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Det var en världsnyhet när de amerikanska astronauterna Neil Armstrong och Buzz Aldrin landade på månen den 20 juli 1969. Ytterligare månlandningar skapade förväntningar på att mänskligheten var i början av ett bredare utforskande av vårt solsystem och att nästa steg skulle bli att besöka Mars. 

Umeå University in Sweden offers a distance course in Arctic Science to Swedish and international undergraduates. Each year 70-80 students participate in the course which includes a field trip to Kiruna, a small town in the Arctic. A central activity in the course is an auroral observation exercise. Students use real-time data on the solar wind that is gathered by satellites at the L1 Lagrangian point to determine the status of the space weather close to the Earth. After a visit to the Swedish Institute of Space Physics to learn about the data gathered at the institute, they also use local ground-based observations of Earth's magnetic field and weather reports in order to plan outdoor observations. Students are able to access the necessary data from their mobile phones. Participants become deeply engaged in monitoring the space weather conditions to ascertain the chance of seeing an auroral display and acquire an understanding of the range of space-based data that is freely available to society at large.

The students compare their own visual observations and photographs with data sets from space and the ground to acquire a deeper understanding of the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere. The aurora exercise is carried out by small groups of students working together and written up in a report to promote teamwork and develop skills in academic writing. The aurora exercise has been run by Umeå University for over a decade and continues to evolve. At least partially cloud-free skies are needed in order to see the aurora from the ground. To maximise the chance of success an evening excursion to a location that is known to be often cloud free was introduced. Use of the aurora exercise has been extended to courses for PhD students and a teacher development course in space physics.

Although the tantalising experience of standing outside surrounded by snow and looking up at an active colourful auroral display is confined to the planet’s auroral zones, by using all-sky camera data available on-line this activity can be adapted to a classroom at any location in the world. The online version has been tested out in 2021 since the course has been taken entirely online by some students due to the pandemic.

Umeå University in Sweden offers a distance course in Arctic Science to Swedish and international undergraduates. Each year 70-80 students participate in the course which includes a field trip to Kiruna, a small town in the Arctic. A central activity in the course is an auroral observation exercise. Students use real-time data on the solar wind that is gathered by satellites at the L1 Lagrangian point to determine the status of the space weather close to the Earth. After a visit to the Swedish Institute of Space Physics to learn about the data gathered at the institute, they also use local ground-based observations of Earth's magnetic field and weather reports in order to plan outdoor observations. Students are able to access the necessary data from their mobile phones. Participants become deeply engaged in monitoring the space weather conditions to ascertain the chance of seeing an auroral display and acquire an understanding of the range of space-based data that is freely available to society at large. The students compare their own visual observations and photographs with data sets from space and the ground to acquire a deeper understanding of the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere. The aurora exercise is carried out by small groups of students working together and written up in a report to promote teamwork and develop skills in academic writing. The aurora exercise has been run by Umeå University for over a decade and continues to evolve. At least partially cloud-free skies are needed in order to see the aurora from the ground. To maximise the chance of success an evening excursion to a location that is known to be often cloud free was introduced. Use of the aurora exercise has been extended to courses for PhD students and a teacher development course in space physics. Although the tantalising experience of standing outside surrounded by snow and looking up at an active colourful auroral display is confined to the planet’s auroral zones, by using all-sky camera data available on-line this activity can be adapted to a classroom at any location in the world. The online version has been tested out in 2021 since the course has been taken entirely online by some students due to the pandemic.

Dust impact detection by electric field instruments is a relatively new method. However, the influence of dust impacts on electric field measurements is not completely understood and explained. A better understanding is very important for reliable dust impact identification, especially in environments with low dust impact rate. Using data from Earth-orbiting Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS) spacecraft, we present a study of various pulses detected simultaneously by multiple electric field antennas in the monopole (probe-to-spacecraft potential measurement) and dipole (probe-to-probe potential measurement) configurations. The study includes data obtained during an impact of a millimeter-sized object. We show that the identification of dust impacts by a single antenna is a very challenging issue in environments where solitary waves are commonly present and that some pulses can be easily misinterpreted as dust impacts. We used data from multiple antennas to distinguish between changes in the spacecraft potential (dust impact) and structures in the ambient plasma or electric field. Our results indicate that an impact cloud is in some cases able to influence the potential of the electric field antenna during its expansion.

Signatures of hypervelocity dust impacts detected by electric field instruments are still not completely understood. We have used the electric field instrument onboard one of the MMS spacecraft orbiting the Earth since 2015 to study various pulses in the measured electric field detected simultaneously by multiple antennas. This unique instrument allows a detailed investigation of registered waveforms. The preliminary results shown that the solitary waves can generate similar pulses as dust impacts and detected pulses can easily by misinterpreted when only one antenna is used.

We present the first study of dust impact events on one of the Earth-orbiting Cluster satellites. The events were identified in the measurements of the wide band data (WBD) instrument on board the satellite operating in monopole configuration. Since 2009 the instrument is operating in this configuration due to the loss of three electric probes and is therefore measuring the potential between the only operating antenna and the spacecraft body. Our study shows that the WBD instrument on Cluster 1 is able to detect pulses generated by dust impacts and discusses four such events. The presence of instrumental effects, intensive natural waves, noncontinuous sampling modes, and the automatic gain control complicates this detection. Due to all these features, we conclude that the Cluster spacecraft are not ideal for dust impact studies. We show that the duration and amplitudes of the pulses recorded by Cluster are similar to pulses detected by STEREO, and the shape of the pulses can be described with the model of the recollection of impact cloud electrons by the positively charged spacecraft. We estimate that the detected impacts were generated by micron-sized grains with velocities in the order of tens of km/s.

Detection of hypervelocity impacts on a spacecraft body using electric field instruments has been established as a new method for monitoring of dust grains in our solar system. Voyager, WIND, Cassini, and STEREO spacecraft have shown that this technique can be a complementary method to conventional dust detectors. This approach uses fast short time changes in the spacecraft potential generated by hypervelocity dust impacts, which can be detected by monopole electric field instruments as a pulse in the measured electric field. The shape and the duration of the pulse strongly depend on parameters of the ambient plasma environment. This fact is very important for Earth orbiting spacecraft crossing various regions of the Earth's magnetosphere where the concentration and the temperature of plasma particles change significantly. We present the numerical simulations of spacecraft charging focused on changes in the spacecraft potential generated by dust impacts in various locations of the Earth's magnetosphere. We show that identical dust impacts generate significantly larger pulses in regions with lower electron density. We discuss the influence of the photoelectron distribution for dust impact detections showing that a small amount of energetic photoelectrons significantly increases the potential of the spacecraft body and the pulse duration. We also show that the active spacecraft potential control (ASPOC) instrument onboard the cluster spacecraft strongly reduces the amplitude and the duration of the pulse resulting in difficulties of dust detection when ASPOC is ON. Simulation of dust impacts is compared with pulses detected by the Earth orbiting cluster spacecraft in the last part of Section III.

Detection of hypervelocity impacts on a spacecraft body using electric field instruments has been established as a new method for monitoring of dust grains in our solar system. Voyager, WIND, Cassini, and STEREO spacecraft have shown that this technique can be a complementary method to conventional dust detectors. This approach uses fast short time changes in the spacecraft potential generated by hypervelocity dust impacts, which can be detected by monopole electric field instruments as a pulse in the measured electric field. The shape and the duration of the pulse strongly depend on parameters of the ambient plasma environment. This fact is very important for Earth orbiting spacecraft crossing various regions of the Earth's magnetosphere where the concentration and the temperature of plasma particles change significantly. We present the numerical simulations of spacecraft charging focused on changes in the spacecraft potential generated by dust impacts in various locations of the Earth's magnetosphere. We show that identical dust impacts generate significantly larger pulses in regions with lower electron density. We discuss the influence of the photoelectron distribution for dust impact detections showing that a small amount of energetic photoelectrons significantly increases the potential of the spacecraft body and the pulse duration. We also show that the active spacecraft potential control (ASPOC) instrument onboard the cluster spacecraft strongly reduces the amplitude and the duration of the pulse resulting in difficulties of dust detection when ASPOC is ON. Simulation of dust impacts is compared with pulses detected by the Earth orbiting cluster spacecraft in the last part of Section III.

In this chapter a review is given of astronaut selection campaigns carried out to date. The initial selections were undertaken in the United States and the Soviet Union. In the beginning the candidates were predominantly men having military backgrounds. Male engineers and doctors followed. With the exception of one occasion in the early 1960s, it was not until around 1980 that women were admitted as astronaut candidates. They have remained a minority. Nowadays Europe, Canada, Japan, and China also have corps of astronauts. The selection processes are long and thorough to ensure that the healthiest and most psychologically stable individuals are selected, with the potential to work well in a team while confined in a small space for extended periods of time. Having been selected, the candidates have a long and diverse training regime which requires flexibility and adaptability of both them and their families. The ultimate prize of a trip into space is not guaranteed, and the waiting period can be long. Intricate planning of space missions, which starts long before a mission occurs, produces detailed work schemes for the astronauts to follow when they are finally in space.

Over a period of about two centuries humans learned how to travel farther and farther from the surface of the Earth. However, we still have limited experience of flight in space. Progress was fast during the Cold War, when the competitive spirit between the United States and the Soviet Union drove both nations’ space engineers to work towards goals of ever increasing complexity. In this chapter the reader is taken through the early successes of the Russians, and then the early space programs of the United States. A number of space stations were built and flown by both countries in order to investigate how the human body coped with being weightless for long periods, and to carry out experimental microgravity research. The most advanced station to date is the ISS. China has recently begun to develop its space program, with plans for its own space station. Meanwhile space, which has traditionally been tackled by national and international projects, is having increased interest from the commercial sector. We are potentially at the brink of a change in direction in space travel, and may soon see an increase in the number of private individuals purchasing tickets for trips that are literally out of this world.