Issue #49 IN THIS ISSUE: Staring at the Sun MYSTERIOUS Helpline from Space Weightless in the Clouds MERCURY Contents News Cornwall Calling Space Weather Watcher Mapping the Route to Mars Honour for UK Astronaut New Satellite Tracks Pollution UK-France Space Deal In Pictures The Sun Features Mysterious Mercury Zero-G Science Helpline from Space Education Resources UK Space History Skylark Made in the UK Earth-i Info News Cornwall Calling The first Moon landing Cornwall Calling Credit: NASA Cornwall could soon be Antennas at Goonhilly beamed communicating with the Moon and images of the 1969 Moon landing Mars, following the announcement and, shortly after it was built in that the world’s first commercial deep 1985, the 32-metre Goonhilly-6 space communication base will be at antenna carried the historic Live Aid the Goonhilly Earth Station. concert broadcast to TV viewers An £8.4 million investment will see a around the world. two-year upgrade of the Goonhilly-6 A Space Industry Bill, announced antenna so it can communicate as part of the Queen’s speech in One of the large dishes at Goonhilly with future robotic and crewed 2017, will introduce new powers missions to the Moon and Mars. The to allow rocket and spaceplane Credit: Goonhilly Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local launches from UK soil. Goonhilly is Enterprise Partnership’s Growth Deal also offering spacecraft tracking and the European Space Agency and communications facilities as (ESA) – which the UK Space Agency part of the Spaceport Cornwall contributes to – funded the contract, funding bid. which will allow Goonhilly to support “We see huge opportunities for ESA’s worldwide network of spacecraft the developing space sector in monitoring ground stations. Cornwall,” said the UK Space “The UK Space Agency has played a Agency’s Head of Local Growth vital role in supporting this partnership,” Strategy, Colin Baldwin. “We said Science Minister Sam Gyimah, look forward to working with “and will continue to work alongside local partners, including industry, local leaders and international Goonhilly Earth Station and the partners to grow the UK’s share of the Local Enterprise Partnership, as global space market.” their plans develop.” News Space Weather Watcher Space Weather Watcher The European Space Agency (ESA) Space weather is perhaps most The new mission is being designed Science Laboratory will lead the is planning a new space weather familiar to people through the to put a satellite at the L5 Lagrange development of instruments. mission to monitor and better aurora borealis, or northern lights, a point to monitor the Sun’s activity and “We have been advocates for such understand the effects of plasma and harmless display caused by charged provide an early warning system. a space weather mission over many other material ejected from the Sun, particles from the Sun bombarding L5 is a position in space where the years,” said Jackie Davies of RAL and British space companies and the atmosphere. But the Sun’s more gravitational attraction of the Sun and Space. “It is extremely satisfying to researchers will play a leading role in violent outbursts have the potential to the Earth balance out, providing a achieve this goal and we are now its development. cause real damage here on Earth. stable parking spot relative to the two looking forward to the challenge A recent ESA study estimated that the larger bodies. of leading a multi-instrument, potential cost to Europe from a single Of the four teams developing the multi-national instrumentation extreme space weather event could platforms and instruments for the development programme.” be as high as €15 billion. Much of this mission, three are from the UK. Airbus The fourth partner is OHB from disruption could be avoided through UK will lead development of the Germany, heading up a consortium accurate forecasting. mission, with a focus on operations developing a different platform and the spacecraft platform. RAL concept. All proposals will be Space and UCL’s Mullard Space assessed by ESA before the mission gets the final go-ahead. An aurora above the Earth, seen from the ISS Credit: ESA, NASA The new spacecraft will monitor the Sun from the L5 position in space Credit: ESA News Mapping the Route to Mars People – maybe a UK astronaut – could one day work on Mars Credit: NASA Mapping the Route to Mars If you want to know when and how The role of private space companies “This update to the Global Exploration humans are likely to land on Mars, is also considered, and it introduces Roadmap presents an exciting vision you could do worse than read the the concept of an international Deep for future exploration activities,” said Global Exploration Roadmap. The Space Gateway. This would be a Head of Space Exploration at the UK latest update has been published by small “human-tended” facility orbiting Space Agency, Sue Horne. “The UK a consortium of 14 international space the Moon, to support human and currently makes a strong contribution agencies to showcase their thinking on robotic lunar exploration and provide to the field, including building the the future of solar system exploration. a staging post for operations further ExoMars rover in Stevenage and First published in 2011, the Roadmap out in the Solar System. upcoming experiments on the represents the shared vision of the In the medium term, a role is ISS. We look forward to joining in International Space Exploration envisaged for China’s planned space the international efforts to further Coordination Group, a voluntary, station to support low-earth orbit exploration in the coming years.” non-binding forum for participating operations beyond the planned life of The document is available here. agencies to share ideas. The predicted the International Space Station (ISS). timeline foresees a crewed Mars Along with the big picture of objectives orbital mission in the 2030s, with the and key technologies, the document possibility of humans on the planet’s sketches out how individual missions surface in the following decade. planned by space agencies will The 2018 document is notable for the contribute to the collective effort. addition of China’s and the United Arab Emirates’ space agencies to the list of contributors, alongside NASA, ESA, Roscosmos, the UK Space The Roadmap sets out Agency and others. the next stages in human exploration of space Credit: ESA, NASA News Honour for UK Astronaut Helen Sharman with her spacesuit at the Science Honour for UK Astronaut Museum in London Credit: UKSA The Queen has appointed Britain’s a CBE for services to UK Physical first astronaut, Helen Sharman, Science Research. a Companion of the Order of Dougherty was the Principal St Michael and St George in a Investigator of the magnetometer on ceremony at Windsor Castle. the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. A research chemist, Sharman was The spacecraft spent 13 years making selected from 13,000 applicants and scientific observations and discoveries trained for 18 months for her eight-day before burning up in the planet’s mission to Mir in 1991, becoming the atmosphere in September 2017. first woman to visit the space station. “I am extremely honoured to receive During the mission, a joint Russian a CBE for essentially doing my job,” and private British venture called Dougherty said. “It was enabled Project Juno, Sharman performed by all my great colleagues and scientific experiments, connected to collaborators over the years.” British schools via radio link and took seeds into space. On her return, these Dougherty chaired the UK Space seeds were compared with control Agency’s Science Programme samples to see if being in space Advisory Committee between 2014 affected their growth. and 16, and Sharman supported the Agency’s outreach activities during Sharman is now Operations Tim Peake’s Principia mission in 2015. Manager for Imperial College London’s chemistry department. “They’ve made huge contributions The university celebrated several to the space community,” said Chief awardees in the honours list including Executive of the UK Space Agency, Michele Dougherty. A professor of Graham Turnock, “and provided space physics, Dougherty received inspiration for thousands of young people across the country.” News New Satellite Tracks Pollution New Satellite Tracks Pollution The first data from the British-built programme, Copernicus. It’s designed One of the first images from the Construction of Sentinel-5P was led Sentinel-5P satellite has revealed to study the atmosphere and track the satellite shows nitrogen dioxide over from Airbus Defence and Space in nitrogen dioxide pollution across spread of pollutants. Europe, caused largely by traffic Stevenage. The satellite joins a fleet Europe, ash from an Indonesian Full commissioning and calibration and the combustion of fossil fuels of five other Sentinels, delivering a volcano and the effects of forest of the satellite, which carries a high- from industry. High concentrations wealth of images and environmental fires in the US. resolution atmospheric sensor, will take of the air pollutant can be seen over information about our planet. The new satellite was launched mission controllers until at least April. the Netherlands, the Ruhr area in in October and forms part of the Early results, however, are promising, Germany, as well as parts of Italy joint ESA-European Commission with data exceeding expectations. and Spain. environmental monitoring The worst areas of nitrogen dioxide pollution are revealed in red Credit: ESA News UK-France Space Deal UK-France Space Deal The UK and French space agencies As well as working together through The UK has also signed an agreement have signed a joint statement to ESA, the UK and France already to join the French contribution to increase co-operation in space. The collaborate on several joint space NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean deal, made at a UK-France summit projects.