ICARUS initiative

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The aim of ICARUS Initiative ( English International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space ) is the establishment of a remote sensing platform in space to the movements of organisms to observe global.

history

Installation of the ICARUS antenna during the ISS expedition 56

ICARUS was founded in 2002 by an international consortium consisting of scientists who recognized that there was a lack of knowledge regarding the global distribution and migration routes of "small animals" (e.g. insects, bats, songbirds). In 2011 the ICARUS initiative was presented to over 100 government representatives at a meeting of the Bonn Convention in Norway. The project has been funded as a national project by the DLR Space Administration since March 2012 and supported by Roskosmos . The Max Planck Society also finances the miniaturization of the ICARUS radio chip (receiver-transmitter unit).

The onboard computer and the ICARUS antenna were transported to the ISS in October 2017 and February 2018, respectively.

On August 15, 2018, the cosmonauts Artemjew and Prokopjew installed the ICARUS experimental system (remote sensing platform ) on the ISS during a multi-hour spacecraft mission . In the second week of July 2019, Icarus went into test operation. After evaluating the test data collected every 4 months, the global wildlife migration monitoring system should be available to the worldwide scientific community for research.

management

The initiative is led by Martin Wikelski and Uschi Müller from the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Radolfzell on Lake Constance and Olga Solomina from the Russian Academy of Sciences , Moscow . Members of the Scientific Advisory Board are: Gil Bohrer, Ohio State University / USA; Margaret Crofoot , University of Konstanz and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama; Walter Jetz , Yale University ; Roland Kays, North Carolina State University / USA; Kate Mansfield, Marine Turtle Research Group, University of Central Florida / USA; Grigori Tertitsky, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; and Kasper Thorup, University of Copenhagen , Denmark.

Technical implementation

ICARUS uses CDMA communication technology (Code Division Multiple Access) to send small amounts of data with low energy consumption from the ground to a decoding processor in low earth orbit (400–800 km orbit height). ICARUS thus realizes an IoT (Internet of Things) communication via satellite. ICARUS consists of a remote sensing platform on the ISS, the receiver-transmitter unit on the animal and the data center. The receiver-transmitter units are attached to animals selected by the researchers. These have u. a. GPS receiver to determine the animal's position. The data can then be queried from the remote sensing platform on the ISS with a narrowband data signal on the frequency 468.1 MHz. After they have been transmitted on the frequency 402.25 MHz with a bandwidth of approx. 1.5 MHz for reception on the ISS, they are forwarded to the Mission Control Center and sent from there to the data center. The data can be used by the researchers u. a. can be queried from the Movebank (a database for animal movements). In addition, it is also possible for the researchers to query the data from the animals (receiver-transmitter unit) on site using a mobile device. One of the challenges was to minimize the volume of data to be sent to the ISS.

Goals and benefits

Billions of animals move across continents and borders. It is therefore hardly possible for researchers to observe individual small animals continuously and over a long period of time as they migrate. ICARUS should help here. The analysis of local and global routes of spread and migration should provide further information on the spread of infectious diseases by animals (songbirds, bats, insects), the probability of the presence of a bird population in a certain area, movement patterns during migration, impairment of the bird population by environmental influences u. v. m. be won.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Homepage - About ICARUS. Max Planck Institute for Ornithology , November 16, 2011, accessed on February 22, 2014 (English).
  2. ↑ The ICARUS initiative was presented at an international conference of the CMS (Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals) . News from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, November 21, 2011, accessed on March 8, 2018.
  3. ↑ Ears for Icarus - Russian rocket brings antenna of the animal observation system to the International Space Station . Press release of the Max Planck Society, February 13, 2018, accessed on February 20, 2018.
  4. ^ Cosmonauts Working Outside Station for Russian Spacewalk . NASA report dated August 15, 2018.
  5. ↑ Icarus is switched on . Max Planck Society, July 10, 2019, accessed on July 14, 2019.
  6. ↑ see homepage of the Icarus initiative, accessed June 30, 2020
  7. ↑ page data transfer at www.tiersensoren.mpg.de, accessed February 27, 2018
  8. ↑ See the Movebank.org homepage
  9. ↑ Homepage - Technical Solution. Max Planck Institute for Ornithology , November 15, 2011, accessed on February 22, 2014 (English).
  10. ↑ Manfred Dieterle-Jöchle: Birds as climate researchers. (PDF; 60 KB) Südkurier , December 21, 2013, accessed on February 22, 2014 .
  11. ↑ Homepage - Science & Projects. Max Planck Institute for Ornithology , November 15, 2011, accessed on February 22, 2014 (English).