Speakers
Description
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has developed substantial expertise and innovative technologies and facilities across three key technical domains: accelerators, detectors, and computing. To facilitate the transfer and use of the produced innovation to the benefit of society, CERN’s Knowledge Transfer group (KT) fosters collaborations to develop applications in sectors with high potential societal impact, like Aerospace and Environment. This contribution will present what CERN innovation can do both to help developing space sustainability and to use space technologies to tackle Earth’s global climate challenges, focusing the analysis on four different levels.
The first level is the satellite platform. As the low-cost satellites industry rapidly expands, more CubeSats are launched into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), increasing the risk related to space debris when the satellites reach their end-of-life. One of the main causes of satellite malfunction is space radiation, which can damage electronics components without adequate preventive or protective measures. Leveraging its expertise in radiation effects on materials and electronics, CERN can provide solutions to enhance the lifespan and reliability of satellites, thereby reducing the need for frequent replacements (savings on equipment and launch cost) and mitigating the risk of unexpected failures generating debris (environmental hazards). Radiation monitoring devices for on-board predictive maintenance have been developed at CERN and several irradiation facilities are available to reproduce different space radiation environments including galactic cosmic rays and perform Radiation Hardness Assurance testing on components and systems.
The second level is the satellite payload. There is a clear trend, especially in the field of Earth Observation, in developing smaller missions making extensive use of COTS components to maximize performances and reduce cost, sometimes even replacing complex satellites with constellations of CubeSats. CERN has developed strong expertise in the field of relative low-cost radiation-tolerant systems development, based on components batch screening and selection for high-performance, risk-tolerant missions. More compact payloads and enhanced onboard processing capabilities require advanced thermal management, which is also supported by the development of microchannel cooling and carbon plates with embedded heat-pipes offering a competitive alternative to bulky radiators and passive thermal management materials. New detector technologies can also pave the way to innovative remote sensing applications for water quality assessment and biodiversity monitoring.
The third level is the data processing, onboard or within the ground segment. CERN has extensive and in-depth expertise in large datasets handling and processing for accurate prediction and decision-making, applicable for instance to weather forecast, climate science, debris monitoring, or analysis of environmental phenomena on a global scale. The use of advanced AI technologies for onboard image processing, like Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) deployment "at the edge", is also investigated in the frame of EU projects for use cases like pollution tracking in the oceans.
Finally, the fourth level involves the study of cosmic rays and their impact on space and Earth’s weather. Several CERN recognized and supported experiments focus on multi-messenger astrophysics. The most relevant example is AMS-02 (the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer), collecting data on the ISS since 2011 and sending them to CERN’s hosted Payload Operations and Control Centre. Another scientific experiment, CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving Outdoor Droplets), is investigating the potential link between galactic cosmic rays and cloud formation using the beam from CERN’s Proton Synchrotron.
