By Theodore Lainas

 

 

SPARC is a small Greek company founded in 2016 by researchers who met in research and university institutions. The purpose of the company is the preparation of research studies and the support of organizations and companies that plan, implement and manage operational space missions.

 

Among the research projects that SPARC participates in is the study of the radiation that will be received by the crews of the Lunar Gate, the space station that will be built on the Moon by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

 

The Lunar Gate will be created as planned by 2027 as part of NASA's Artemis program, the first mission of which has been on the Moon for a few days now and is the focus of global interest.

 

Ingmar Sergius Sandberg, CEO of SPARC, Space Applications & Research Consultancy, spoke to Nafteporiki about this interesting and impressive project.

 

"We are honored to participate in the international scientific working group on the Heliophysics and Space Radiation of the Lunar Gate where we contribute to the preparation and processes of taking, analyzing and calibrating measurements of the ESA’s ERSA radiation detector array. ERSA's use of the measurements will contribute to the protection of the Spaceport astronaut crew and to the study of space weather and environment in Earth's natural satellite."

 

In which sectors is SPARC mainly active?

 

The main subject is the study of the space environment and space weather. We are mainly interested in the monitoring, modeling and forecasting of near-geospace particle radiation for the protection of satellites as well as manned missions.

 

We develop specialized computational tools to process and calibrate the primary measurements of European Space Agency particle radiation detectors. The implementation of the analysis and data mining software from the measurements of the particle radiation detectors of the Galileo satellites of the European navigation program - was one of the first projects that we undertook - through an open tender - from the European Center for Space Research and Technology of the ESA something which contributed to the prominence of our company.

 

For the last two years we have been implementing the development of the software - on behalf of the European Space Operations Center (ESOC) - for the processing and creation of databases of measurements of active electrons and protons of the next generation detectors - Next Generation Radiation Monitors (NGRM).

 

Essentially, we are the team responsible for the analysis and calibration of the measurements from the NGRM on the geosynchronous orbit satellite EDRS-C, on the low-orbiting Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite while we await the primary measurements of the third NGRM unit from the Meteosat Third Generation satellite- Imager 1, which is scheduled to launch in the coming weeks.

 

How these measurements help?

 

The use of measurements from different orbits and points of the Earth's magnetosphere is a decisive factor for the prediction of phenomena related to space weather. The software and databases that our company implements are installed on European Space Agency computers and provide valuable real-time information about the space environment to satellite managers and users of space weather services.

 

In addition to analyzing and calibrating satellite measurements, we develop models to describe and predict particle radiation from energetic particle populations in geospace - as a result of solar storms - and in the Van Allen radiation belts. For the last three years we have been participating in the optimization of the international model for the description of particle radiation.

 

The next version of the model, the development of which is guided by the Air Force Research Laboratory, will also have the signature of our company with the support of the ESA. Our contribution mainly focuses on the modeling of energetic particle populations in solar storms, the optimization of computational methods for the statistical description of the Van Allen radiation belts, and finally, the provision of a series of processed data from European missions.