Leicester engineers invited to present at UK’s largest space industry event

The role of Leicester engineers in a space mission to explore the Sun’s influence on habitable worlds will come under the spotlight at the UK’s largest space industry event this week.

A team from Space Park Leicester will present their work with Pulsar Fusion on the Elfen mission at Space-Comm Expo which is taking place at ExCeL London on Tuesday, March 11, and Wednesday, March 12.

Space Park Leicester, which is the University of Leicester’s £100 million science and innovation park, began work on the Elfen mission last year.

Principal Engineer Piyal Samara-Ratna, said: “We’re delighted to be collaborating with Pulsar Fusion on the Elfen mission.

“We’ve designed a concept for a low earth orbit to lunar electric transfer rideshare vehicle with Meridian Space Command for the mission and will be sharing images of it at Space-Comm Expo along with other graphics and a 3D print model.”

Elfen is a CubeSat mission concept – a type of miniature satellite that makes accessing space easier and more cost-effective.

It is anticipated that during its one-year mission, Elfen will answer questions about the impact of solar wind heavy ions on the coupled Sun-Earth system which is currently poorly understood. In addition, scientists are optimistic that it will reveal information about how heavy ions enter the nightside or tail region of the Earth’s magnetosphere.

It is also hoped that Elfen will support missions such as SMILE which uses the X-ray emission that results from the interaction of the solar wind heavy ions with hydrogen around the Earth to image large areas of the magnetosphere.

This year’s Space-Comm Expo in London will bring together business, government, defence, space agencies and aerospace experts from across the space community.

Highlights will include talks from world-renowned physicist Professor Brian Cox, Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson and leading figures from the UK Space Agency, the European Space Agency, UKspace, Space Port Japan, Johnson Space Center NASA as well as representatives from a variety of national space agencies, universities and companies at the cutting edge of space research and manufacturing.

For further information about Space-Comm Expo, visit https://space-comm.co.uk/

Main image: Space Park Leicester engineers on the Pulsar Fusion stand.