Report on UK activities Chris Castelli Science Programme Office

2007 ILWS Meeting, Uppsala, Sweden, 11-13 June 2007

Report on UK activities

Chris Castelli

Science Programme Office

Sue Horne now has responsibility for the ESA Aurora Programme


Talk Overview

Missions in operation & under development

• EIS (Hinode/Solar-B), Heliospheric Imager (NASA Stereo) and Solar Dynamics Observatory SDO

Missions under study and new opportunities

• Solar Orbiter (ESA/NASA)

• KuaFu (CNSA)

• ESA Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 – potential participation from UK

• ASPIICS on Proba-3 (ESA) – status following phase A

• NASA SMEX (AO Oct 2007) – potential UK involvement


• Creation of STFC on 1st April 2007 through merger of PPARC and CCLRC

• Motivation:

Increase international competitiveness

Enable world class research

Deliver access to state-of-the-art facilities

Increase economic impact Enable greater 2-way knowledge exchange – industry, universities,

STFC’s labs

• Broad science base – Space science, particle physics, synchrotron radiation, nuclear physics, neutron sources etc.

• Comprehensive programmatic review started – looking at whole science and technology programme strategy and developing a robust future investment plan

• National Space Technology Programme

Research Council Up-date


The Harwell / RAL Campus


Management structure

Council

CEOCorporate Office

Director International Relations

Knowledge ExchangeScience

Programme Office Facility Operations Finance Director Administration

CommercialisationCampus DevelopmentProgrammesNetworksEconomic Impact

Science Strategy

Science Programme Management

Programme & ProjectPeer review

Education & Training

International Strategy

Representation & Subscriptions (CERN,ESO, ESA, ILL, ESRF,Gemini, DIAMOND)

Grants

Project Oversight

Science & Society

Facilities (ISIS, SRS,ING, JAC, CLF)

Technology (RAL, DL, ATC)

Science Programme Support

Project ManagementSupport

Finance

Agreements/Contracts

Legal

Shareholder

HR/Employee Relations

Information Systems

Information Management

Health, Safety & Security

Efficiency & ChangeManagement

Shared Services

Premises

Corporate Strategy

Council Business

Communications


EIS on Hinode

• Hinode (Solar-B) launched 22 Sept 2006

• UK PI on the EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) with significant contribution from NRL on optics

• Principle aim of making spectroscopic observations over a wide range of temperatures for plasma velocity, motion and energy measurements


EIS on Hinode

Hinode Science Meeting – Announcing First Results

Trinity College Dublin, Ireland 20-24th August 2007

http://msslxr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk:8080/SolarB/Announce.jsp

Data policy – science community have access to data after first 6 months of observations as soon as processed by ISAS

Full Hinode data available from 27 May 2007 (DARTS at Hinode Data Centre)

UK EIS data activities – analysis tools available as part SolarSoft

EIS search and data archive available online http://msslxr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk:8080/SolarB/SearchArchive.jsp













http://msslxr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk:8080/SolarB/SearchArchive.jsp















Heliospheric Imagers for the Stereo

NASA Stereo launched in October 2007

UK provided the Heliospheric Imagers instrument - built by a consortium led by RAL and the University of Birmingham (UK), CSL (Belgium) + engineering input from Swales

HI is designed to observe the space between the Sun and the Earth (12 to 300 Rs) in order to watch for solar storms driven CMEs as they head our way.

HI data is available via Stereo website and mirrored in UKSSDC (RAL)

Stereo at APL, Johns Hopkins University


NASA Stereo

Zoomed in movie showing the same comet later showing wiggles as it interacts with the solar wind

Movie sequence taken on April 20 shows a CME hitting Comet Encke - the comet tail is whipped off and flies back away from the Sun. A new tails forms


CMEs along with Venus and Mercury observed by HI

Venus/Mercury movies


Solar Dynamics Observatory

• RAL responsible for the CCD camera design & build

• 8 flight units delivered for AIA and HMI instruments to Lockheed Martin and Stanford

• New 4kx4k pixel CCD development with e2v (UK)

• 2 Mpixels/s Quad readout

• Requirements for high dynamic range, low noise, and low power


KuaFu

• UK sees collaboration with China as strategically important – MoU between CNSA & BNSC on framework of space science & technology cooperation

• Excellent science & fills a role not currently covered by ESA’s programme, exploring the energy flow from the solar wind (at L1) to the magnetosphere and ionosphere

• International coordination meeting, China (Jan 2007) - Mission not yet selected within the programme being developed by CNSA

• Early funding for studies during pre-Phase A Novel x-ray focussing optics for the auroal imager instrument

• Part of comprehensive review to clarify science objectives and payloads and decision end 2007

• UK involvement:Auroral imager (Leicester Uni), medium and low energy plasma Instruments (MSSL, RAL), magnetometer (Imperial) and a MOSES type spectrographic imager (MSSL)


Solar Orbiter

• UK involvement in Solar Orbiter is high priority for community – STFC roadmap

• Schedule leading to 2015 launch requires early release of instrument AO – depending on resolution of merger issues with NASA Sentinels

• Reviewed potential UK involvement as part of an integrated package of instruments proposed to Solar Orbiter

• UK funding design studies for an Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), Magnetometer, Electron Analyser System (Solar Wind Plasma Analyser) and Spectrometer (EUS)?

• Early system trade studies, accommodation, interfaces, TRL assessment etc.

• UK groups responded in the LoI submitted to ESA in September 2006

• SPRT – full agency support for nationally provided payloads


• Electron Analyser System (in-situ instruments)

Part of the Solar Wind Plasma Analyser

Prototype EAS system under test at MSSL thermal vacuum facility based on extensive heritage (e.g. Cluster, Cassini, Venus Express)

Solar Orbiter

• Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI)

European consortium led by Royal Obs Belgium

4 EUV band telescopes sharing a common structure and electronics box (MSSL)

• Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EUS)

High resolution imaging spectrometer international consortium led by RAL

Significant advance on Soho CDS, Solar-B EIS


Proba-3 ASPIICS

• ESA technology demonstration missions• 4 counties involved – Sweden, Belgium, UK, Spain with launch ~ 2010/11• The PROBA-3 concept selected by ESA is a giant coronagraph – ASPIICS (led by P. Lamy (LAM, France)• 1 of 4 concepts originally studied at pre-phase A by CNES looking at scientific missions utilising a formation flying demonstration – define mission requirements• With a formation flyer, a two-spacecraft coronagraph is possible – access to high resolution imaging• 100 m spacecraft separation translates into <3 arcsec resolution down to ~ 1.1 Rs • A considerable advance (LASCO C2 resolution is ~70” at 2.2 Rs)• UK industry (Astrium) completed Phase A study Jan 07


ASPIICS aims at achieving conditions close to total eclipses

Ground based image obtained during a total eclipse SOHO/LASCO-C2 coronagraph

Proba-3 ASPIICS


ESA Cosmic Vision 2015-25

COMPASS (Fineschi INAF, Italy) – Coronal Magnetism, Plasma Activity Studies from Space – UK groups RAL

formation flying solar mission with a 100m s/c separation with off-limb and on disk instrument capability

POLARIS (Appourchaux, F) – Polar Investigation of the Sun – UK groups RAL & MSSL

Builds on Solar Orbiter mission concept

Collaboration with NASA (science & technology roadmap identified in ILWS)

Cross-scale (UK leading proposal) - 10 s/c utilising a common design in near-Earth space

In collaboration with JAXA SCOPE mission providing 2 s/c

WARP (Pulkkinen) – Waves and Relativistic Particles (UK groups RAL, UoW, BAS)

Plasma physics of Earth’s inner magnetosphere using constellation of 4 spacecraft

Participation is subject to review by STFC advisory structure


CV2015 timeline


Conclusion

• ILWS clearly very important to UK ground and space based ‘Heliophysics’ community

• Envisage strong participation in future missions e.g. KuaFu, SO, bi-lateral opportunities (SMEX)

• Planning participation in ESA CV1525 taking into account recommendations from SPRT

• Programmatic review will shape UK science strategy for STFC

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Report on UK activities Chris Castelli Science Programme Office

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