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1 2 3 Aa.Vv. Italian Report to the 41st COSPAR Scientific Assembly Graphic design & layout: Davide Coero Borga Managing editor: Pietro Ubertini Images credits: ASDC, ASI, ESA, ESO, INAF, JPL, NASA Cover credits: Andrea Cellarius ISBN 978-88-98985-01-2 © 2016 All rights reserved 4 Aa.Vv. Italian Report to the 41st COSPAR Scientific Assembly Graphic design & layout: Davide Coero Borga Managing editor: Pietro Ubertini ITALIAN Images credits: ASDC, ASI, ESA, ESO, INAF, JPL, NASA Cover credits: Andrea Cellarius REPORT ISBN 978-88-98985-01-2 © 2016 All rights reserved 5 6 INDEX Benvenuti 7 55 CHEOPS 55 COrE++ Scientific Commission A 13 56 CoRoT COSMO Sky-Med 14 58 DAMPE GOCE 16 58 Euclid PRISMA 16 59 Fermi 60 Gaia Scientific Commission B 19 61 HERSCHEL BepiColombo 20 64 HST Cassini-Huygens 22 65 INTEGRAL DAWN 23 66 JWST ExoMars 24 66 LSPE JUICE 28 67 NuStar Mars Express 29 67 OLIMPO MRO 30 68 PAMELA Rosetta 31 69 Planck 69 PLATO Scientific Commission C 33 70 SPICA CSES-Limadou 34 71 Swift DUSTER 36 71 XMM-Newton JUNO 37 75 Scientific Commission F Scientific Commission D 41 76 ALTEA ASPIICS 42 76 ELITE-02 CLUSTER 42 77 HPA Hinode 43 77 MDS SCORE 43 SOHO 44 79 Scientific Commission H Solar Orbiter 45 80 AMS-02 STEREO 46 81 ARIEL THOR 47 82 e-LISA 82 LARES Scientific Commission E 51 83 LISA AGILE 52 83 GG Astrosat 52 Athena 53 87 Sitography CALET 53 93 Acknowledgments Chandra 54 7 8 Benvenuti 9 10 Foreword Pietro Ubertini, Italian National Committee Delegate to COSPAR. The Italian Report of the 41st COSPAR General other international space organizations. Italy is Assembly is designed by the National Institute playing a major role in the European Space Agen- for Astrophysics (INAF), which supports CO- cy (ESA) Cosmic Vision program, participating SPAR’s activities, with the collaboration of the in the next large mission to Mercury, BepiCo- Italian Space Agency (ASI) and other stakeholders lombo (launch planned 2018), Small mission for playing a major role in the Italian scientific spa- exoplanet search, CHEOPS (2018), Medium size ce programs. This Report summarizes two years missions M1-Solar Orbiter (2018), M2-Euclid (2015-2016) of science space activity in Italy and (2020), and M3-PLATO (2024). The Italian com- the aim is to provide the relevant information in a munity is also committed to the exploitation of snapshot, giving at the same time a full overview the ESA first Large mission L1-JUICE (2022), to of the current Italian space research programs. the Jupiter’s icy moons, as well as L2-ATHENA The Report is divided in seven scientific commis- (2028), to study the hot and energetic Universe, sions: Space Studies of the Earth’s Surface, Me- and in the forthcoming Gravitational Wave Ob- teorology and Climate (A); Space Studies of the servatory (2034). Italy participates to the EXO- Earth-Moon System, Planets, and Small Bodies of MARS program, a scientific exploration mission the Solar System (B); Space Studies of the Upper lead by ASI to bring a rover to Mars, which is Atmospheres of the Earth and Planets Including a joint venture between Italy, ESA and Russia. Reference Atmospheres (C); Space Plasmas in the Italy contributes to the Chinese-Italian satellite Solar System, Including Planetary Magnetosphe- CSES Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (2017), res (D); Research in Astrophysics from Space (E); designed to monitor electromagnetic field and Life Sciences as Related to Space (F); Materials waves, plasma and particles perturbations of Sciences in Space, and Fundamental Physics in the atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetosphere Space (H). induced by natural sources and anthropocentric The main research programs revolve around the emitters, and to study their correlations with the observation of the Universe including cosmolo- occurrence of seismic events. gy, planetary science, fundamental physics, Earth After the 2014 COSPAR’s report, Italy has been observation, climate and meteorology, life science celebrating its 50 years of scientific space explora- in space, and space related new technologies. Re- tion: the San Marco 1 satellite was launched by an levant contributions are provided by the national Italian team using an American Scout rocket from research bodies (INAF, CNR, INFN, etc.), which Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, US on Decem- propose space programs, missions, satellites and ber 15, 1964. The successful experiment re-ente- observatories in different research fields. The red the atmosphere on September 13, 1965. Since majority of the Italian scientific space programs then, the Italian scientific and industrial commu- are carried out in the framework of the European nity has continued its path toward space explora- Space Agency (ESA) funding, via the mandatory tion building up on the achieved success, investing and optional programs. Italy has also a well-con- in space programmes and cooperation with other solidated partnership with NASA, but also with countries pushing to the extremes our frontier of Russian, Chinese, and Japan space agencies and knowledge. 11 12 Italy as a global player Nicolò D’Amico, president of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics. The National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) ray project, and we are leading the political ne- has a peculiarity comparing to other astrono- gotiations to transform the SKA Organisation mical research institutions around the world, in an Intergovernmental Organization (IGO). because INAF covers all the branches of mo- INAF is deeply engaged into outreach activi- dern astronomy. Nowadays, the modern astro- ties: it owns and manages several Visitor Cen- nomy is extremely specialized, but at the same ters and organizes public conferences and di- time major studies are addressed by a multi dactic activities for schools. wavelength approach. That being said, a single Of course INAF is also involved in space national Institute covering all the branches of astronomy and space science activities, and the modern astronomy has a great potential. INAF information provided in this report prove that is organized into seventeen Research Structures the involvement is massive, covering almost all spread throughout Italy, each one representing the fields of space research. a “center of cost”. A few of the Structures have We have a solid collaboration with the Italian a relatively narrow imprinting related to the Space Agency (ASI) and we are proud to be in- management of major national facilities, but volved, through rather competitive selections, the majority of Structures has multidiscipli- into several space missions of the European nary skills. This includes several technologi- Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. The Italian cal projects related to the development of new Government has recently allocated significant instruments and techniques, which are carried resources to the National Plan for Research out keeping an authoritative eye to a systema- (PNR), in which space research has a promi- tic transfer of knowledge towards the national nent role, so we can safely predict a strong en- industry. We own and manage the National Te- gagement of our Institute into the future of lescope Galileo (TNG) at the Canary Islands; space research. we are members of the Large Binocular Tele- I am proud to read the present report and I am scope (LBT) Foundation in Arizona; we own grateful to Pietro Ubertini - one of the most and manage three radio telescopes involved in outstanding scientists in this field - for the ef- the European VLVBI Network (EVN); Italy fort. is member of the European Southern Obser- vatory since 1982, and INAF President is the Italian representative in ESO Council. Furthermore, INAF directly supports the desi- gn and construction of one most challenging telescope ever conceived so far: the “European Extremely Large Telescope” (E-ELT) and is also involved in the Cherenkov Telescope Ar- ray (CTA) project, hosting the headquarters of the CTA Organization in Bologna (Italy). We are also involved in the Square Kilometer Ar- 13 14 ABCDEFGHIJKL Scientific Commission 15 COSMO Sky-Med The COSMO-SkyMed system is a constellation of four radar satellites for Earth Ob- servation founded by the Italian Space Agency and the Italian Ministry of Defense. COSMO-SkyMed is at the forefront of techno- change attitude in order to acquire images at logy and uses high-resolution radar sensors to both right and left side of the satellite ground observe the Earth day and night, regardless of track (nominal acquisition is right looking weather conditions. The constellation is fully mode). operational since the 2008. The Ground Segment is responsible for ma- Its purpose is to monitor the Earth for the naging the constellation and granting ad-hoc sake of emergency prevention (management services for collection, archiving and delivery of environmental risks), strategy (defense and of products to the users. security), scientific and commercial purposes, providing data on a global scale to support a Environmental disasters variety of applications among which risk ma- Data and products supplied by the CO- nagement, environment protection, natural re- SMO-SkyMed System represent a valid and sources exploration, land management, defen- important instrument, to carry on studies se and security. about causes and phenomena preceding envi- The constellation consists of 4 medium-size ronmental disasters as well as to improve the satellites, each one equipped with a microwa- monitoring and evaluation of damages in case, ve high-resolution synthetic aperture radar for examples, of landslips, flood, earthquakes (SAR) operating in X-band, having ~600 km and volcanic eruptions. Observation within a single side access ground area, orbiting in specific area can be made during day or night a sun-synchronous orbit at ~620km height and even in case of clouds, thus allowing to over the Earth surface, with the capability to evaluate superficial alterations of the territory 16 and providing institutions in charge of mana- a strong impact on the quality of air and on ging the risk with a new and useful instrument earth resources.