(Image Credit: JAXA)

BepiColombo was launched on October 20th(JST)!

BepiColombo is JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and ESA (European Space Agency) cooperative Mercury exploration mission. Simultaneous Launch of MMO (Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter) and MPO (Mercury Planetary Orbiter) was conducted.

Ichiro Yoshikawa and Kazuo Yoshioka (Graduate School of Frontier Sciences) developed Mercury Sodium Atmospheric Spectral Imager “MSASI” installed in MMO. They also developed detectors for the Mercury outer space ultraviolet spectroscopic observation machine “PHEBUS” mounted on the MPO.

Click here(JAXA site) for details.

The president of the University of Tokyo mentioned the UTOPS project and faculty members in his address at the 2018 Autumn Semester Diploma Presentation/Commencement Ceremony.

https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ja/about/president/b_message30_07.html

(2018.9.14)

Dr. Ming-Chang Liu, SIMS Lab/Department of Earth, Planetary & Space Sciences, UCLA, visited UTOPS and gave a lecture “The formation environment of the Solar System: A perspective from short-lived radionuclides”.

(2018.6.14)

Heather Enos, OSIRIS-REx Deputy Principal Investigator, visited UTOPS to discuss about the operation of sample return missions with UTOPS faculties.  She encouraged graduate and undergraduate students who are interested in space missions, and gave an invited lecture “OSIRIS-REx Science Operations Planning and Implementation”.

(2017.12.5)

Winds blowing off a dying star

This research results appear in Science Advances in its September 29, 2017 issue (Tachibana S., et al., Science Advances, September 29, 2017)

See the website of Hokkaido University for more details.