The Martian - screening

Welcome to the screening of The Marchian featuring Matt Damon in the lead role, as part of the Mars Week. All students and employees are invited to watch the film and then attend a lecture by Maria Paz Zorzano Mier, Professor of Atmospheric Science, who talks about the science in the film and whether it's correct, and why. Registration is requiredfor the screening. Film snacks are on us!

The Evolving Climate of Mars

Michael Mischna of NASA/Jet Propulsion Labatory USA talks about the evolving climate on mars and all students and staff are invited to attend this open lecture!

Mars and Microbes

Professor Oddur Vilmhelsson from the University of Akureyri on Iceland, talks about March and Microbes. De lecture is open and all students and staff are invited to attend!

Ice Ages on Mars

Peter read from the department of Physiics at the University of Oxford, talk about ice ages on Mars. This is an open lecture and everyone's welcome to attend.

Space invasion in Kiruna

Sweden's leading space scientists, representatives from the space industry and policymakers. All will gather in Kiruna in May, to attend Rymdforum – Sweden's largest meeting place for stakeholders in the space area.

Student experiment reached the edge of space

The instrument didn't break, was recovered and now is time to analyze the data. It was a successful rocket ride for the REXUS experiment Salacia. – We will now analyze the data and hope to lay a foundation for future trips to Mars, says Daniel Nilsson, Space Engineering student at Luleå University of Technology.

Space Innovation Forum 4

Luleå researchers appoints landing site on Mars

Scientific experts have identified two possible locations on Mars for the landing site of the ExoMars2020 expedition, where the mission is to find life on the red planet. Luleå University of Technology is a key player in the complex selection process of landing site.

Research on ice crystals at the Nobel Museum

Thomas Kuhn, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science, has lectured at the Nobel Museum Science Café.

Record for student projects in REXUS/BEXUS

Luleå University of Technology has three student projects admitted to the same REXUS/BEXUS campaign – a unique achievement for a university. – The project is by far the coolest thing we've done during our education, says Alexander Korsfeldt Larsén, Space Engineering Student and spokesperson for the project IRIS.

Brines paper highlighted in Space.com

The paper Should We Invest in Martian Brine Research to Reduce Mars Exploration Costs?, signed by Professor Javier Martín-Torres and Professor María Paz Zorzano, from LTU’s Atmospheric Science Group and published last January in the magazine Astrobiology, has been highlighted in the Space.com website, a reference magazine devoted to astronomy and space news. The article, authored by Elizabeth Howell, pays attention to the implications of the presence of liquid water for the upcoming missions to the planet.

Sir Brian Hoskins, next guest within North Pole Seminars

Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, from the University of Reading, will offer a conference next Wednesday 1st of March, titled The Hadley Cell: a totally new view of how this works and the implications for higher as well as lower latitudes at Luleå Tekniska Universitet, marking with his visit one of the most remarkable events scheduled in the North Pole Seminars programme. The lecture will focus on his novel analysis of this atmospheric circulation process, which has major implications in climate and meteorology, as well as in other atmospheric aspects such as chemistry of the troposphere.

Improved PVT gauging method

Members of the Atmospheric Science Group have developed a new method to gauge the propellant content in the tanks of modern spacecrafts equipped with electric propulsion (EP) thrusters. It is called Improved Pressure-Volume-Temperature (PVT) method, and it allows for retrieving the amount of propellant throughout the whole operational lifetime of the spacecrafts with an accuracy 8 times higher than with the usually applied methods, which show increasing inaccuracy towards the end of the nominal missions, when the amount of propellant in the tank is scarce. The work, supported by experimental confirmation in laboratory, has been published in the International Journal of Mechanical, Aerospace, Industrial, Mechatronic and Manufacturing Engineering (A Xenon Mass Gauging through Heat Transfer Modeling for Electric Propulsion Thrusters).

The study of Martian water quandary

The recently published paper Should we invest in Martian brine research to reduce Mars exploration costs? (Astrobiology, available online), authored by Professor Javier Martín-Torres and Professor María Paz Zorzano, focuses on one transcendent problem posed by the discovery of the formation of transient liquid brines on the surface of Mars: the presence of liquid water will mark the most interesting points to be explored by the coming missions, which are at the same time the points where an extreme caution must be observed in order to avoid an eventual and catastrophic contamination of the Martian environment with terrestrial organisms. The likely rise in the costs of those missions as a consequence of the more astringent requirements imposed by the planetary protection policies, could be reduced by developing previous and dedicated studies to the Martian brines, as proposed by the authors.

FSP-HABIT: the vigorous germ of HABIT

HAbitability, Brines, Irradiation and Temperature (HABIT) is a novel instrument never used before in the exploration of Mars, nor even on any other place. Therefore, it is having to be developed from scratch, at least with regard to its Brine Observation Transition To Liquid Experiment (BOTTLE) unit. The Field Site Prototype (FSP-HABIT) has been the first embryo of the device, and has made possible to identify the very basic problems its design and functioning pose, as well as serving as the Master Thesis subject for Johannes Güttler, the master student who built it and tested it, pointing the ways to follow in the subsequent development of HABIT.

Two new LTU’s projects selected for REXUS/BEXUS programme

Two new experiments proposed by student teams from Luleå University of Technology (LTU) were selected to be launched within the REXUS/BEXUS programme during a workshop held at European Space research and Technology Centre (ESTEC, in Noordwijk, The Netherlands). The projects are EXamination of infrasound in the Stratosphere and Troposphere (EXIST), and InfraRed albedo measurements In Stratosphere (IRIS) and, in particular, they will be included in the BX 24/25 balloon campaigns, adding up to three the LTU’s projects accepted in the programme together with the SALACIA experiment, which will be launched next march on board the 21 REXUS rocket. The acceptance marks the beginning of the long process of development of the initial idea and the construction of the correspondent instruments.

Snow temperature can predict earthquakes

Anomalies observed in the surface temperature of snow-covered areas could be a reliable reference to predict earthquakes. According to research at Luleå University of Technology, an abnormally higher snow surface temperature might indicate that an earthquake can occur within two to three weeks.