Four Imperial College physicists were awarded medals by the Institute of Physics recently. You can read about it in full here. Below are the quotes from the prize winners. The emphasis is mine.

Prof Dougherty, winner of the Richard Glazebrook Medal and Prize, also my Big Boss: "It is a great privilege to be given this award for essentially doing ( Read more... )

Hear ye, hear ye: on the evening of Tuesday 10 October, you can come to Imperial College London and meet some Cassini scientists and engineers. Well, OK, one engineer (that would be me). Imperial are hosting a Fringe event titled “A Space Odyssey” in celebration of the Cassini end of mission, and there are lots of things to see, including me ( Read more... )

The last of the press releases I was waiting for to make Announcements About Space came out yesterday so I can now write my Post of Great Happiness.

1. The European Space Agency's Cluster mission, studying the Earth's plasma environment and interaction with the heliosphere, has been extended from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2016. This is the ( Read more... )

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A long and difficult week is ending on a positive note!

The Royal Astronomical Society has awarded the Cassini Magnetometer (MAG) team a Group Achievement Award in geophysics.

From the awards announcement:

The Magnetometer has been one of the most successful instruments aboard the spacecraft, continuously returning data about the fields in the ( Read more... )

The Cinema-2 and Cinema-3 satellites - also designated KHUSAT-1 and KHUSAT-2, for Kyung Hee University - have successfully launched and are in low Earth orbit!

See here for more detail. Excerpted:

KHUSAT-1 and 2, also designated CINEMA-2 and 3 respectively, are South Korea’s contribution to the international CubeSat for Ion, Neutral, Electron, ( Read more... )

(Writing credit shared with flexagainThis is the week of satellite launches! The most high profile was NASA's MAVEN launch. MAVEN is now on a 10-month journey to Mars, where it will study the Martian atmosphere and its interaction with the solar wind. However, it’s worth noting that no less than sixty-four (64) small satellites are due to be launched this ( Read more... )

Last week was my first plunge back into my normal working schedule - two days in London, three working from home. My work colleagues welcomed me back to London by taking me to see Iron Man 3. Do you think they know me? I think they know me. I missed them ( Read more... )

First day at nursery


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