asia)"

Link here

13-21 July 2024

Busan, South Korea

45th COSPAR Scientific Assembly

Link here

6-15 August 2024

Cape Town, South Africa

22nd IAU General Assembly

Link here

19-30 August 2024

Shanghai, China

I-HOW COSPAR Workshop 2024, a New Era of High-Resolution X-Ray Spectroscopy

Link here

25-30 August 2024

Daegu, South Korea

26th International Congress of Theoretical & Applied Mechanics (ICTAM 2024)

Link here

25-31 August 2024

Busan, South Korea

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

37th International Geological Congress

Link here

26-30 August 2024

Padova, Italy

European Crystallographic Meeting (ECM34)

Link here

2-13 September 2024

Kilifi, Kenya

IRI 2024 Workshop, International Reference

Ionosphere: Modeling the ionosphere over Africa and improvements of the International Reference Ionosphere

Link here

15-21 September 2024

Kathmandu, Nepal

ISWI International School on Space Science

Link here

18-19 September 2024

Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA and online

2024 Annual Heliophysics Technology Symp.

Link here

22-26 September 2024

Melbourne, Australia

26th IUBMB Meeting

Link here

17-19 October 2024

Bern, Switzerland

3rd Int. AstroMeet

Link here

23-26 October 2024

Bogota, Colombia

1st Colombian Symposium on Astrochemistry (SICOAQ)

Contact : obsan_fcbog@unal.edu.co

4-8 November 2024

Coimbra, Portugal

European Space Weather Week (ESWW2024)

Link here

4-11 July 2026

Toronto, Canada

25th ISPRS Congress: From Imagery to Understanding

Link here

13-18 July 2025

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

IUPAC World Chemistry Congress

Link here

17-22 August 2025

Sydney, Australia

2025 URSI Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference

Link here

1-9 August 2026

Florence, Italy

46th COSPAR Scientific Assembly

E-mail: cospar@cosparhq.cnes.fr

Early Bird Registration rate ends 3 May 2024 !!

Check out the programme here.

Register here

Meeting Announcements

European Space Weather Week (ESWW):

Session and TDM call for ESWW2024 plus announcement of host city for ESWW2027

The European Space Weather Week (ESWW) conference is an excellent opportunity for people from all over the world to gather and discuss the most recent insights in space weather and in space climate, and to address the emerging challenges and impacts. Science, data exploitation, observations, service development, operational models, engineering and industrial needs are all important aspects of space weather that are addressed. In line with this, the overarching theme for ESWW2024 in Coimbra (4th – 8th November 2024) is “20 years of expanding horizons, from fundamental science to protecting society”.

As in previous editions, the conference will be held in hybrid format. Link here

One of the strengths of ESWW is that participants can contribute significantly to its content through parallel sessions, plenary sessions and Topical Discussion Meetings (TDM). Parallel and plenary session submissions are open until Wed 27th March 2024 (inclusive).

Those interested in convening a session at ESWW2024 may submit a proposal in one of the following three formats:

- Parallel Space Weather Research (SWR)

- Parallel 100% Community-Driven (100CD)

- Parallel Application Pipeline (APL)

Proponents of 100CD or APL sessions will have the opportunity to request the Programme Committee (PC) consider the promotion of their session to a plenary of 90 minutes fixed duration.

More detailed information and submission instructions can be found on the website

A TDM aims at active and engaging participation and interaction between the participants. The participants work and discuss on a predefined theme or problem, ideally heading towards an outcome or target. TDMs at ESWW2024 will be 1 hour in duration and the call for convening TDMs is now open with a submission deadline of 10th April 2024 (inclusive). Link here

The PC strongly encourages those who have not previously proposed a session, to do so. In line with our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we welcome and encourage applications from conveners of all backgrounds, including but not limited to, different career stages, geographical locations, ability, genders, and ethnicities. The website will be updated with additional guidelines for sessions and TDMs in the coming days.

Additional events/meetings may be planned for the period preceding ESWW, more information available here

Recently the European Space Weather Week (ESWW) Programme Committee (PC) announced that the 2025 and 2026 editions of the conference will be held in Umeå, Sweden and Firenze, Italy respectively. The ESWW PC is now pleased to announce the selected host city for ESWW in 2027 is Dublin, Ireland. As with Sweden and Italy, Ireland has an active and prominent space weather community, and this will be the first occasion that it will host the event.

International Reference Ionosphere Workshop

Kilifi, Kenya, 2-13 September 2024

The 2024 International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) Workshop is a 2-week workshop supported under the COSPAR Capacity-Building Workshop program and consists of student-oriented lectures and tutorials during the first week, followed by the IRI science meeting in the second week. The first week activities will introduce graduate students and young researchers to the basics of ionospheric monitoring and modelling and related online resources. The students will work on specific modelling problems in small groups and report their results at the end of the second week to the full IRI workshop audience. The second week (9-13 September) will be organized as a regular IRI workshop with oral and poster presentations on the topic of ‘Modelling the Ionosphere over Africa and Improvements of the International Reference Ionosphere’.

Presentations on general IRI-related topics are also welcome including new data sources and improvements and new additions for the IRI model. Of special interest are applications of the IRI model in all areas of technology, science and education.

The workshop is supported by COSPAR, the Kenya Space Agency (KSA), the Pwani University in Kilifi (Pwani is Swahili for Coast), URSI, and SCOSTEP.

Organizing Committee: Joseph Olwendo (Pwani University), Andrew Nyawade (Kenya Space Agency), Dieter Bilitza (George Mason University), Paul Baki (Technical University, Nairobi), Antony Kiroe (Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya), John Bosco Habarulema (South African National Space Agency), Rose Gigathi (Pwani University), Makhoha Were (Kenya Space Agency).

Abstract submission deadline:15 May 2024.

Students and Young Researchers are encouraged to apply for financial support. Living expenses and partial travel support will be provided for up to 35 competitively selected students and young researchers. Deadline for financial support applications: 30 April 2024.

The workshop website is at https://iri2024.pu.ac.ke/sources/. For any other questions, please contact Dieter Bilitza: dbilitza@gmu.edu or Joseph Olwendo: j.olwendo@pu.ac.ke.

Meeting Reports

HYDROSPACE 2023 Workshop Short Report

[Jérôme Benveniste (Formerly European Space Agency (ESA-ESRIN), Italy), Jean-François Crétaux (Laboratoire d'Études en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales (LEGOS), France), and Peter van Oevelen (International GEWEX Project Office, USA)]

(for publication in Space Research Today, 1 February 2024)

The European Space Agency (ESA), in the context of the "Earth Observations Science for Society" Programme, GEWEX, and the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES, the French Space Agency), organised a sequel joint event to Hydrospace2021 and the Earth Observation for Water Cycle Science 2020 Conference (EO4Water2020). The 5th Space for Water Cycle and Hydrology Workshop, HYDROSPACE 2023, took place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 27 November to 1 December 2023.

HYDROSPACE 2023 aimed at reviewing the latest advances in the use of Earth Observation (EO) technology for water cycle science and hydrology and its applications, exploring the potential offered by the existing and coming EO satellites together with advanced modelling and novel technologies as well as the main challenges and opportunities to enhance our current capacity to observe, understand, and predict the water cycle and its impacts and feedbacks with human activities and ecosystems. One of the main goals of the event was to contribute to defining a community scientific agenda that may drive future scientific activities of ESA and other space agencies and partners to face main societal challenges of our day.

The HYDROSPACE 2023 Workshop was open to EO scientists, water researchers and students, modelers, Earth system and climate scientists, industry, operational agencies, policy makers, representatives of local communities, and other stakeholders interested in sharing their knowledge and experience and in contributing to drive the scientific agenda for advancing EO water research and future applications. Overall, the event attracted 270 registrations, from 45 countries, of which 207 participants from 22 countries could actually attend in Lisbon. We received 233 abstracts from 34 countries. The whole workshop was recorded and can be viewed online. Presentations and posters are also online at this link

Given the abundance of outstanding presentations at the workshop, we can only highlight a select few. Notably, with the recent launch of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, jointly developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) with contributions from the Canadian and UK Space Agencies, numerous presentations focused on this wide-swath altimetry mission and showcased exciting new results and potential applications of the forthcoming data, which should become widely-available in 2024. The expectations of SWOT seem clearly to be met, if not surpassed Among the diverse range of keynote topics including flood management, surface water storage, hydrogeodesy, results from the Italian Research Council, Research Institute for Hydrogeological Protection (CNR-IRPI) team showed notable progresses in the development of a “hydrological digital twin”. More traditional research areas such as soil moisture estimation from space using the Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) and Soil Moisture-Active Passive (SMAP) missions were also presented, including a new low-cost L-band radiometer that could be a follow-up to instruments on missions such as SMAP. Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-6MF water level data as well as total water storage using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) were also subjects of many presentations.

Noteworthy recommendations emerged from discussions, with a highlight being the potential for sub-daily temporal sampling facilitated by future missions, such as the proposed "SMASH Constellation of SmallSats" concept for water level.

As stated, the workshop was meant to provide a scientific overview of the progress made and a forum for discussions among the community, and to establish needs perceived by the hydrological community concerning Earth observations. A detailed report will be drafted by the 42 co-chairs of the sessions and the Organising Committee, the "SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE HYDROSPACE 2023 WORKSHOP” document; it will be published by ESA with a DOI on the HYDROSPACE-2023 website (https://hydrospace2023.org/) and may be the basis for a peer-reviewed publication.

Cite as:

Benveniste J, Crétaux J-F, van Oevelen P , HYDROSPACE 2023

Workshop Short Report, Space Research Today , Issue 219, April 2024.

The Economics and Law of Space-Based Commerce

17-18 January 2024, Bern, Switzerland

COSPAR, with the World Trade Institute and the International of Space Science Institute, co-sponsored a conference on The Economics and Law of Space-Based Commerce in January. The conference successfully gathered stakeholders and researchers in Bern to establish a new research platform across economics, law, politics and space sciences and discuss questions such as: do current economic concepts apply to outer space? And can existing trade, investment or tax law apply to space-based commerce?

A report of the event by Mario Sgarrella (WTI) can be read at: Space-based commerce: a new interdisciplinary approach

Image credit: World Trade Institute, WTI

International Conference on Planets, Exoplanets and Habitability

5-9 February 2024, Physical Research Laboratory, India

The International Conference on Planets, Exoplanets and Habitability was held at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), 5-9 February 2024 (link). This was the first International conference held at PRL after the Chandrayaan-3 success and after the first discovery of exoplanet by astronomers of PRL. This week-long multidisciplinary conference covered research topics focused on planets and exoplanets studies and their link to habitability. This conference aimed to provide a platform for researchers, professionals, and students from around the globe to exchange knowledge, discuss advancements, and foster collaborations in the field of planets and exoplanets. This is the first such conference organized at PRL covering a broad range of topics.

The conference witnessed active participation within the country and abroad. A total of 262 delegates registered for the conference and 200 abstracts were submitted. A total of 25 delegates participated from outside India from USA, UK, UAE, France, Italy, Germany, Chile, Switzerland, Hungary, Egypt, Japan, Netherlands, Bangladesh, and Israel. After evaluation of abstracts, 100 were assigned for oral presentation, which included 21 solicited talks and 81 were assigned to poster session. In addition to this, the conference welcomed master's level students, providing them with a unique opportunity to engage with experts. The interactions during breaks, poster sessions and

during the questions and answer sessions offered invaluable insights and guidance to students. The inclusion of master's level students further enriched the conference by fostering a diverse and inclusive environment for knowledge exchange.

The conference included a public lecture delivered by Professor Michel Mayor, Nobel Laureate, Geneva Observatory, Switzerland. His insights and expertise on the search for planets similar to our Earth sparked engaging discussions. Two special lectures were organised on Small Bodies in our Solar System and How to build a habitable planet by Dr. Mohamed Ramy El-Maarry and Dr. Elizabeth Tasker, respectively. As part of the conference program, a vibrant cultural evening was organized at the PRL Thaltej campus on 7 February 2024. This event provided glimpses of Indian music, and dances. Corporate participants of the conference, namely AMOS, ATOS, HHV, AHV, and Luma Optics were given a platform to address the audience during the cultural evening.

The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG), and Indian Planetary Science Association (IPSA) supported the conference by providing funding to students and early career researchers. The early career participants were encouraged by giving recognitions to best posters and best orals in the three respective broad themes of the conference; planets, exoplanets and habitability.

COSPAR Alumni Corner

My COSPAR Capacity Building Fellowship Experience at Johns Hopkins University, MD, USA

[Ruchi Pandey, Post-doctoral Fellow, Astronomy & Astrophysics Division, Physical Research Laboratory, India]

My academic visit to Johns Hopkins University (JHU) through the COSPAR fellowship was incredibly enriching and transformative, leading to valuable personal and professional growth. During my time at JHU, I had the privilege of collaborating with Dr. Lynne Valencic, who served as a mentor during the COSPAR Capacity Building Workshop held at IISER Mohali, India, in 2019. Under her expert guidance, I delved into the complex field of studying dust in the Interstellar medium (ISM) using X-ray data analysis.

Through hands-on training and mentorship under Dr. Valencic, I acquired new skills in X-ray data reduction and analysis using Chandra and XMMNewton satellites, complementing my doctoral dissertation on Optical and Infrared astronomy. This expanded my research horizons, allowing me to explore the study of astrophysical dust in the X-ray wavelength domain, complementing research conducted in the infrared and optical bands.

During my stay at JHU, I also had the opportunity to attend the JHU/STScI Wine and Cheese seminars, regularly held in Bloomberg 462 every

Monday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. This platform not only provided me with a unique opportunity to stay updated on the latest advancements in the field but also facilitated interactions with a diverse and esteemed group of scientists. Additionally, towards the end of my visit, I had the privilege of delivering a 50-minute oral presentation during one of these seminars.

In conclusion, my visit to Johns Hopkins University (JHU) has proven to be a highly transformative experience. It equipped me with a comprehensive set of advanced technical skills, broadened my knowledge base, and facilitated the establishment of invaluable professional connections. As I progress on my path, I carry with me the valuable lessons and experiences acquired during my time at JHU, and I am eager to make significant contributions to research in the future. I am deeply thankful to COSPAR for granting me this invaluable opportunity, as their support made it feasible for me to embark on this rewarding journey.

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 Crucian et al., to summarise their paper on "Palmer Station, Antarctica: A NASA biomedical study validates winterover

PALMER STATION, ANTARCTICA

deployment as a ‘space analog’ for stress studies and validation of countermeasures for deep space missions", which is published in Life Sciences in Space Research, February 2024, Volume 40, pages 151-157 (link).

Followed by Yin et al., who summarise their paper “Protective effect of Baoyuan Jieyu Formula on long-term spaceflight composite stress-induced depressive-like behaviour and memory deficits through regulation of Ca2+ channel currents”

A NASA biomedical study validates winterover deployment as a ‘space analog’ for stress studies and validation of countermeasures for deep space missions.

[Brian Crucian (NASA Johnson Space Center, USA), Douglass Diak (AEGIS, USA), Cody Gutierrez (JES Tech, USA), Satish Mehta (JES Tech, USA)]

Overview

The upcoming deep space missions of the Artemis Program will be a vastly different experience than any previous orbital space mission. All mission stressors, radiation, confined habitability, communication delays and bandwidth, emergency return, etc., will be increased. The ability to care for crewmembers after return, through behavioral support and medical/diagnostic care, will also be constrained. There will be no frequent resupply of fresh food and supplies.

These stressors, in concert, will likely increase the magnitude of clinical risks associated with deep space missions. In particular, International Space Station (ISS) crews manifest a unique pattern of alterations to their immune system. The function of peripheral blood leukocytes (T and NK cells) is diminished. There is a mild, yet persistent increase in inflammation. Supporting the clinical relevance of these findings, ISS crews demonstrate a substantial increase in the reactivation of ‘latent’ viruses. Such viruses, EBV, HSV and VZV in particular, are encountered early in life and are never completely eliminated from the body. They instead establish latency in a particular body site, and their DNA can readily be detected in the blood, saliva or urine of astronauts. Several published case reports have correlated diminished immunity and virus reactivation with adverse clinical events such as atopic dermatitis in astronauts. The good news is that some countermeasures already deployed to ISS are clearly benefiting immune status, particularly improved diet as well as increased aerobic and resistive exercise. Unfortunately, these countermeasures do not readily translate to deep space missions, suggesting the need for a unique ‘immune restorative’ deep space protocol compatible with mission constraints. Also needed is a validated location, terrestrially, to test such a countermeasure.

Ground-Analogs of Spaceflight

There are numerous ground-based ‘spaceflight analogs’, each typically relevant for a specific subset of spaceflight biomedical research. Prolonged head down tilt bed rest, typically up to 90 days, is excellent to reproduce fluid shifts and hypokinesis. Closed chamber confinement, typically in a simulated space vehicle, is appropriate for behavioral health studies. Two decades of research suggests that winterover in Antarctica is superior for studies of spaceflight stress and immunological dysfunction. Essentially, Antarctica deployment replicates to high fidelity many of the synergistic stressors which are causal factors for the immune problem: prolonged isolation, extreme environment, circadian misalignment (24h darkness), ‘station lifestyle’. The latter reflects small, sometimes international, crews inhabiting a limited habitable volume while performing mission operations. Above all this, Antarctica deployment is not really a simulation … the missions are ‘actual’ and do carry legitimate dangers and personal risk.

Biosample collections at the International Space Station (left) and at Palmer Station (right)

Which Base to Validate Spaceflight Countermeasures?

There are many Antarctica bases and the experiences at each can vary tremendously. Interior bases possess a much more extreme environment and more profound isolation. There is also persistent hypobaric hypoxia due to altitude. During the peak winter, subjects are essentially cut off from the outside world as air travel becomes prohibited. Coastal bases, while still in an extreme environment, pose ‘milder’ environmental conditions, a normoxic atmosphere, and more frequent resupply. A series of studies performed by European and NASA scientists found that interior winterover (at Concordia Station), while very similar to spaceflight from a stress perspective, manifested an immune dysfunction somewhat dissimilar from astronauts. The reason was the confounding effect of hypoxia, which is known to be immunostimulatory in nature. For this reason, a NASA team identified Palmer Station as likely the most appropriate coastal station. Palmer, while coastal with a normoxic atmosphere, has a smaller winterover crew who do experience similar lifestyle and stressors to astronauts. For this reason, NASA funded a pilot investigation to determine if Palmer winterover did induce an immune dysregulation similar to that observed in astronauts. The overall goal was to validate a location appropriate for the validation of a deep space countermeasure protocol.

Pilot Study to Validate Palmer for Spaceflight

The National Science Foundation manages all activity at US Antarctica stations. For validation of Palmer, NSF agreed to collaborate with NASA, and facilitated crew-informed consent, sample collection and processing, and eventual return of all biosamples to JSC for analysis. As a ‘pilot’ investigation, assays were selected based on ease of collection, stability for prolonged transport, yet be informative of relevant immunological alterations. Saliva was collected and frozen for latent virus DNA and stress hormones. Blood was collected, and plasma isolated and frozen for determination of cytokine concentrations and virus DNA. Bulk leukocyte subsets were performed on location at Palmer via a fingerstick sample and a robust miniaturized commercial analyzer. Finally, health surveys were completed by the crewmembers in an effort to monitor adverse medical events that might be connected to immune dysregulation. The operational seasons for this activity were 2020 and 2021. Unfortunately, COVID profoundly impacted the operations plan, informed consent and baseline sampling was constrained to ‘during deployment’ and isolation in Chile prior to boarding an icebreaker for transit to Palmer. All overwinter samples were collected, 4x per winterover season, nominally. The data demonstrated that crews manifested immunological alterations that, while in the same general type as that observed in astronauts, were not as profound in nature. This fits the general hypothesis of a ‘stress continuum’ of, and relationship between, stress, immune alterations, and adverse medical events. The data showed that overwinter at Palmer was associated with some alteration of peripheral leukocytes (monocytes, eosinophils), increased saliva cortisol, some alteration in plasma cytokine concentrations (G-CSF, IL-1ra, MIP-1b, TNFa, and RANTES), and elevated reactivation of EBV detected via salivary DNA. Interestingly, there were several individuals who demonstrated reactivation of HSV1 or VZV, a finding observed in astronauts, but almost never seen in terrestrial healthy subjects. Based on these data, the conclusion was that winterover at Palmer is ‘stressful enough’ to induce immunological alterations such that the effectiveness of a countermeasure could be evaluated.

Next Step: Deep Space Countermeasure Validation

Fortuitously, an international team of translational scientists had published an immune countermeasures protocol thought to be compatible with the operational constraints (power, habitable volume, crew time, etc.) of an Artemis lunar mission. The protocol consists of specific nutritional supplementation (vitamin D, probiotic), a deep-space exercise protocol, and stress relieving exercises conducted using a VR headset. Several ISS astronauts have used similar such stress relieving exercises via phone apps. The evaluation of this protocol, to be conducted by an international team, was selected and is currently in evaluation at Palmer Station between 2022-2024. If successful, an ISS validation may be a possibility.

Acknowledgments: The authors wish to thank the winterover crews from Palmer Station, Antarctica who participated in both the 2020 and 2021 deployment seasons, for their support of this investigation. The authors are also grateful for essential support of this study from Jamee Johnson at NSF, and Palmer crewmembers Hannah James, Cindy Chang, Thomas Oswald and Angela Klemmedson.

Here Yin et al., summarise their paper “Protective effect of Baoyuan Jieyu Formula on long-term spaceflight composite stress-induced depressive-like behaviour and memory deficits through regulation of Ca2+ channel currents” published in Life Sciences in Space Research, February 2024, Volume 40, pages 135-142 (link).

Protective effect of Baoyuan Jieyu Formula on long-term spaceflight composite stress-induced depressive-like behaviour and memory deficits through regulation of Ca2+ channel currents

[

YiShu Yin (School of Medicine and Health, Harbin Institute of Technology-HIT, China, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, HIT, China and National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Synthesis, Transformation and Separation of Extreme Environmental Nutrients, China), XiaoRui Wu (China Astronaut Research and Training Center, China), YuanBing Zhu (School of Medicine and Health, HIT, China, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, HIT, China and National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Synthesis, Transformation and Separation of Extreme Environmental Nutrients, China), JunLian Liu, QuanChun Fan, Shuang Zhao, JiaPing Wang, Yu Liu, YongZhi Li (China Astronaut Research and Training Center, China), WeiHong Lu (School of Medicine and Health, HIT, China and National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Synthesis, Transformation and Separation of Extreme Environmental Nutrients, China)]

Overview

The Chinese space station has successfully accommodated three batches of astronauts since its deployment, including crews of the Shenzhou-12 , Shenzhou-13 , and Shenzhou-14 manned spaceships. The stay of astronauts in orbit has also been extended from three months to six months, which means that astronauts may take more time to accomplish more intricate tasks in the future. However, the environment inside the space station is totally distinct from that on Earth. Not only is there microgravity, which is one of the most important modulating factors on astronaut’s health in space, but also factors like restricted accommodation, isolation, noise, circadian rhythm disruptions, and low pressure in the space station. The prolonged exposure to such an extreme environment can have a significant impact on the health and well-being of astronauts, both physically and mentally. Many experimental studies have already shown that the space environment can cause damage to the human cardiovascular system, skeletal system, endocrine system, and especially the central nervous system. According to our previous research, we found that long-term exposure to a simulated space station environment may lead to anxiety, depression, memory loss, and difficulty concentrating in

astronauts, and the Baoyuan Jieyu Formula (BYJYF) can play a modulating role in alleviating these symptoms. BYJYF is a traditional Chinese medicine compound formulated by our team for the psychological stress of long-term space flight, drawn on the experience of ancient and modern well-known medical drugs, and referred to in research results of modern pharmacology. Prescription BYJYF is composed of eight traditional Chinese medicines, including bupleurum, radix paeoniae rubra, turmeric, angelica, licorice, poria, tulips, and polygala. Therefore, we aimed to find the therapeutic effect and underlying mechanism of BYJYF in the treatment of long-term spaceflight composite stress (LSCS)-induced depressive-like behavior and memory deficits. In this experiment, we simulated the real space station environment with five conditions, including tail-suspension, isolation rearing, steady-state noise, circadian rhythm disruptions, and low pressure, for a period of 42 days. Novel object recognition test and forced swimming tests were used to assess the memory abilities and depression level of rats as well as test the therapeutic effects of BYJYF treatment. Results showed LSCS could induce depressive-like behaviour and damage short-term memory, and BYJYF treatment, given at a dose of 8.5 g /kg per day for 42 days, could enhance the ability to resist LSCS. Meanwhile, LSCS increased the levels of corticotropin-releasing hormone, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and cortisol, and induced hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis hyperactivity, which can be relieved by BYJYF treatment. Further, we predicted and verified the potential signaling pathways of BYJYF. Results showed BYJYF may reverse the inhibition of LSCS on Ca2+ channel currents. Furthermore, we also found that BYJYF may exert its medicinal effects via four main active components including saikosaponin A, polygonum saponins, ferulic acid, and curcumin. Collectively, this study demonstrated that BYJYF exhibited antidepression and neuroprotective effects against LSCS-induced depression and memory dysfunction in rats. Its effects may be attributed to the regulation of Ca2+ channel currents. Furthermore, its protective effects may relate to the four active components. Although the understanding of changes under LSCS and its consequences as well as the efficiency of BYJYF are in their infancy, we believe that BYJYF might become a powerful tool against LSCS in the future.

Figure 1:

The schematic diagram of the experimental protocol. The LSCS model was constructed with five conditions, including tail-suspension, isolation rearing, steady-state noise, circadian rhythm disruptions, and low pressure. Briefly, each rat was tailsuspended in an individual cage with ground glass, exposing to continuous 65±2 dBA steady-state noise in the low-pressure cabin with 45 min: 45 min light-dark cycle, which were all controlled by the experiment system. These conditions were to simulate microgravity, isolated, noisy, and the circadian rhythm of 90-minute environment in low-Earth orbit space station. The simulated LSCS environment continued 42 days until the behavioral tests.

COSPAR Publication News

COSPAR Outstanding Paper Awards for Young Scientists

The following awards, reserved for first authors under 31 years of age who publish in Advances in Space Research (ASR) and Life Sciences in Space Research (LSSR) were presented recently for articles published in 2022.

Below are the recipients for papers published in Advances in Space Research :

EARTH SCIENCES

Samet Aksoy (Turkey)

“Assessing the performance of machine learning algorithms for soil salinity mapping in Google Earth Engine platform using Sentinel-2A and Landsat-8 OLI data,” ASR , Volume 69, Issue 2, 15 January 2022, pages 1072-1086, link here

Alexander K. Nickerson (USA)

“On the Evolution of the Gulf of Mexico Loop Current Through Its Penetrative, Ring Shedding and Retracted States”, Volume 69, Issue 11, 1 June 2022, Pages 4058-4077, link here.

Leyuan Sun (China)

“Inter-satellite time synchronization and ranging link assignment for autonomous navigation satellite constellations”, Volume 69, Issue 6, 15 March 2022, Pages 2421-2432, link here.

Mohammad Karimi Firozjaei (Iran)

“Quantification of landscape metrics effects on downscaled urban land surface temperature accuracy of satellite imagery”, Volume 70, Issue 1, 1 July 2022, Pages 35-47, link here.

J. Rene Vazquez-Ontiveros (Mexico)

“Monitoring of local deformations and reservoir water level for a gravity type dam based on GPS observations”, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1 January 2022, Pages 319-330, link here.

ASTRODYNAMICS AND SPACE DEBRIS

Jiyoon Hwang (South Korea)

“Collision avoidance control for formation flying of multiple spacecraft using artificial potential field”, Volume 69, Issue 5, 1 March 2022, Pages 2197-2209, link here.

P. Machuca (USA)

“Dust impact and attitude analysis for JAXA’s probe on the Comet Interceptor mission”, Volume 70, Issue 5, 1 September 2022, Pages 1189-1208, link here

A. Probst (USA)

“Sun Sailing Polar Orbiting Telescope (SunSPOT): A solar polar imaging mission design”, Volume 70, Issue 2, 15 July 2022, Pages 510-522, link here

Tongge Wen (China)

“Natural landing dynamics near the secondary in single-tidal-locked binary asteroids”, Volume 69, Issue 5, 1 March 2022, Pages 2223-2239, link here.

Xu Hui (China)

“Hypersonic reentry trajectory optimization by using improved sparrow search algorithm and control parametrization method”, Volume 69, Issue 6, 15 March 2022, Pages 2512-2524, link here

EARTH MAGNETOSPHERE AND UPPER ATMOSPHERE

Dongsheng Zhao (China)

“Analysis on the ionospheric scintillation monitoring performance of ROTI extracted from GNSS observations in high-latitude regions”, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1 January 2022, Pages 142-158, link here.

Chalachew Lingerew Bizuneh (Ethiopia)

“Long-term temperature and ozone response to natural drivers in the mesospheric region using 16 years (2005–2020) of TIMED/SABER observation data at 5–15°N”, Volume 70, Issue 7, 1 October 2022, Pages 2095-2111, link here.

Chunyuan Zhou (China)

“Neural network-based ionospheric modeling and predicting—To enhance high accuracy GNSS positioning and navigation”, Volume 70, Issue 10, 15 November 2022, Pages 2878-2893, link here.

Sovan Saha (India)

“Investigations of equatorial plasma bubbles as observed in the OI 630 nm nightglow emissions over offequatorial and low-latitudinal locations over Indian longitudes”, Volume 70, Issue 11, 1 December 2022, Pages 3686-3698, link here.

Daochun Yu (China)

“New method for Earth neutral atmospheric density retrieval based on energy spectrum fitting during occultation with LE/Insight-HXMT”, Volume 69, Issue 9, 1 May 2022, Pages 3426-3434, link here

SPACE TECHNOLOGY, POLICY AND EDUCATION

Kun Wang (China)

“Finite-time extended state observer based prescribed performance fault tolerance control for spacecraft proximity operations”, Volume 70, Issue 5, 1 September 2022, Pages 1270-1284, link here.

Bowen Zhan (China)

“Extended-state-observer-based adaptive control of flexible-joint space manipulators with system uncertainties”, Volume 69, Issue 8, 15 April 2022, Pages 3088-3102, link here.

Federico De Grossi (Italy)

“Quantum-inspired diffusion Monte Carlo optimization algorithm applied to space trajectories and attitude maneuvers”, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1 January 2022, Pages 592-608, link here.

Jianning Tang (Australia)

“Extrusion and thermal control design of an on-orbit 3D printing platform”, Volume 69, Issue 3, 1 February 2022, Pages 1645-1661, link here.

Yuan Chai (China)

“Receding task allocation method for modular robots during on-orbit assembly”, Volume 70, Issue 3, 1 August 2022, Pages 780-791, link here

SOLAR SYSTEM BODIES

Jennifer N. Mills (USA)

“Comparison of lunar and Martian regolith simulant-based geopolymer cements formed by alkali-activation for in-situ resource utilization”, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1 January 2022, Pages 761-777, link here

Yunfeng Gao (China)

“Accelerating the finite element method for calculating the full 2-body problem with CUDA”, Volume 69, Issue 5, 1 March 2022, Pages 2305-2318, link here

ASTROPHYSICS

Robin J. Kwik (Canada)

“Galactic component mapping of galaxy UGC 2885 by machine learning classification”, Volume 70, Issue 1, 1 July 2022, Pages 229-247, link here.

SPECIAL ISSUES

Rajat Garg (India)

“Land cover classification of spaceborne multifrequency SAR and optical multispectral data using machine learning”, Volume 69, Issue 4, 15 February 2022, Pages 1726-1742, link here.

Christine Verbeke (Belgium)

“Over-expansion of coronal mass ejections modelled using 3D MHD EUHFORIA simulations”, Volume 70, Issue 6, 15 September 2022, Pages 1663-1683, link here.

The following Outstanding Paper Awards for Young Scientists are awarded for papers published in Life Sciences in Space Research :

Deriesha Gaines (USA)

“Extracellular vesicles-derived microRNAs expression as biomarkers for neurological radiation injury: Risk assessment for space exploration”, Volume 32, pages 54-62, link here

Zeinab Ibrahim (United Arab Emirates)

“Suppression of endoplasmic reticulum stress prevents disuse muscle atrophy in a mouse model of microgravity”, Volume 34, pages 45-52, link here.

Congratulations to all!

Advances in Space Research: Top Reviewers of 2023

Advances in Space Research (ASR) , as with any established scientific journal, insists on a rigorous peerreview process to maintain the integrity and quality of its published papers. An essential part of this process is the reviewer, spending his or her valuable time using unique expertise to evaluate the scientific quality of a manuscript and help the Editor make a fair and timely decision.

To further highlight the vital importance of reviewers to the quality ASR publications, the Editors have selected their top reviewers for the year 2023, taking into account criteria such as the number and the quality of the referee reports performed during this year. By publishing the names and short biographies of these selected reviewers in this issue of Space Research Today , we would like to acknowledge their valuable efforts. Their names are also acknowledged on the journal homepage of ASR

We feel deeply obliged to all ASR reviewers who have contributed this past year who are not mentioned here, and we sincerely thank all of them for bringing the journal up to its current scientific standard.

Pascal Willis , ASR Editor-in-Chief

Elbaz I. Abouelmagd is Full Professor of Celestial Mechanics and Space Dynamics at the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG), Cairo, Egypt. He has had several academic positions in different universities and research institutes through 2005 to date. He has founded the Celestial Mechanics and Space Dynamics Research Group (CMSDRG) of NRIAG.

His main research interests are studying the behavior of the dynamical system, which describe physical phenomena, and in particular the mathematical systems that are concerned with the problems of astronomical systems, celestial mechanics and space dynamics. More precisely, his research is oriented to study the motion of infinitesimal bodies under the effect of various perturbing forces and analyze the stability of motion. The perturbation methods are the main tools used to find periodic solutions. Furthermore, the numerical techniques can be used to evaluate the possible solutions.

Dr. Abouelmagd has authored/co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed papers in respected journals. He has served as editor, member of Editorial Board and potential reviewer of several journals, indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. He has also reviewed hundreds of papers for many international Journals. He has also developed and participated in many international scientific projects. He has given several invited talks in international conferences in the field of space science.

The produced work is reflected in his H-Index of 29 in Scopus and Clarivate Databases, his receiving the Award of Scientific Abundance from NRIAG for five consecutive years (2018 – 2022). His name was included in the annual list of the world's top 2% of scientists according to the US Stanford University study in 2021 and 2023.

Dr. Dieter Bilitza obtained his PhD from the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg, Germany in 1984. His area of expertise is ionospheric physics and space weather. He is the principal author of the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI), a widely-used model for the ionosphere for applications in science, engineering and education. IRI was selected as the ISO (International Standardization Organization) standard for the ionosphere and is recognized as such by many other international organizations including COSPAR, URSI (International Union of Radio Science), ITU (International Telecommunication Union), and ECSS (European Cooperation for Space Standardization).

He is currently working on improvements of the IRI model in the lower ionosphere, on its extension to the plasmasphere, and on a better representation of real-time conditions by assimilating real-time measurements of characteristic parameters into the IRI background model. With colleagues at NASA’s Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) he developed the very popular Modelweb interface that was later migrated to NASA’s Community Coordinated Modelling Center (CCMC).

He has authored and co-authored over 170 refereed journal articles, served as editor for two dozen special issues and contributed chapters to five books. He is the recipient of the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) Young Scientist Award (1984), the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Space Radiation Fellowship Award (1987), the NASA Space Science Achievement Award (2007), the Kristian Birkeland Medal for Space Weather and Space Climate (2013), and the Karl Rawer Gold Medal of the International Union of Radio Science (2017).

Norma B. Crosby has an interdisciplinary background in space physics, engineering, and administration. She has a PhD in astrophysics and space technology (University of Paris 7, France), a Master of Science in chemical engineering (Technical University of Denmark, Denmark), and has participated in the International Space University Summer Session Programme.

Her main research interests cover the analysis and interpretation of solar flares, solar energetic particle events, statistical analyses of space plasma data, extreme space phenomena events, effects of space weather phenomena on technology and human health, and self-organized criticality. She has worked at various institutes in Europe as well as ESA/ESTEC and NASA/GSFC. Since 2002 she has been working as a research scientist at the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Belgium, where her function as co-leader of the Space Weather Group concerns linking basic and applied research.

She is Coordinator of the ESA Space Weather Service Network Space Radiation Expert Service Centre.

Dr. Vittorio Franzese focuses on problems of autonomous navigation and systems engineering for deep-space CubeSats. He is currently a Research Associate at University of Luxembourg and has acted as project manager for spacecraft missions on several Earth-observation and deep-space CubeSat mission projects. He was a post-doctoral researcher at Politecnico di Milano, Italy and he holds a PhD cum laude from the Politecnico di Milano and the European Space Agency with research on autonomous space missions, optical navigation, model-based systems engineering, and miniaturized components for the new space era. He was involved in several space missions as the ESA LUMIO lunar CubeSat mission, the ESA M-ARGO mission, and the ESA Milani deep-space CubeSat. He is currently working on PocketQube missions at University of Luxembourg.

Astronomer Oleg Malkov, was born in Moscow, Russia in 1961. In 1978, having graduated from school, he entered the Physics Faculty of Moscow State University (Astronomy Department) and graduated in 1984. From March 1984 he has been working at the Institute of Astronomy (called the Astronomical Council of the Soviet Acad. Sci. prior to December 1990) as, consecutively, a probation-researcher, a junior researcher, a researcher, a senior researcher, a leading researcher and Head of Department of Physics of Stellar Systems. He has also conducted scientific research and taught at academic institutions and observatories in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and several developing countries. In 2004 he defended a thesis in astrophysics titled “Binary stars and the initial mass function”, and received his doctorate. He is the scientific secretary of the National Committee of Russian Astronomers.

Oleg Malkov is the author of about 250 scientific papers, most of them published in the fields of astrophysics and stellar astronomy. He has participated in about 120 international conferences.

In the 1980s and 1990s, in collaboration with A. Piskunov, he improved methods of determination of star formation history in the Galaxy. He revised current views on the initial mass function and showed, in particular, that correct application of the mass-luminosity relation as well as taking into account components of binary stars led to the conclusion that the Initial Mass Function (IMF) of subsolar mass stars could be power-low. The results he obtained made it possible to move towards a definite decision on one of the most fundamental astrophysical problem, the origin of the stellar mass spectrum.

Since the mid-2000s, together with his colleagues, Oleg Malkov has been developing a complex scientific approach to study of binary stars of different observational types. He has proposed another source of local missing mass and has shown that correct registration of photometrically unresolved binary systems can significantly increase the amount of visible matter. He has found (and explained by evolution and selection effects) a noticeable difference in radii and temperatures for components of eclipsing binaries and single stars of the corresponding spectral type.

As a result, he has constructed a modern mass-luminosity relation for intermediate mass stars. He has participated in the development of the Gaia space mission photometric system, and has estimated Gaia’s possibility to discover binary stars. Twelve stellar catalogues were constructed under his leadership or with his participation. In collaboration with D. Kovaleva and P. Kaygorodov he designed the world’s largest database on binary and multiple systems of all observational types, BDB.

Oleg Malkov is now professor of astronomy at Moscow State University. He has developed university courses on astronomical data, binary stars, and stellar evolution, and he teaches them in universities and observatories around the world.

He is a member of the European Astronomical Society, International Astronomical Union, Euro-Asian Astronomical Society, Scientific Council on Astronomy of the Russian Acad. Sci., and the International Astrostatistics Association. He is an executive member of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance and a council member of the Russian Virtual Observatory.

He is head of the Russian regional science operation centre in the international space project WSO-UV (Spektr-UF), which is included in the federal space program of Russia. A principal goal of the project is to construct, by 2021, a large space ultraviolet observatory to solve fundamental problems of astrophysics, cosmology and physics.

Oleg Malkov is a permanent member of scientific organizing committees of several Russian and international conferences, he is a reviewer of scientific journals and scientific foundations. He has been active in scientific popularization and makes frequent statements on television and in the print media.

Olga Maltseva is the leading researcher in the Research Institute for Physics of Southern Federal University in Rostov-on-Don, Russia (department of radio physics and space researches).

During her long career she has published numerous papers and some monographs in the area of modeling propagation of radio waves of different frequency bands in the ionosphere and magnetosphere. She maintains friendly and creative relations with many colleagues, and has participated in many international conferences.

Her current interests include verification of empirical ionospheric models, assimilation of the total electron content TEC into these models, and the study of impact of magnetic storms on the global TEC distributions.

Alison de Oliveira Moraes holds a BS in telecommunications engineering (2003) from University of Taubate (UNITAU), SP, Brazil, and a DSc in electronic and computer engineering (2013) from Aeronautics Technological Institute (ITA), SP, Brazil.

Currently he serves as a senior technologist at the Institute of Aeronautics and Space (IAE), SP, Brazil, where he designs and develops space vehicle payloads, focusing on avionics and systems engineering. Over the course of his career, he has supervised more than 50 undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students. Dr. Moraes has a research portfolio of over 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Since 2017, he has been Associate Editor of the Journal of Aerospace Technology and Management (JATM). Additionally, he has provided more than 175 verified peer reviews for different academic journals. His main research interests are focused on fading communication channels, GNSS applications for space weather monitoring, GNSS augmentation systems, low-cost electronic platforms for the dissemination of scientific knowledge, avionics, and temporal, spectral, and statistical analysis of aerospace data.

Heike Peter is senior consultant at PosiTim UG in Germany. She received her PhD in satellite geodesy from the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern (AIUB) in Switzerland in 2003.

Her main research interests are the precise orbit modelling of Low Earth Orbiting Satellites (e.g., Swarm, Sentinel, Spire CubeSats) using the three space observation techniques GNSS, DORIS and SLR and GNSS data processing in general.

Since 2014 she has been working for PosiTim and she is a member of the Copernicus POD Service, a European consortium responsible for delivering orbital and auxiliary data products of the Copernicus Sentinel satellites to corresponding user communities. She is associate member of several international organisations such as International GNSS Service (IGS), International Laser Ranging Service (ILRS), International DORIS Service (IDS), and International Association of Geodesy (IAG). She has been involved in the activities of the COSPAR Panel on Satellite Dynamics (PSD) for more than ten years. Recently she became a member of the Editorial Board of COSPAR’s information bulletin Space Research Today as Associated Editor.

Brigitte Schmieder is Professor Emeritus at the Observatoire de Paris where she began her career and was a professor from 1991 to 2012. She was Adjunct Professor between 1996 and 2006 at the University of Oslo, Norway. She is presently a visiting professor at the University KU Leuven, the Netherlands, and since 2020, an Honorary Professor at the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom). She was vice-president of SCOSTEP between 2007-2011 and developed the CAWSES program.

In 2010, in France, she received the honor of knight, and in 2012, officer of the Légion d’Honneur for her research and teaching. She received an award from SCOSTEP in 2015.

Her PhD thesis focused on the study of acoustic waves for heating the solar corona. Her main research interests focus on ground-based and space observations of dynamical events in the solar corona (eruption, prominences and jets). She recently expanded her interests to heliospheric activity with coronal mass ejections, solar wind and particle acceleration.

She has published more than 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals and has organized many sessions in the COSPAR General Assembly.

Prof. Krzysztof Sośnica obtained a PhD in physics at the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern, Switzerland. Currently, he is a professor in the field of satellite geodesy at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics of Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Poland. His research focuses on the development of satellite observation techniques, in particular Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, and QZSS, as well as the integration of Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) and GNSS observations, gravity field determination, Earth rotation, precise orbit determination, and general relativistic effects in geodesy. Krzysztof Sośnica is a fellow member of the International Association of Geodesy, a member of the ESA GNSS Scientific Advisory Board (GSAC), and the Governing Board member of the Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS). He was principal investigator in many projects, including “Determination of global geodetic parameters using the Galileo satellite system”, “Integrated terrestrial reference frames based on SLR observations to geodetic, LEO, and GNSS satellites”, “EAGLE - EArth Gravity fieLd Evolution”, “Innovative methods of tropospheric delay modelling in satellite laser ranging”. He was also involved in international projects, such as ESA’s “Fundamental Techniques, models and Algorithms for a Lunar Radio Navigation System” or “EPOS: European Plate Observing System”.

He has authored more than 70 peer-reviewed scientific publications published in Journal of Geodesy, GPS Solutions, Advances in Space Research, Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Acta Astronautica, Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, Earth, Planets and Space , and many others. He has supervised five successful doctoral theses and currently supervises five PhD candidates. He has served as a reviewer in doctoral proceedings in Poland, Germany, Switzerland, and Finland.

Jungang Wang is a postdoc researcher at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. He received his PhD in Geodesy from TU Berlin in 2021, and later worked as a postdoc researcher at GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Germany and Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, China.

His main research focus is the data analysis of space geodetic techniques including Global Navigation Satellite Systems, Very Long Baseline Interferometry, Satellite Laser Ranging, and the multi-technique combination. He developed the VLBI and SLR modules in the Positioning And Navigation Data Analyst (PANDA) software. He also focuses on the atmospheric delay effects in space geodetic techniques, GNSS precise orbit determination, and realtime GNSS applications.

Dr. Zheng Hong (George) Zhu is a Professor and Tier 1 York Research Chair in Space Technology (2017-2022) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at York University in Toronto, Canada. He was the inaugural Academic Director of Research Commons (2019-2022) in the Office of Vice-President of Research and Innovation. He is also Honorary Treasurer of the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering. Before he joined York University in 2006, he was a research associate at the University of Toronto, Canada (1993-1995) and then senior stress/structural engineer at Curtiss-Wright Indal Technologies, Canada (1995-2006).

His research includes the dynamics and control of tethered spacecraft, autonomous space robotics, visual servo, CubeSat technology, and additive manufacturing in space. He has published over 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He is an elected Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics, College Member of the Royal Society of Canada, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Canada, Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, Fellow of the Canadian Society of Mechanical Engineering, Fellow of American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Associate fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Dr. Zhu is the recipient of 2021 York University President’s Research Excellence Award, 2021 Robert W. Angus Medal from Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering, and the 2019 Engineering Medal – R&D from Professional Engineers Ontario.

Life Sciences in Space Research (LSSR)

COSPAR Outstanding Paper Award for Young Scientists – 2022

The Editorial Board of Life Sciences in Space Research is pleased to introduce the recipients of the Outstanding Paper Award for Young Scientists for papers that appeared in Life Sciences in Space Research in 2022:

Dr. Deriesha Gaines is recognized for her manuscript entitled “Extracellular vesicles-derived microRNAs expression as biomarkers for neurological radiation injury: Risk assessment for space exploration”. Deriesha grew up in New Orleans, LA, obtained her B.Sc. degree in chemistry from Dillard University and Ph.D. degree in molecular science and nanotoxicology at the Louisiana Tech University. Her research focuses on radiation-induced exosomal microRNA changes and RNA purification technology for space research applications. Through her studies she saw firsthand how concepts and inventions can change industries, enhance lives, and pave the way for the discovery of other worlds which could also help us to understand our own.

Life Sciences in Space Research (2022) 32: 54-62.

Ms. Zeinab Ibrahim is a teaching assistant and third-year Ph.D. student in the College of Medicine at the University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Her paper entitled “ Suppression of endoplasmic reticulum stress prevents disuse muscle atrophy in a mouse model of microgravity” was selected by the editors among two dozen eligible entries for the recognition. In her acceptance statement, Zeinab mentioned that “Astronauts in space experience a unique environment with reduced gravitational forces. My research focuses on studying the impact of microgravity on cardiovascular and skeletal muscle health, as well as the composition of gut microbiota using mouse models. I'm really passionate about advancing scientific knowledge in these areas and making meaningful contributions to the field.”

Life Sciences in Space Research (2022) 34: 45-52.

Book Reviews

JAPAN IN SPACE

Past, Present and Future

By Brian Harvey, 2023, Praxis/Springer, ISBN 978-3-031-45573-5; doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-45573-5

[Richard Harrison, General Editor, SRT]

Brian Harvey is an established author on the Japanese space programme through the pages of two previous books that focused on emerging space nations. This particular book now centres on Japan, alone, in celebration of 50 years in space, since the first Japanese satellite launch in 1970. It stresses the major part Japan is now playing on the international space scene, illustrating the breadth and depth of their programme.

The book starts with the incredible journey, from 1944 occupied France, of the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-29, with Commander Eiichi Iwaya on board, heading for Japan with the German Reich’s rocket engine designs. I won’t reveal the details here, of course, but this was key to what was to become Japan’s space programme and it is indeed a compelling story in the lead up to Japan’s first rockets.

It is fascinating to see the impact of the International Geophysical Year (IGY 1957) on Japan’s development of rocket flight, noting that the IGY also gave major impetus to the emerging space programmes world-wide. I have to say that Harvey’s book doesn’t just go through a list of dates and events; he includes the personal and human side of the programme. For example, following the efforts of Dr Hideo Itokawa as he led the early rocket tests in what seems now like a primitive environment, including comments on the impacts of launches on local fishing and settlements, and even stopping trains.

The latter years of the 1950s saw the setting up of the Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS) at the University of Tokyo and there was an extremely active and successful programme of Kappa suborbital rocket flights. I won’t tell the whole story, but the book stresses that, following the Lambda

4S rocket’s success in placing a satellite on orbit in February 1970, Japan’s history of successful robotic missions in numerous aspects of space exploration and science has underlined the country’s place as a major space power. As described in detail in Chapter 2 of Harvey’s book, this includes an impressive array of space science missions, including the solar science missions Yohkoh and Hinode, the Geotail geomagnetic mission, the astronomy missions Akari (infrared) and Suzaku (X-ray), to name but a few.

The book continues with a section on Technology, Society and Economy, which, among many other things, covers the formation of NASDA (the National Space Development Agency), particularly after industrial pressure on government and a number of political issues on the international stage, and goes on to describe new rocket and launch site activities.

This chapter is key in outlining the developments that consolidated the Japanese space programme, and also the barriers that they had to overcome. In many ways, the fourth chapter outlines how Japan matured into a major player on the space scene, through its deep space achievements. This started in the mid-1980s with the Sakigake probe and its smaller forerunner, Suisei, with a joint mission to comet Halley.

A decade later, another double mission saw two Japanese probes, Hiten and Hagoromo, confirm Japan as the third nation to reach the Moon. In 1998, Japan launched its Mars mission, Nozomi. Despite some problems in preparing to leave the Earth-Moon system, the impacts of solar activity damaged the spacecraft electrical systems. The final straw to a valiant attempt to reach Mars. However, boosted by the experiences and kudos gained from the earlier probes, in 2003, Japan launched its Hayabusa probe, an extraordinary mission to visit an asteroid and return samples. This

mission experienced potential disasters, some luck and a string of wonderful manoeuvres, ultimately bringing the samples home. Shortly after this, among other missions, Japan returned to the Moon with the Kaguya mission, and flew the Akatsuki probe to Venus, and even followed up the success of Hayabusa with Hayabusa-2. This was followed by a private mission to the Moon with Hakuto, which did reach the Moon, but the landing was not successful and the mission was lost. Nevertheless, it demonstrated that in Japan, as elsewhere, private companies were developing critical capability.

Harvey’s book goes on to describe Japan’s activities in human spaceflight, with initial interests in involvement with the US Shuttle and the Spacelab missions, but with the first Japanese astronaut flying in late 1990 to the Russian MIR space station. This was followed, though, by the Spacelab J (J for Japan) flight on the Shuttle, in 1992, and these early activities developed ultimately into a major involvement in the International Space Station. The latter sections of the book take us right up to date not just with Japanese involvements in missions with ESA such as JUICE (to the Jovian Moons) and BepiColombo (to Mercury), and with the recent SLIM lunar lander, but also look ahead with planned missions, and with human flight opportunities with Japanese involvement in the Artemis programme.

This review has been written to stress the depth and breadth of the programme, and to highlight the fact that Harvey tells the story with great completeness and authority. He shows that the Japanese programme has been ambitious, highly successful and, to be honest, a programme for the Japanese nation to be proud of. I feel that the story is relayed with passion and certainly held my interest.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in human activities in space!

THE FUTURE OF GEOGRAPHY

How Power and Politics in Space Will Change our World

By Tim Marshall, 2023, Elliott & Thompson, ISBN 9781783966875

[Leigh Fergus, Executive Editor, SRT]

This book was suggested to me by a cousin who is Head of Geography in a secondary school in the UK and I started on the first chapter with no real expectations, except that she said it was about space! It was, however, a pleasant surprise and is an engaging read.

As a journalist rather than a space expert, Tim Marshall crafts a good story—you get a sense of his ‘brand’ from his previous books The Power of Geography and Prisoners of Geography . This, his most recent book, is a real page turner, accessibly structured in three sections: The Path to the Stars; Right Here, Right Now; and Future Past. The Path to the Stars gives a welcome background to the history of astronomy right up to the first landings on the Moon. I appreciated his broad introduction, helpful in putting into perspective more recent activity in space research and applications, as well as fascinating facts about Tsiolkovsky, for example, the Father of Rocketry, the pupniks, the Cold War space race, and litter on the Moon.

Right Here, Right Now, deals with issues of current concern, including the problems of space debris, space weather, space law and planetary defence— all areas well represented in COSPAR Panels. There are also dedicated chapters for China, the USA and Russia, describing their achievements in space counterbalanced with their limitations. China’s chapter, The Long March...into Space, profiles the role of Qian Xuesen, the Father of Chinese Rocketry, for example, mentions China’s discovery of a new mineral on the Moon, as well as analysing the growing importance of the private sector and the nation’s ambitious space programme. The chapter USA: Back to the Future covers the USA’s approach to the Moon, the highs and lows of space in the public and political arenas, gives us a summary of events like Operation Burnt Frost, outlines the Artemis Agreements and introduces private actors in new space. Russia in Retrograde

is self-explanatory, as Russia “was once cutting edge; now it’s being cut out.”

The Future Past section proposes worst case scenarios of space war, giving pause for thought, and also has a realistic take on the future, with the challenges, both human and physical, of setting up habitats elsewhere. Let’s just say it’s not all rosy!

From the full title, the remit is clearly geopolitics, and from a western perspective—I would have liked a chapter for India and Japan, at least, but they are not absent in the book. For detailed analysis of the science behind space exploration, this is not what to read, but if you’re looking for an entertaining, accessible guide to the state of play in space exploration today, generously interspersed with references to science fiction and amusing quotes, The Future of Geography will take you on a fascinating journey.

What Caught the Editor’s Eye

[Richard Harrison, Space Research Today General Editor]

One thing that certainly caught my eye recently was the re-entry of ERS-2. This spacecraft and its sister spacecraft ERS-1 were the trailblazers for the way we monitor Earth’s atmosphere and sea temperatures and, as such, hold a key position in the history of space applications. As someone who was working at one of the institutes closely involved with the mission at the time of the launch, the news not only highlighted my age, but also the achievements of the mission. There is a nice, brief summary of the impact of the mission at https://www.esa.int/ ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/02/ERS-2_ achievements. I would draw your attention also, to the Snapshot in this issue of SRT, which shows an image of the spacecraft in the early stages of reentry.

One specific paper that has just caught my eye is entitled “Earth as an Exoplanet. III. Using empirical thermal emission spectra as an input for atmospheric retrieval of an Earth-twin Exoplanet” by Mettler at al., published in Astrophysical Journal (issue 962, doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ad198b). Exoplanet science is not my area of research but I love the idea of looking back at the Earth and using what we know about Earth as a proxy for studying Exoplanets. I am sure that there must be many associated papers with the same approach, but this paper raises a question that is both intriguing and exciting: Could we identify Earth as a likely place that has developed life, from a range of likely indicators? You could say that it is a relief that the authors are very positive about a correct identification! Perhaps the most important

aspect of the study is the statement that the study “demonstrates that next generation space missions can assess whether nearby temperate terrestrial exoplanets are habitable or even inhabited”.

At the end of 2023 I formally retired from my role at the UK’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), after a career at the Laboratory for 37 years and a total career in solar physics of 44 years. I have not retired from my role as General Editor of SRT! However, whilst I can perhaps sit back a little more now, I do still intend to dabble in research and I have an Honorary Scientist role at RAL. Reaching this milestone leads to the inevitable sorting of the paperwork in the office and, sifting through the papers of the last 3-4 decades really emphasised a few things. My early papers were in the days of contour plots and sketches, with typewriters and the submission (by post) of manuscripts along with any associated photographic plates. Browsing through those papers, whilst they look primitive, I was pleased to see that the science had impact and relevance, but I have to say that my more recent papers reflect those of the wider community, with sophisticated data-analysis and display tools, with links to movies and with high-resolution colour images, and, for me, seeing the contrast was a real eye-opener. In many ways, I guess we do not often go back and read our old papers and browsing through my own work while I sorted the office was a fascinating experience in illustrating the journey we have all gone through in displaying, analysing and interpreting our data. It does make you wonder what someone starting up in a space career now would see in their publications in 30 years.

Letter to the Editor

J.C. Maxwell Had Almost Solved the Dense Rings Origin Problem, But in his Time there was No Data on Particles

[

Vladimir V. Tchernyi (Modern Science Institute, SAIBR, Russia), Sergey V. Kapranov (AO Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas, Russia)]

J.C. Maxwell proved that Saturn’s dense rings consist of individual particles. It seems he was one step away from solving the problem of the origin of rings, but in his time, knowledge about the nature of particles was not enough. Analysis of the Cassini data led us to the conclusion that the ice particles in the rings are diamagnetic. This gave us the opportunity to propose a mechanism

Introduction

G. Galilei observed the dense (visible) rings of Saturn in 1610. In 1856, J.C. Maxwell proved that the rings consist of individual orbiting particles [1] It seemed that he was close to a complete solution to the problem of the origin of dense rings, but in his time there was no knowledge about the detailed nature of the dense ring particles.

for the origin of dense rings from the particles of a protoplanetary cloud with a radius of the Roche limit influence by Saturn’s magnetic field. The force of diamagnetic expulsion acts on the particles together with gravitational and centrifugal forces. As a result, the orbits of ice particles move into the plane of the magnetic equator and create stable dense rings with separated particles.

Existing gravitational models are not able to explain convincingly the observed features of dense rings [2, 3] , such as the origin of a stable ring system, the equilibrium separation of particles within the entire ring system, etc. They can only give an idea of where the ice in the rings came from.

Magnetic anisotropic accretion in the origin of Saturn's dense rings

In 1947, G. Kuiper proposed that the particles consisted of ice. Indeed, the Cassini space probe found particles are 90-95% water ice [4, 5] . Cassini measured the ratio of heavy and light hydrogen isotopes in the ice of the dense rings and found it to be the same as in ice on the Earth [6] . The form of ice known as Ice XI is stable below 73K and it is diamagnetic [7, 8] . At the location of the dense rings, Saturn’s magnetic field appears to be very steady and dominated by a dipolar component [9] . For Saturn, the magnetic equator coincides with the geographical one [10] . Saturn has a spherically symmetric gravitational field and an axisymmetric magnetic field with magnetic equator.

We use the theory of small nebula by V. Safronov [11] . In addition to gravitational forces, we introduce the additional influence of Saturn’s magnetic field on particles in the protoplanetary cloud with the radius of Roche limit due to the force of diamagnetic expulsion [12-15] . As a result, the orbits of all particles begin to shift towards the plane of the magnetic equator, where the magnetic energy of the particles is minimal. Magnetic anisotropic accretion is the process of action of a magnetic field on particles [13-15]

Eventually, the protoplanetary cloud (Figure 1a) collapses into a disk of particles (Figure 1c) . In the end, all the particles are trapped inside a three-dimensional magnetic well in the plane of the magnetic equator and have formed a disk-shaped ring system. For a particle moving in orbit, the gravitational force is balanced by the centrifugal force and the force of diamagnetic expulsion.

Figure 1: The collapse of Saturn’s protoplanetary cloud with the radius of Roche limit into a disk of dense rings after the influence on the ice particles of Saturn’s magnetic field and gravity.

We solved the dynamic problem of the movement of a sole diamagnetic spherical particle in the gravitational and magnetic fields [12] . For the constant orbital radius solution is reduced to an equation for the azimuthal angle Ѳ of the particle motion:

(1)

where A and B are the constants related to the gravitational and magnetic forces, respectively. We see the analytical solution of this equation shows that all stable orbits of ice particles are locked in the magnetic equator plane, Ѳ = π /2. The gravitational force acting on the orbiting particle is counterbalanced by both the centrifugal force and the force of diamagnetic expulsion.

Thus an additional axisymmetric magnetic force is exerted on the particles, their circular orbits fall on the magnetic equatorial plane. It follows from the solution of equation (1) and as established in several spacecraft missions to Saturn.

Separation particles of the Saturn’s dense rings

J. Maxwell proved the orbits of the rings consist of individual particles [1] . In the magnetic field of Saturn, the particles of diamagnetic ice acquire their own magnetization, opposite in sign to the magnetic field of Saturn. The study of the separation of ice particles due to their magnetization will also contribute to Maxwell's analysis. For diamagnetic particles, this leads to their repulsion due to the magnetic force. Also, the particles are attracted to each other due to the gravitational force. When the gravitational force and the magnetic repulsion force are equal, we get an expression for the equilibrium distance between the particles in the rings:

where μ and μ 0 are magnetic permeability of the particle material and free space, respectively;

(2)

R is the particle radius, r Sp is the radial distance between the centers of Saturn and the spherical particle, M p is the mass of particle with magnetic moment m p, m s is the magnitude of magnetic moment of Saturn, G is the gravitational constant.

Conclusion

We have demonstrated that the magnetization of the diamagnetic ice particles of the protoplanetary cloud and the effect of magnetic anisotropic accretion make it possible to understand the origin of Saturn's dense rings. Saturn's magnetism explains the separation of particles in the rings.

J.C. Maxwell, the founder of electromagnetic theory, was close to solving the problem of the origin of rings when in 1856 he proved the orbits of rings consist of separated particles. But knowledge that particles are made up mainly of ice was obtained by the Cassini probe 150 years later (2004-2017).

References

1. Maxwell J.C. On the Stability of the Motion of Saturn’s Rings. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 1859; 19: 297-304.

https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/19.8.297

2. Canup R.M. Origin of Saturn’s Rings and Inner Moons by Mass Removal from a Lost Titan-sized Satellite. Nature. 2010; 468: 943-946.

3. Crida A., Charnoz S. Solar System: Recipe for Making Saturn’s Rings. Nature. 468, 2010; 468: 903905.

Figure 2: Dependence of the repulsion and attraction forces on distance between particles.

4. Cuzzi J.N., Burns J.A., Charnoz S., Clark R.N., Colwell J.E., et al. An Evolving View of Saturn’s Dynamic Rings. Science. 2010; 327(5972): 1470-1475.

5. Esposito L.W. Composition, Structure, Dynamics, and Evolution of Saturn’s Rings. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science. 2010; 38: 383-410.

6. Clark R.N., Brown R.H., Cruikshank D.P., Swayze G.A.. Isotopic Ratios of Saturn’s Rings and Satellites: Implications for the Origin of Water and Phoebe. Icarus. 2019; 3212: 791-802.

7. Hemley R. Effects of High Pressure on Molecules. Annual Review of Physical Chemistry. 2000; 51: 763800.

8. Tchernyi V.V., Kapranov S.V. To the Problem of the Properties of Saturn’s Rings’ Ice. Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society. 2021; 5(10): 255.

9. André N., Blanc M., Maurice S., et al.  Identification of Saturn's magnetospheric regions and associated plasma processes: Synopsis of Cassini observations during orbit insertion. Reviewes of Geophysics. 2008; 46: 4.

10. Dougherty M., Cao H., Khurana K., et al. (2018). Saturn’s magnetic field revealed by the Cassini Grand Finale. Science. 2018; 362: 6410.

11. Safronov S.V. Evolution of the Protoplanetary Cloud and Formation of the Earth and Planets. Washington, D.C. NASA, 1972.

12. Tchernyi V.V., Kapranov S.V. Contribution of Magnetism to the Origin of Saturn’s Rings. The Astrophysical Journal. 2020; 894(62), 6pp.

13. Tchernyi V.V. AAS Journal Author Series: Vladimir Tchernyi on 2020ApJ…894…62T, https://youtu.be/ La7RmcWGUTQ, 18 Sept. 2020.

14. Tchernyi V.V., Kapranov S.V., Pospelov A.Yu., Chensky E.V., Milovanov Yu.B. Importance of Magnetic Anisotropic Accretion and Quantum Phenomena for the Saturn’s Rings Origin, Formation and Stability of Particles. 43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly, 28 January – 4 February 2021, Sydney, Australia, B0.1.

15. Tchernyi V.V. The Role of Magnetic Field of Saturn for the Rings Origin: Diamagnetism and Quantum Phenomena - Why Maxwell was so close to solve this problem. XXXIV General Assembly and Scientific Symposium URSI, Rome, Italy, 28 Aug. - 4 Sept. 2021. Short courses, SC06. 3 hours. P. 25, 32, 34. SuSC06-PM6-1, Su-SC06-PM7-1.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vladimir Tchernyi has a PhD and Dr.Sci. in radiophysics, including quantum radiophysics and he is Professor. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society.

He used to work as a research scientist at the Moscow Kotel'nikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and at the Moscow General Physics Institute of RAS. He has also been a research scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He organized and headed the Department of Radiophysics at Volgograd State University, Russia. Since 2008 he has been the director of the nongovernmental not-for-profit Modern Science Institute, Moscow, busy with research in applied physics. He has published more than 200 research articles in the area of space and applied physics.

He has lectured around the world, presenting talks at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, USA, for example, the Astronomy Institute in Honolulu of Hawaii, USA, the Astronomy Institute of University of Argentina at La Plata, at the University of Alexandria, Egypt, to mention but a few. During 2019-2022 he presented talks at the International Symposium on Superconductivity and Magnetism, Xi’an, China, at the International Conference of Physics & Networks, Houston, USA, at the 235th AAS Meeting, the 43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly, XXXIV URSI GASS, Europlanet Science Congress 2021, 53rd DPS AAS Meeting 2021, the 12th Moscow international Solar System Symposium, 238th AAS Meeting, 53rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, and the 44th COSPAR Scientific Assembly.

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

Snapshots : striking space research related images (e.g. a spacecraft launch, a planetary encounter image, a large solar flare, or a historical image, particularly related to COSPAR) for which we require the image and a single paragraph caption, plus the image credit.

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.

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 Partners is Lockheed Martin Corporation , USA and Northrop Grumman, 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

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 B on Space Studies of the Earth-Moon System, Planets, and Small Bodies of the Solar System

H. Yano (Japan; Chair)

B. Foing (Netherlands), R. Lopes (USA)

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)

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 F on Life Sciences as Related to Space

T.K. Hei (USA; Chair)

G. Baiocco (Italy), J. Kiss (Germany),

P. Rettberg (Germany), Y. Sun (China)

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)

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 Education (PE)

R. Doran (Portugal; Chair)

M.C. Damas (USA), S. Benitez Herrera (Spain), G. Rojas (Portugal)

Panel on Potentially Environmentally Detrimental Activities in Space (PEDAS)

C. Frueh (USA),

C. Pardini (Italy)

Panel on Exploration (PEX)

M. Blanc (France; Chair), B. Foing (Netherlands), C. McKay (USA), F. Westall (France)

Panel on Interstellar Research (PIR)

R. McNutt (USA; Chair)

R. Wimmer-Schweingruber (Germany)

Panel on Innovative Solutions (PoIS)

E.H. Smith (USA, Chair)

G. Danos (Cyprus), I. Kitiashvili (USA)

Panel on Planetary Protection (PPP)

A. Coustenis (France; Chair)

P. Doran (USA), N. Hedman (UNOOSA)

Panel on Radiation Belt Environment Modelling (PRBEM)

Y. Miyoshi (Japan, Chair)

A. Brunet (France), Y. Shprits (Germany), Y. Zheng (USA)

Panel on Technical Problems Related to Scientific Ballooning (PSB)

M. Abrahamsson (Sweden; Chair)

V. Dubourg (France), H. Fuke (Japan), E. Udinski (USA)

Technical Panel on Satellite Dynamics (PSD)

H. Peter (Germany; Chair)

A. Jäggi (Switzerland), S. Jin (China), F. Topputo (Italy)

Panel on Social Sciences and Humanities (PSSH)

I. Sourbès-Verger (France; Chair)

N. Hedman (Austria)

Panel on Space Weather (PSW)

M. Kuznetsova (USA; Chair)

J.E.R. Costa (Brazil), S. Gadimova (UNOOSA),

N. Gopalswamy (USA),

H. Opgenoorth (Sweden)

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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