By Theodore Lainas

 

In recent years, Greek participation in important space missions has increased, either by research groups of Greek universities or public bodies, or by Greek companies active in the development of space technologies. As it became known to the list of missions with a Greek flavor, one more is added. The critical, but very little explored region between the Earth's atmosphere and Space aspires to study a space mission, which it develops.

 

This is the “Daedalus” mission, which aims to make in situ measurements of plasma density and temperature, electric and magnetic fields, neutral winds, ion drift, as well as composition, density and temperature of neutral and charged elements in the Lower Thermosphere and Ionosphere (LTI) region.

 

This region, at an altitude of 100 to 200 kilometers from the Earth's surface, is the main transition region from the Earth's atmosphere to space, where the neutral elements of the atmosphere and the charged elements of the space plasma coexist.

 

To resolve all the questions that exist about this critical interval there is a need for measurements at different heights and multiple points of the LTI region. In the “Daedalos” mission, a very innovative way to measure this area is proposed, with the satellite that will be developed to function "like a flying laboratory", as Theodoros Sarris, associate professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the Democritus University.

 

The satellite will gradually descend into the area using thrusters and at the same time nanosatellites will be released, carrying minimal instruments and taking additional measurements on the spot. In fact, subsystems and components of the satellite could also be manufactured in Greece.

 

The mission was proposed to the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of a call for proposals for the '10th Earth Explorer' Earth observation program. It was selected in 2018 as one of the top three projects for which a feasibility study was done and then qualified as one of the top two for implementation, however at the last stage it was judged to have many risks due to the area it wants to research. The interest, however, was so great that the proposal was taken up to investigate by the joint science committee of NASA and ESA.