Spacecraft

Professor Gurnett, right, with a graduate student, inspecting their Radio and Plasma Wave Science Instrument for Cassini after it was built in a cleanroom in Van Allen Hall.	Professor Gurnett, left, with graduate students, discussing an instrument built at Iowa for Cassini. An antenna, which is part of this instrument, is expected to detect radio signals from lightning and other sources at Saturn.	The Cassini spacecraft will arrive at Saturn in 2004 with an instrument built at Iowa. (NASA artwork)
Cluster is a European Space Agency project. It consists of four identical spacecraft that fly together in Earth orbit. Each spacecraft has an instrument package built at Iowa. (ESA artwork)	The Galileo spacecraft, as it was released from the Space Shuttle to begin its journey to Jupiter. Two instruments built in our department are included in the spacecraft: a charged-particle analyzer and a receiver for radio and plasma waves. (NASA photo)	The Mars Express spacecraft is to be launched in 2003 with a radar transmitter built at Iowa. (NASA artwork)
Pioneer 10 is Professor Van Allen's project; the spacecraft is now flying out of the solar system, where it is hoped that the shock wave between the solar wind and interstellar space can be detected. (NASA photo)	The Polar spacecraft is in Earth orbit. Three of our space physics groups at Iowa each have an instrument on Polar: a camera to image the aurora, a plasma analyzer to record thermal charged particles near the spacecraft, and a receiver for radio and plasma waves.

Last updated July 28, 2003. © The University of Iowa 2003. All rights reserved. Contact information. Send questions or comments to the webmaster. The Department of Physics and Astronomy is a part of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.