Fwd: ESA missions at the European Geophysical Society (EGS) meeting

[tony...@myinternetuk.com]

05 May 2000 16:24:57
sci.astro
From: ay...@nova.astro.utoronto.ca
Subject: ESA missions at the European Geophysical Society (EGS)
meeting (Forwarded)
To: sci.astro

ESA Science News
http://sci.esa.int

05 May 2000

ESA missions at the European Geophysical Society (EGS) meeting

A development full-scale model of the European Space Agency's Huygens
probe
greeted those attending the General Assembly of the European
Geophysical
Society when they arrived at Nice airport last week. The model
symbolised
ESA's direct involvement in a very large number of the issues being
discussed at the EGS's millennium conference on Earth, Planetary and
Solar
System Sciences which attracted 4500 participants from 50 nations
between
24-29 April. Many of the principal investigators and scientists
working on
current and future ESA missions were present, as were representatives
of
other space agencies.

Whilst rain and high winds swept the town and its all but serene Bay
of
the Angels, the town's Acropolis congress centre hosted several
hundred
presentations and working sessions covering the Association's eight
fields
of interest: Solid Earth Geophysics, Geodesy, Hydrology, Oceans and
Atmosphere, Solar Terrestrial Sciences, Planetary Sciences, Non-linear
Geophysics and Natural Hazards.

The EGS President, André Berger, stressed this multi-disciplinary
nature
of the Association and the cross-fertilisation that results from such
gatherings: "It is increasingly important to view human existence on
Earth
in its broader context. However we can not limit this wider
environment to
say an arbitrary 100 km, or 1000 km above our planet's surface. That
is why
a society like EGS also includes planetary science so that we can
better
understand our Earth by observing, for instance solar activity and by
studying other planets."

The General Assembly spent many hours reviewing the data from current
space missions, and the science objectives of future ones. For
instance,
participants heard the excellent news from the joint NASA/ESA
Cassini-Huygens probe, today halfway through its journey to explore
Saturn and its moon Titan. Participating scientists were particularly
pleased with the wealth of scientific data that has already been
obtained
by the "freebies" of this seven-year journey, namely the two swingbys
of
Venus and Earth. They also expressed great excitement at the coming
Jovian
encounter at the end of this year, when for the first time two
spacecraft
will be able to simultaneously observe Jupiter at close quarters.

Other sessions at EGS examined the upcoming planetary missions notably
those to Mars and Mercury and coming lunar missions. The Mars sessions
heard about the latest progress on building the instruments for ESA's
Mars
Express, ambitious plans for experiments to fly on future missions,
and
some of the latest results from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor which is
now
in orbit around the red planet.

The prospect of a future mission to Mercury, ESA's Bepi-Colombo,
attracted
many delegates with a wide range of research interests. BepiColombo,
which
is to become one of the Cornerstone mission of the Agency, is a
multidisciplinary mission which will study the geology and the
geophysics
of Mercury as well its violent interaction with the solar wind. The
mission
includes a 3-axis stabilised spacecrat for the remote sensing of the
planet;
a spinner devoted to the study of the Hermean space environment
including
its magnetosphere; and a lander which is supposed to validate the
remote
sensing data with geochemical and geophysical ground truths.

An open session on lunar exploration heard the latest findings from
past
missions, such as NASA's Clementine and looked forward to the small
fleet
of orbiters and probes that will be visiting the Moon in the next few
years:
ESA's SMART-1, closely followed by two Japanese missions. For the
first time
since the SMART-1 mission and payload were aproved in November 1999,
15
papers were given for the community at large on the ongoing
preparation of
the SMART-1 spacecraft, technology, instruments and science.

Each presentation at EGS 2000 was the occasion for the world's leading
experts in each domain to compare their ideas, objectives and
technologies
to achieve success in space whilst always remembering that man's
existence
is still firmly anchored here on our planet. Indeed the scientific
programme
covered a multitude of subjects of "immediate concern" on Earth such
as
natural risks (from floods to earthquakes) and global issues, for
instance
water policy for the future, and climate variability.

On the final day of the conference, as if to reward participants for
their
assiduity, the Sun finally brought its warmth to the French Riviera --
and
Nice where EGS will be returning for its next General Assembly in
March
next year.

USEFUL LINKS FOR THIS STORY

* Cassini/Huygens at EGS
http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=12&cid=35&oid=18630
* The Moon and SMART-1 at EGS
http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=10&cid=33&oid=18645
* Mars at the EGS: new techniques for an old planet
http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=9&cid=32&oid=18530

IMAGE CAPTIONS:
[Image 1:
http://sci.esa.int/content/image/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=18641&objecttypename=news&ooid=18665]
Huygens model at Nice airport.

[Image 2:
http://sci.esa.int/content/image/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=18670&objecttypename=news&ooid=18665]
EGS President André Berger.

--
Andrew Yee
ay...@nova.astro.utoronto.ca

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