The Space Research and Planetology Division is involved in a number of hardware developments for missions led by major space agencies including ESA, NASA, Roscosmos and ISRO. We also contribute to some ground-based hardware projects. You can find direct links to some of these projects in this area.
CHEOPS is the first S-class mission from ESA and was selected in October 2012 with a launch target for 2018.
CHEOPS stands for CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite. It is a small photometric observatory to be launched into low Earth orbit to measure transits of Exo-planets.
The BepiColombo mission will be among the first missions to explore Mercury, one of the last unknown realms of the solar system. It must, therefore, provide fundamental knowledge about the planet and lay the ground for any further exploration e.g., by future lander missions. The importance of Mercury stems from its position as the innermost planet and from its unusual composition. It is widely held that understanding Mercury will provide a quantum leap in understanding the formation and evolution of the solar system.
A fundamental task of exploratory space missions is to characterize and measure the figure, topography, and surface morphology of the target planet. A state of the art tool for this task is a laser altimeter because it can provide absolute topographic height and position with respect to a Mercury centred co-ordinate system. The technology of laser altimetry is new in Europe. The BepiColombo Laser Altimeter (BELA) will be the first such instrument developed for a European space mission. BELA will form an integral part of a larger geodesy and geophysics package, incorporating radio science and stereo imaging.
CaSSIS is the main imaging system onboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. The Planetary Imaging Group is the lead investigation team for this instrument and has a web site specifically dedicated to CaSSIS.
We were the only European Co-Is on the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) – the high resolution imaging system on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) when it launched in 2005. The Principal Investigator is Prof. Alfred McEwen from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. We are interested in several research topics that HiRISE can address.
MRO was launched on August 12, 2005 from Cape Canaveral. The spacecraft completed orbit insertion in March 2006. This was followed by an aerobraking phase where MRO used the drag produced by the atmosphere of Mars to slow the spacecraft down. This brought MRO into its final, slightly elliptical orbit of 255 km x 320 km above the surface of Mars. The inclination of the orbit with respect to the Martian equator is about 87° (i.e. it is a roughly polar orbit). The orbit is Sun-synchronous so that MRO passes directly over the equator at the point on Mars where it is 15:05 local time. Our main research area is connected to volatile processes involving water and CO2.
The Laser-Abation Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer instrument (LMS) at the Physikalisches Institut of the University of Bern is designed for in-situ measurements with high acuracy and sensitivity for elemental and isoptopic composition measurements of regolith material on celestial objects. High accurate measurements on major, minor and especially trace elements down to the ppb range and of isotope ratios play a crucial role for a depper and better understanding on the evolution of our planetery system and the question of the origin of life.
The BepiColombo mission of ESA is a comprehensive mission to explore Mercury in great detail, including two spacecrafts: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) from ESA and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) from Jaxa. The SERENA instrument, located on the MPO spacecraft, will investigate the interaction of the solar wind with the planet, study the near-Mercury plasma environment, and measure the composition of Mercury's faint atmosphere.
More information coming soon.
The Jupiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission is the first large-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme. JUICE will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the giant gaseous planet Jupiter and three of its largest moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. The JUICE spacecraft will be the first spacecraft ever to orbit a Moon (Ganymede) of a giant planet.
The Particle Environment Package (PEP), led by Stas Barabash (IRF, Kiruna) and Peter Wurz (Uni Bern) was selected to be part of the scientific payload of the JUICE mission.
The University of Bern contributes to PEP with one instrument, the Neutral and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NIM). Furthermore, Uni Bern is responsible for the entire mechanical design and qualification of PEP experiment package and contributes hardware to another instrument of PEP (JNA).
We invite you to visit the website to learn more about this exciting project and its instruments.
JUICE (for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) is the next ESA large mission to be launched in 2022. JUICE will orbit Ganymede and perform a detailed investigation of this large Jovian moon. The Ganymede Laser Altimeter (GALA) on board JUICE will perform topographic mapping and contribute to large scale geodesy experiment. GALA will use a similar system than that of BELA and the Planetary Imaging Group (PIG) has been invited to provide the rangefinder system with the associated software.
The Mars Global Remote Sensing Orbiter and Small Rover mission, also known as Tianwen-1, is a mission by China where a spacecraft was sent to Mars, which consists of an orbiter, a lander and a rover. Tianwen-1 launched 23 July 2020, went into Mars orbit on 21 February 2021, and deployed the lander on 14 May 2021. The scientific instruments on the orbiter are: i) Medium Resolution Camera (MRC) with a resolution of 100 m from a 400 km orbit, ii) High Resolution Camera (HRC) with a resolution of 2 m from a 400 km orbit, iii) Mars Magnetometer (MM), iv) Mars Mineral Spectrometer (MMS), to determine mineral composition, v) Orbiter Subsurface Radar (OSR), and vi) Mars Ion and Neutral Particle Analyzer (MINPA). We participate in the MINPA instrument, to study the solar wind – Mars atmosphere interaction by measuring the ion and energetic neutral atom (ENA) environment near the Mars. MINPA combines, for the fist time, the capability to record plasma ions as well energetic neutral atoms. For the plasma ions MINPA performs full sky observations resolved in energy, angle (elevation and azimuth) and species. For the registration of energetic neutral atoms charge conversion technology deeloped in our group is employed, with the ionised particles being analysed with the ion optical system of the ion measurement. MINPA has been successfully been built and calibrated at our MEFISTO facility.
We are building a laser-based mass spectrometer (LIMS) for the in situ investigation of the chemical and mineralogical composition of the lunar regolith grains. This development is for an application on a robotic mission within the Artemis CLPS programme of NASA. The CLPS lander will be placed in the south polar region. The LIMS system consists of a time-of-flight mass analyzer (TOF-MS), a laser system (LSS) providing nano-second laser pulses focused to µm spots on the sample surface, electronics (ELU) for operating the LIMS system, and a sample handling system (SHS) for lunar regolith. The TOF-MS, LSS, and ELU are according to our established design of laboratory prototypes. The SHS is specially designed for the CLPS lander to collect and process regolith from the lunar surface in the vicinity of the lander for grain by grain analysis. LIMS uses pulsed lasers of high intensity (MW/cm^2 to TW/cm^2) so that the material in the ablation plume is completely atomised and a large fraction of the atoms are ionised simultaneously. We continuously improved the LIMS instruments in preparation for future landed missions for versatile use on lunar, asteroid, Mars and other planetary surfaces. In 2022, our LIMS instrument was selected by NASA to be part of a CLPS mission within the Artemis programme of lunar robotic exploration.
The Dating an Irregular Mare Patch with a Lunar Explorer (DIMPLE) will determine the age and origin of the potentially young (33 ± 2 Ma) irregular mare patch Ina (location: 18.66˚N and 5.30˚E). DIMPLE is mounted on a robotic lander on a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) platform. DIMPLE will image the geologic context of Ina, analyse rock samples collected by a rover, and determine their age and composition. DIMPLE has been selected for flight as part of NASA’s CLPS initiative of the Artemis programme of NASA.
DIMPLE, currently in Phase B, has four payload elements: a) the Chemistry, Organics, and Dating EXperiment (CODEX), which is comprised of a laser subsystem and a mass spectrometer (provided by our group); b) a sample handling system for gripping rocks from the lunar surface, creating smoothed rock faces, and presenting those smoothed faces first to a lander-mounted camera and then to CODEX; c) the Payload Control Unit that receives data from the CODEX instrument and operates the sample-handling system; and d) a scooping rake to be mounted to a CLPS-provided rover, for collecting samples along traverses and carrying them to the lander.
The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission ended in September 2016 with a spectacular landing on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Over 2 years the ROSINA mass spectrometer suite, led by a team of the University of Bern, continuously monitored the composition of the volatiles surrounding the nucleus. Comets are thought to belong to the most pristine objects and thus give us an unprecedented view on the early Solar System and the material from which it formed.
OSIRIS is the main imaging system on Rosetta. We are involved in the geomorphological interpretation of the data and studying the gas and dust dynamics within a few kilometres of the surface. We also coordinate a Horizon 2020 project designed to combine several data sets to look at the surface properties and outgassing.
The primary aim of SUBICE is to explore and establish experimental and numerical techniques for determining how water ice and refractory materials are physically connected within a cometary nucleus at scales of a centimeter or less.
The ESA Comet Interceptor mission is scheduled to launch in 2029. The University of Bern leads the development of two payloads on board: Comet Camera (CoCa) and the Mass Analyzer for Neutrals in a Coma (MANIaC).
The Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission of NASA investigates the interaction of the solar wind with the surrounding interstellar medium by imaging via energetic neutral atoms, with two ENA cameras, IBEX-Lo and IBEX-Hi. The WP developed part of the hardware for the low-energy ENA instrument of IBEX and will calibrate this instrument in the MEFISTO facility. IBEX launched in October 2008 and continues to operate nominally.
The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe is a NASA medium class satellite whose launch date is planned for 2024. It is the direct successor of the successful Interstellar Boundary Explorer IBEX. IMAP will measure the interstellar neutral atoms flowing to the inner solar system and it will map the boundary regions between the heliosphere and the interstellar medium by measuring energetic neutral atoms (ENA) from those regions. The spatial resolution and the energy range covered by IMAP will revolutionize our knowledge of the heliosphere and its surroundings. IMAP will also study how plasma particles are accelerated by measuring the local solar wind protons, heavy ions, electrons, and the (very energetic) cosmic rays that make it from interstellar space to the inner solar system. The WP developed part of the hardware for the low-energy ENA instrument of IMAP and will calibrate this instrument in the MEFISTO facility.
Solar Orbiter successfully launched on 10 February 2020 to examine how the Sun creates and controls the heliosphere, the vast bubble of charged particles blown by the solar wind into the interstellar medium. The spacecraft combines in situ and remote sensing observations to gain new information about the solar wind, the heliospheric magnetic field, solar energetic particles, transient interplanetary disturbances and the Sun's magnetic field. One of the scientific instrumwnts, the Solar Wind Plasma Analyser, SWA, which is part of the science payload, consists of a suite of plasma sensors (Electron Analyser System (EAS), a Proton and Alpha Particle Sensor (PAS) and a Heavy Ion Sensor (HIS)) that measure the ion and electron bulk properties (including, density, velocity, and temperature) of the solar wind, thereby characterising the solar wind between 0.28 and 1.4 AU from the Sun. In addition to determining the bulk properties of the wind, SWA will provide measurements of solar wind ion composition for key elements. At our MEFISTO facility, we calibrated the Heavy Ion Sensor (HIS) with highly charged ions as they are found in the solar wind, e.g. the C, N, O group and Fe, Si or Mg.
