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As the Space Physics Research Laboratory (SPRL) celebrates its 60th anniversary with an upcoming symposium, its instruments are at work across the solar system.
Older than NASA, SPRL is the longest-standing independent University-based laboratory participating in the space program, says Tamas Gombosi, chair of the department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences.
Its researchers have contributed to the development of instruments on board spacecraft that have been to five planets and the moons of others, says Christopher Ruf, SPRL director. The lab is involved in several high-profile missions currently underway: the Phoenix Lander on Mars, Cassini-Huygens at Saturn and its moons, Rosetta on its way to a comet, and MESSENGER approaching planet Mercury.
The Mars Phoenix Lander now is on the ground in the arctic plains of the Red Planet, searching for organic materials and studying the history of water there. So far it has confirmed the existence of ice on the planet’s surface, detected falling snow and found salts in the soil, among other findings. The mission will continue through November.
Cassini-Huygens consisted of the Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe. SPRL contributed to instruments on Huygens, which descended to Saturn’s moon Titan in 2005. Cassini flew within 16 miles of Saturn’s moon Enceladus on Oct. 9. Four more flybys are planned in the next two years. Among Cassini’s findings at Enceladus is evidence of geysers on the moon.
MESSENGER’s mission is to study the planet Mercury’s space environment and geological history. It has completed two of three scheduled flybys and will enter orbit in 2011.
The Rosetta spacecraft will reach comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. A portion of the craft is designed to land on the comet and gather data about its composition. Comets are made of the most primitive materials in the solar system, so they can help scientists understand the solar system’s history and evolution.
Among the most visible past missions involving SPRL researchers are the Pioneer mission to Venus in the late 1970s and the Galileo mission to Jupiter and its moons, which arrived in 1995. In the past two decades alone, SPRL faculty and engineers have built more than 30 space instruments, instrumented numerous sounding rockets, balloons and aircraft, and developed ground-based instruments.
Many of the country’s leading space scientists studied or worked in SPRL as students, scientists or post-doctoral researchers, Gombosi says. He listed a few: James Anderson, an atmospheric chemistry professor at Harvard University; Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences; and Claudia Alexander, NASA project manager of the Rosetta mission.
“I think our greatest contribution to the space program is our former graduate students, post-docs, and past research principal investigators who have gone on to assume leadership roles in earth and space science and engineering research and administration. That community is the space program and our alumni are an important part of it,” says Ruf, who also is a professor in the departments of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
The SPRL at 60 symposium is Oct. 16-17. For more information, go to www.sprl.umich.edu/sprlat60.
