The MiARD project will be carried out by a consortium of eight partners which include universities, research institutions and a company. Three of the partners are Swiss, with the others being in Germany, the United Kingdom and France.
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Consortium Partners
The MiARD project is led by Professor Nicolas Thomas from the University of Bern's Space Research and Planetology division. Both the Planetary Imaging Group and the ROSINA group from Bern will contribute to the MiARD project.
The Institute of Planetary Science of the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) will take part in MiARD through its department for Asteroids and Comets, led by Dr Ekkehard Kührt.
The Laboratoire Astrophysique de Marseille is an institution run jointly by the French national science research agency CNRS and the Aix-Marseille University. Although the laboratory as a whole has broad interests ranging from cosmology through the interstellar medium and evolution of galaxies to solar system formation, is is the part of the solar system group led by Dr Laurent Jorda (with Olivier Groussin, Olivier Moussin, Nicholas Attree and David Nebouy) who will contribute to the MiARD project.
Dr Paul Hartogh leads the team from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany who will contribute to the MiARD project.
Professor Ian Wright of the Space Instrumentation 'discipline' at the Open University in England specialises in the use of mass spectrometry and isotope ratios to understand the origins of our solar system and life on Earth.
Dr Kokou Dadzie and Dr Chariton Christou from the the Institute of Mechanical, Process and Energy Engineering at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland will participate inthe MiARD project. Their task will be to develop better numerical models of the gas flow through the 'soil' of the comet, especially at the surface. This is an interesting opportunity for planetary science to benefit from the experience of the petrochemical industry.
The International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern (Switzerland) is a foundation devoted to advanced interdisciplinary study of results from space missions, ground based observations and laboratory experiments that are relevant to space science in a broad sense.
Amanuensis is a small Swiss company specialising in proposal writing and project management for international research projects (usually applied research). The managing director, James Whitby, has a background in planetary sciences - in particular isotope geochemistry, radiometric dating, and instrument development.