The University of Valencia will participate next summer in a NASA experiment designed to test new technologies in its program of Earth Observation. The U.S. space agency has been interested in an innovative technique for determining the carbon balance in the world developed by the Image Processing Laboratory (PCB) under the FLEX project of the European Space Agency (ESA ), a mission led by the University now committed to the uncertainty of European budgets.
Scientists from the Laboratori de Processat d'Imatges (IPL) (Image Processing Laboratory) -in the Science Park of the University of Valencia have developed a new technology to determine the carbon balance in the earth from measuring photosynthetic activity of plants using the fluorescence emitted by vegetation. This group of researchers led by Jose Moreno (Department of Earth Physics and Thermodynamics and member of the IPL) has developed a prototype airborne measurement instrument that must be on board the satellite in a scientific mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), led by the University, called FLEX (Fluorescence Explorer).The prototype has already done measurements from aircraft in experimental zones of Finland, Germany and other European countries.
NASA is now interested in this new technology and has funded, together with the Goddard Space Flight Center and other agencies to try an experiment at Harvard, Massachusetts (USA) with other complementary technologies recently developed by the U.S. space agency.The methodology developed in Valencia will be used by NASA in such experiments, including new measures prototypes developed and patented by the University of Valencia.
The news comes at a time when uncertainty in the budget of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union compromise the development of various scientific missions in the framework of the European Earth Observation program, among these FLEX project. This is reflected in last Friday's section NewsFocus of Science (Vol. 339 no. P. 6119. 504), where the magazine echoed the position of this Earth Observation program, in budgetary terms the most important of ESA, and quoted FLEX project, led by the University of Valencia as possible affected.
According to Science, the bulk of the budget is allocated to ESA missions such as weather operations -METEOSAT-, but also the development of scientific missions using advanced technologies that provide new kinds of data about the Earth's surface, the atmosphere and oceans. These missions, among which is the FLEX project, represent the scientific and technological advance of ESA, and are known as Earth Explorers.Now the uncertainty in European budgets, as the article continues, compromises the development of such space missions.
According to Jose Moreno, a physicist at the University of Valencia and Principal Investigator of the FLEX mission in the scientific program of ESA's Earth Explorer, "at least for now, this is only a delay of several years in launching the mission, and continuation of the work we do in regard to the University's mission will not be affected. But if the situation does not improve in the next years cuts may put it at risk. "
According to the article, the EU economic summit recently held in Brussels, would have insured about 5,800 million euros to finance the Copernicus program of Earth Observation for the next 7 years. However, the contribution has been cut to 3,800 million euros, which also compromises the continuation of the program by the EU."Although funding constraints were expected, said Moreno, the main problem comes from what will be made out of the application of these cuts, since keeping launching programs like Ariane or the maintenance of the International Space Station, the scientific programs will be most affected. "
Last update: 11 de february de 2013 11:31.
News release
