Center for Space Physics About the CSP

The Center for Space Physics was formed during the 1987/88 academic year by four faculty members from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the Department of Astronomy. The current director of the Center, Professor Supriya Chakrabarti, began his new position in the fall of 1997.

For the 1998/1999 academic year, we can again report a year of significant accomplishments. Our members continue to discover exciting phenomena, develop new instrumentation and techniques, lead and participate in various national and international committees, and involve graduate and undergraduate students in all aspect of space research.

On October 5, 1998, Professor Michael Mendillo delivered the 1998/1999 University Lecture entitled, " Astronomy Through A Glass Darkly." Boston University's energetic particle detectors aboard the POLAR spacecraft continue to provide exciting data that could potentially lead to a new perspective on magnestopheric physics. Boston University's imaging team continues pile up new discoveries, including the discovery of a third tail on comet Hale Bopp. Furthermore, they have found that an extended lunar sodium tail liberated during a meteor shower extends well past the Earth. Professor Meers Oppenheim joined the center and added a new capability in ionospheric plasma physics. Our graduate students and undergraduates have conceived and conducted a number of sounding rocket experiments. The center has also enjoyed a greater than 21% increase in research funding over the previous year.

The center's major space mission, TERRIERS, suffered a setback. The TERRIERS spacecraft was launched on May 17, but after approximately 10 hours of operations, its batteries discharged. A NASA sponsored team concluded that an error in the attitude control system (ACS) algorithm kept its solar panel from pointing at at the Sun. The ACS was part of the spacecraft subsystems that was developed by AeroAstro-- our major partner in this endeavor. Professor Dan Cotton and his team deserve our congratulations on bringing such a complex mission to a near success.

We support the education mission of the University through work on our research projects. Some 20 graduate students and 47 undergraduates were supported by the Center this past year. Andrew Stephan, one of our graduate students, has been elected to the NSF/CEDAR Steering Committee. Three of our students won best paper awards at the American Geophysical Union's (AGU) annual spring meeting -- a disproportionately high amount compared to other schools and certainly for a research center. Professor Theodore Fritz has involved a large number of students in his research efforts as both co-authors and presenters at both AGU meetings. A web page describing the various student research efforts can be found at : http://buspace.bu.edu/EPG/AGUAbs99.htmworkshopsl. SPECTRE, a new sounding rocket program used in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department as a senior design project, has provided hands-on experimental opportunities to over fifty undergraduate students and is being readied for launch later this year. The TERRIERS project also trained approximately twenty undergraduate students on satellite command and control. They continue to diligently attempt to communicate with the satellite.

Recently we were informed that Professor Roger Yelle has decided to leave the university to join the faculty of Northern Arizona University. Professor Yelle was involved in several key projects at the center and will be missed. Also after several years of research on modeling ionospheric structure and dynamics, Dr. Matthew Fox, Senior Research Associate, will leave Boston University to return to his native Australia to pursue other career interests. Dr. Fox was a valuable source of advice on modeling and a readily available colleague to help students and faculty on various aspects of ionospheric research. We wish Matthew and Barbara happiness and success in their "down under." Research Associate Dr. Jacqueline Schoendorf, a NSF Powre award recipient, also left the center but continues her involvement with Professor Oliver and Research Associate Leslie Young in their research programs.

Center faculty, research staff and students continue to very productive scientists, publishing some 31 papers and presenting many more at conferences and workshops. Our funding base continues to be robust. This year $4.71million was brought into the Center to support various research projects, an average of about $672k per teaching faculty member. We continue to aggressively seek new funding, submitting 35 proposals and requesting over $155 million in new funding.