| Space Weather Euro News Vol.7 Issue 4 (28-02-2003)
Table of Contents:
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1. ESA chairs the International Living With a Star programme
2. AGU to Launch New Space Weather Journal
3. Space Weather at UK National Astronomy Meeting (NAM),
Dublin
4. Space Weather Week 2003 - Second Announcement
(Conference scheduled
for May 19-22, 2003)
5. Second Circular for the Chapman Conference Physics
and Modelling of the Inner
Magnetosphere, Finland, August 25-29,
2003
6. ESA ITT: Radiation Exposure and Mission Strategies
for Interplanetary Manned
Missions
7. Post Doc Position: Particle-in-Cell Simulation of Sprite
Ignition at Danish Space
Research Institute
8. Some ESA Tender Actions from ESA EMITS
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Send all contributions to:
#swen@esa.int
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1. ESA chairs the International Living With a Star programme
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From: ESA Media Relations
Paris, 20 February 2003
Press Release
N° 10-2003
ESA chairs the International Living With a Star programme
ESA is providing the first chairman for the International Living With
A Star (ILWS)
programme. ILWS is an unprecedented initiative in which space agencies
worldwide
are getting together to investigate how variations in the Sun affect
the environment of
Earth and the other planets, in the short and long term. In particular,
ILWS will
concentrate on those aspects of the Sun-Earth system that may affect
mankind and
society. It is a major collaborative initiative between Europe,
the United States, Russia,
Japan, and Canada.
The Sun is a variable star. The amount of radiation it releases
changes constantly,
especially at wavelengths that we cannot see, such as ultraviolet.
It also releases a
stormy 'wind' of particles known as the solar wind that buffets the
Earth's magnetic field.
Sudden changes in the solar wind can disable communications satellites,
disrupt power
stations on Earth, and affect passengers in high-flying aircraft. Slow
variation in the solar
output and even in the solar wind could contribute to climatic changes.
Knowing more
about these phenomena is therefore very important in different and
sometimes unexpected
ways.
There will be various ILWS mission launches over an approximately ten-year
period,
starting in 2003. Pooling the resources of the largest fleet
of spacecraft in history, the
ILWS programme will provide a first global view of the Sun-Earth interaction
and lead
to a real understanding of it. It will look at the Sun's effects on
other planets also.
ESA's missions form a vital part of ILWS. SOHO and Cluster are
leading the way.
In 2003, in collaboration with China, a space mission called Double
Star will be
launched to complement Cluster. In a decade's time, ESA's Solar Orbiter
will be the
centre of interest. It will go closer to the Sun than any solar mission
ever before. In
between, ESA will assist in exploiting other agency's missions to the
full; it is also currently
negotiating to provide ground stations for Japan's Solar-B mission
(launch 2005), and is
considering the part it may play in NASA's STEREO (launch 2005) and
Solar Dynamics
Orbiter (launch 2007) missions.
In addition, ESA's missions to the other terrestrial planets, Mars Express
(launching 2003),
Venus Express (launching 2005), and the mission to Mercury,
BepiColombo (launching 2011/2012), will carry experiments that look
at solar-wind
interactions with their respective planets.
Hermann Opgenoorth, ESA's newly appointed Head of Solar and Solar-Terrestrial
Missions, is chairing the ILWS steering committee for the first two
years. "There is a
clear need to study the Sun and its interaction with the Earth" he
says, " and it is too
big a job for a single space agency to cope with."
Notes to editors
The new International Living With a Star (ILWS) programme builds upon
a previous
international framework between Europe, Japan, Russia (formerly the
Soviet Union),
and the United States to study the Sun and its effects on Earth.
That framework was
the International Solar Terrestrial Physics (ISTP) programme.
The SOHO and Cluster
missions were part of ESA's contribution. For ILWS, the Canadian Space
Agency has
joined the collaboration.
A 'kick-off' meeting between the space agencies involved in ILWS was
held on
4-6 September 2002 in Washington DC, United States. An international
steering
committee of representatives from those agencies will now supervise
the programme.
The committee comprises five space agencies: the National Aeronautics
and Space
Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan's Institute
for
Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the Russian Aviation and Space
Agency
(Rosaviacosmos), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
There will be an ILWS Working Group to coordinate special projects.
More than 20
space agencies have announced their participation in the first Working
Group meeting,
scheduled to take place in Nice, France, on 14 -15 April 2003. Contributions
from the
various space agencies include missions, payloads, subsystems, launch
or tracking services,
rockets, balloons, and open access to data sources.
For more information please contact:
ESA Communication Department
Media Relations Office
Paris, France
Tel: +33(0)15369 7155
Fax: +33(0)1 5369 7690
Dr Hermann Opgenoorth, ESA Head of
Solar and Solar-Terrestrial Missions,
Chairman ILWS Steering Committee
Tel: +46.18.471.5912
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2. AGU to Launch New Space Weather Journal
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From: Steve Cole
The American Geophysical Union will soon launch the first journal devoted
to the
emerging field of space weather and its impact on technical systems,
including
telecommunications, electric power, and satellite navigation. Space
Weather: The
International Journal of Research and Applications will present peer-reviewed
research,
as well as news, features, and opinion articles.
Louis J. Lanzerotti has been named Editor of Space Weather. Lanzerotti
is consulting
physicist at Lucent Technologies' Bell Laboratories and distinguished
research professor
at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. "The initiation of Space
Weather recognizes
the fact that the ever-increasing sophistication of technical systems
within or under the
influence of the Earth's space environment requires a forum where engineers,
systems
designers, scientists, and managers can obtain the latest information
and discuss new
developments," Lanzerotti said.
Peer-reviewed articles will present the latest engineering and science
research in the field,
including studies of the response of technical systems to specific
space weather events,
predictions of detrimental space weather impacts, and effects of natural
radiation on
aerospace systems. News and feature articles will provide up-to-date
coverage of
government agency initiatives worldwide and space weather activities
of the commercial
sector. The editor will be assisted by a distinguished Board of Advisors.
Space Weather will be published as an online AGU journal. A quarterly
magazine digest
will also be published and distributed free of charge to space weather
professionals.
Lanzerotti recently served as chair of the National Research Council's
Decadal Survey
Committee on Solar and Space Physics and also serves on the Governing
Board of the
American Institute of Physics. He is the author or co-author of more
than 500 publications,
many related to the effects of space weather on communications.
AGU has received a grant from the National Science Foundation's Division
of Atmospheric
Sciences to help support the launch of Space Weather.
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3. Space Weather at UK National Astronomy Meeting (NAM), Dublin
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From: Peter Cargill
The UK National Astronomy meeting (held jointly with the UK solar physics
meeting) will
occur in Dublin between April 7 and 11. As part of this meeting there
is a session on Space
Weather. We are soliciting oral and poster contributions for this session
on all aspects
of space weather. Please submit an abstract at the NAM website
( http://star.arm.ac.uk/nam2003/).
Although the deadline is shown as Jan 31, this has in
fact been extended.
Please direct any questions to the session convenor,
Peter Cargill
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4. Space Weather Week 2003 - Second Announcement (Conference
scheduled
for May 19-22, 2003)
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From: Terry Onsager
The 2002 Space Weather Week conference will be held this spring on May
19-22, 2003
in Boulder, Colorado. This meeting will focus on the recent solar
and geomagnetic activity,
and will cover the specific space weather impacts and our scientific
understanding of this
activity. The conference program will highlight recent
space weather impacts in several
areas of the environment, including ionospheric disturbances, satellite
drag, auroral currents,
geomagnetic storms and their solar drivers, radiation belts, and solar
energetic particles.
We anticipate that representatives from industries impacted by space
weather will attend,
including those from electric power, commercial airlines, satellite
operations, and navigation/
communications. Space Weather Week 2003 is co-organized by the NOAA
Space
Environment Center, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the NSF Division
of Atmospheric
Science, and the NASA Sun-Earth Connection Program. Note that
limited travel support is
available for student participation. Check our web site for more
details: http://www.sec.noaa.gov/sww.
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5. Second Circular for the Chapman Conference Physics and Modelling
of the Inner
Magnetosphere, Finland, August 25-29, 2003
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From: Tuija Pulkkinen
Convenors: Tuija I. Pulkkinen and Nikolai A. Tsyganenko
CONFERENCE FOCUS
The conference will be focused on modeling and observations of the
inner magnetosphere, which
is a key region in the near-Earth space both from scientific and practical
viewpoints. Scientifically,
the challenges involve understanding particle acceleration and dynamics
in a multi-component
plasma under highly variable electromagnetic fields, especially during
space storms. On the
practical side, prediction of these space storms and their effects
is one of the most important
tasks of space weather studies, as it is the energetic particles associated
with these storms that
cause the largest damages to commercial and other spacecraft residing
in this region.
The meeting aims to gather scientists in this field to an informal meeting
where scheduled talks
are followed by ample time for discussion and hands-on comparisons
of model predictions and
observations. Several storms have already been identified by various
groups for study, these
include May 15 1997, Mar 10 1998, May 2-4 1998, June 26 1998, Sep 25
1998, Oct 19 1998,
Apr 6 2000, July 15 2000, Oct 4 2000, Mar 31 2001, Nov 6 2001, Apr
17 2002.
Specific focus will be placed on the analysis and comparison of results
of these storms.
SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM
The scientific program will be divided into five sessions:
1. External driving of the inner magnetosphere dynamics
2. Sources and losses of inner magnetosphere particle populations
3. Energetic particle acceleration mechanisms
4. Observational specification of the inner magnetosphere state
5. Large-scale models of the inner magnetosphere
The meeting will consist of both oral and poster presentations.
Invited speakers include D. Baker, J. Borovsky, N. Ganushkina, M. Hudson,
V. Jordanova, H. Koskinen, M. Kubyshkina, M. Liemohn, and R. McPherron.
The program committee of the meeting consists of Tuija Pulkkinen (chair),
Joe Borovsky, Ioannis Daglis, Toshihiko Iyemori, Janet Kozyra, Joe
Lemaire,
Xinlin Li, Rumi Nakamura, Victor Sergeev, and Nikolai Tsyganenko.
The local organizing committee is
Tuija Pulkkinen, chair
Nataly Ganushkina
Lasse Hakkinen
Eija Tanskanen
Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland
ABSTRACTS
Deadline for abstract submission is May 28, 2003.
Abstract submission will be done through AGU.
VENUE
The conference will be held in the House of the Estates in downtown
Helsinki.
Deadline for registration and for hotel booking is July 9, 2003.
Registrations and hotel bookings will be done through AGU.
Deadline for travel support applications is May 28, 2003.
Travel support is intended especially for young scientists and students.
Internet/computer access will be provided during the poster sessions
for presentation of the results.
More information on the conference can be found at
http://www.geo.fmi.fi/chapman03/
and
at the AGU pages http://www.agu.org/meetings/meetings.html
Practical information on abstract submission and registration
will follow shortly.
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6. ESA ITT: Radiation Exposure and Mission Strategies for Interplanetary
Manned Missions
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From: Petteri Nieminen
ESA's new Aurora programme (http://www.esa.int/export/esaMI/Aurora/)
aims at establishing
a roadmap for European space exploration in the 25-30 years' timeframe.
The recently released
ESA ITT "Radiation Exposure and Mission Strategies for Interplanetary
Manned Missions" is a
part of this effort.
The term "interplanetary" is here understood to include the ultimate
objective of Mars, but also
intermediate steps to the Moon and elsewhere, as required in the programme.
To protect crew,
shielding must be designed, the environment must be anticipated and
monitored, and a warning
system must be put in place. Because of the strong influence on the
mission design and the
vehicle/habitat designs, an early study must be made.
This acitivity will hence consist of:
- A detailed investigation of environments and effects in example scenarios
and designs;
- Specification of the environments and a review of the hazards and
their sources;
- Analysis of shielding and secondary radiation production processes
considering geometries,
materials and the radiation sources;
- Design of the necessary shielding in various scenarios and identification
of effects, particularly
for examples of the vehicle and surface habitat designs;
- Definitions of the requirements for improved environment, shielding
and effects tools.
More information on this ITT is available at the EMITS system,
http://emits.esa.int, under AO4330.
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7. Post Doc Position: Particle-in-Cell Simulation of Sprite Ignition
at Danish Space Research
Institute
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From: Torsten Neubert
The Research Training Network "Coupling of Atmospheric Layers", sponsored
by the European
Commission, invites applications for a postdoctoral position in Particle-in-Cell
(PIC) simulations
of sprite ignition. The network will study the newly discovered electrical
discharges in the
stratosphere and mesosphere above severe thunderstorms, the so-called
"red sprites" and
"blue jets". Studies will focus on aspects of sprites and jets that
are important for understanding
the impact of these high-altitude discharges on the atmosphere. Fundamental
unanswered questions
concern the sprite discharge process. The energetics of the electrons
carrying the process is not
well known and the threshold electric fields required for driving the
process is rather high according
some theories. Sprites contain significant fine-structure. The image
on the right shows pearls and
hooks of diameter down to a few ten’s of meters. It is possible that
the fin-structure contains the
key to the discharge process. It is also possible that the fine-structure
of the mesosphere, of which
very little is known, plays a role in locally enhancing fields that
ignite the discharge. PIC simulation
codes could be suitable for simulating the small-scale structure during
the ignition process. DSRI
has 1-,2-, and 3-D electromagnetic codes (TRISTAN), that must be modified
to include collisional
ionisation. We are interested in a candidate with a background in PIC
and in electricaln discharges,
or with some knowledge of these fields. The position is for up to three
years starting at the earliest
on February 1, 2003. The applicants must be: (1) a national of a state
other than the state of the
host institution (Denmark), (2) a national of an EU member state or
associated state (or having
resided in the Community for the last 5 years prior to the appointment),
(3) aged 35 years or less.
See http://www.cordis.lu/improving/networks/faq.htm#q5
for the finer details of employment
conditions and other questions related to Research Training Networks.
The CAL network
project web page is at http://www.dsri.dk/cal.
Applications should be directed to the network
co-ordinator: Torsten Neubert, Danish Space Research Institute, Juliane
Maries Vej 30,
2100 Copenhagen, Denmark; http://www.dsri.dk/~neubert.
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8. Some ESA Tender Actions from ESA EMITS
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AO4136 MATERIAL CHARACTERISATION FOR PLASMA INTERACTION ANALYSIS
(From 15/01/2003 to 15/03/2003, Act.Ref.: 01.1QM.01)
AO4330 RADIATION EXPOSURE AND MISSION STRATEGIES FOR INTERPLANETARY
MANNED MISSION
(From 27/01/2003 to 14/03/2003, Act.Ref.: 02.1EM.05)
For a complete list of ESA Tender Actions, see:
http://emits.esa.int
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Note: This newsletter is an initiative of the ESA Space Environments
and Effects Analysis Section (
http://www.estec.esa.nl/wmwww/wma) and
is a prototype mailing list intended to provide a forum for information
posting news of interest to the Space Weather community in Europe.
- SWEN contact group (keeping SWEN informed of news from other channels)
is currently:
Eamonn Daly, ESA (excluding science programme)
Richard Marsden, ESA science programme
Maurizio Candidi, CNR
Paul Cannon, URSI-Commission G
Mike Hapgood, EGS
Hannu Koskinen, SCOSTEP working group on Space weather
Pierre Lantos, Observatory of Paris Meudon
Henrik Lundstedt, Lund space weather center
Goetz Paschmann, ISSI
Jean-Yves Prado, CNES Programme Directorate
Michael Rycroft, ISU
Volker Bothmer, EGS-Solar Physics Secretary
Wolfgang Baumjohann, IWF Graz, Austria
Jinbin Cao, Chinese Space Weather Activity Representative
Barbara Poppe, NOAA Space Environment Centre
William Liu, Canadian Space Agency.
- SWEN archives are currently available on:
http://www.estec.esa.nl/wmwww/wma/spweather/SWEN/swen.html
http://www.lund.irf.se/HeliosHome/SWEN/spweuro.html
- Replies and submissions to this newsletter are welcomed and should
be
sent to:
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Please send both your new and old e-mail address to the editor
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- We look forward to receiving your input.
SWEN editor:
Alexi Glover
Co-Editor:
Nadine Hoffmann
SWEN manager:
Alain Hilgers
===============
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