BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to the planet Mercury. The mission comprises two satellites launched together: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and Mio. The mission will perform a comprehensive study of Mercury, including characterization of its magnetic field, magnetosphere, and both interior and surface structure. It was launched on an Ariane 5 rocket on 20 October 2018 at 01:45 UTC, with an arrival at Mercury planned for on 5 December 2025, after a flyby of Earth, two flybys of Venus, and six flybys of Mercury. The mission was approved in November 2009, after years in proposal and planning as part of the European Space Agency's Horizon 2000+ programme; it is the last mission of the programme to be launched.
The Swedish National Space Agency is a Government agency in Sweden operating under the Swedish Ministry of Education and Science. SNSA operates as a key component of the Swedish space programme, which is mostly carried out through international cooperation, and has included a sequence of satellite missions, both national ones and in cooperation with other nations. Furthermore, the agency distributes government grants to research and development, initiates research and development in space and remote sensing, and acts as the Swedish contact in international cooperative efforts.
The Swedish Institute of Space Physics is a Swedish government agency. The institute's primary task is to carry out basic research, education and associated observatory activities in space physics, space technology and atmospheric physics.
The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics is a Max Planck Institute, located in Garching, near Munich, Germany. In 1991 the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics split up into the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, the Max Planck Institute for Physics and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics was founded as sub-institute in 1963. The scientific activities of the institute are mostly devoted to astrophysics with telescopes orbiting in space. A large amount of the resources are spent for studying black holes in the galaxy and in the remote universe.
Helios-A and Helios-B are a pair of probes that were launched into heliocentric orbit to study solar processes. As a joint venture between German Aerospace Center (DLR) and NASA, the probes were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on December 10, 1974, and January 15, 1976, respectively.
The Solar Orbiter (SolO) is a Sun-observing satellite developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). SolO, designed to obtain detailed measurements of the inner heliosphere and the nascent solar wind, will also perform close observations of the polar regions of the Sun which is difficult to do from Earth. These observations are important in investigating how the Sun creates and controls its heliosphere.
Reimar Lüst was a German astrophysicist. He worked in European space science from its beginning, as the scientific director of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) from 1962 and as Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA) from 1984 until 1990.
Friedwardt Winterberg is a German-American theoretical physicist and was a research professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is known for his research in areas spanning general relativity, Planck scale physics, nuclear fusion, and plasmas. His work in nuclear rocket propulsion earned him the 1979 Hermann Oberth Gold Medal of the Wernher von Braun International Space Flight Foundation and a 1981 citation by the Nevada Legislature. He is also an honorary member of the German Aerospace Society Lilienthal-Oberth.
The plasmasphere, or inner magnetosphere, is a region of the Earth's magnetosphere consisting of low-energy (cool) plasma. It is located above the ionosphere. The outer boundary of the plasmasphere is known as the plasmapause, which is defined by an order of magnitude drop in plasma density. In 1963 American scientist Don Carpenter and Soviet astronomer Konstantin Gringauz proved the plasmasphere and plasmapause's existence from the analysis of very low frequency (VLF) whistler wave data. Traditionally, the plasmasphere has been regarded as a well behaved cold plasma with particle motion dominated entirely by the geomagnetic field and, hence, co-rotating with the Earth.
The Fanhui Shi Weixing series of satellites was China's first reconnaissance satellite program. The satellites were used for military reconnaissance and civilian imagery tasks and completed 23 missions between November 1974 and April 2016. There were four generations of the Fanhui Shi Weixing (FSW) satellites: FSW-0 from 1974 to 1987; FSW-1 from 1987 to 1993; FSW-2 from 1992 to 1996; and FSW-3 from 2003 to 2005. Two derivative models, the Shijian-8 (SJ-8) and Shijian-10 (SJ-10), were developed and launched as 'seed satellites' conducting bioastronautic experiments for the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. All FSW-series satellites were launched into orbit using Long March rockets from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC).
The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research is a research institute in astronomy and astrophysics located in Göttingen, Germany, where it relocated in February 2014 from the nearby village of Lindau. The exploration of the Solar System is the central theme for research done at this institute.
Astrid-1 and Astrid-2 were two microsatellites designed and developed by Swedish Space Corporation on behalf of the Swedish National Space Board. They were piggyback launched on a Cosmos-3M launch vehicle from Plesetsk, Russia. Astrid 1 on January 24, 1995, and Astrid 2 on December 10, 1998.
The Russian Space Research Institute is the leading organization of the Russian Academy of Sciences on space exploration to benefit fundamental science. It was formerly known as the Space Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It is usually known by the shorter name Space Research Institute and especially by the initialism IKI.
The Wendelstein 7-X reactor is an experimental stellarator built in Greifswald, Germany, by the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), and completed in October 2015. Its purpose is to advance stellarator technology: though this experimental reactor will not produce electricity, it is used to evaluate the main components of a future fusion power plant; it was developed based on the predecessor Wendelstein 7-AS experimental reactor.
The Solar Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer was a NASA solar and magnetospheric observatory, and was the first spacecraft in the Small Explorer program. It was launched into low Earth orbit on 3 July 1992, from Vandenberg Air Force Base aboard a Scout G-1 launch vehicle. SAMPEX was an international collaboration between NASA and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics of Germany. The Solar Anomalous and Magnetospheric Particle Explorer (SAMPEX) is the first of a series of spacecraft that was launched under the Small Explorer (SMEX) program for low cost spacecraft.
Hanna von Hoerner was a German astrophysicist. She founded the company von Hoerner & Sulger which produces scientific instruments, notably cosmic dust analyzers used on space missions by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA.
Eckart Marsch is a German theoretical physicist, who worked from 1980 to 2012 at the originally named Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy, from 2004 on named Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Katlenburg-Lindau on the physics of the solar wind, solar corona and space plasmas and taught at the University of Göttingen.
Rumi Nakamura is an Earth scientist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She works on solar-terrestrial interactions, with a particular focus on the terrestrial magnetosphere. Nakamura won the 2014 European Geosciences Union Julius Bartels Medal.
Gregor Eugen Morfill is a German physicist who works in basic astrophysical research and deals with complex plasmas and plasma medicine.
Donald Alfred Gurnett was an American physicist and professor at the University of Iowa who specialized in plasma physics.
