CEDAR email: Astronaut Aurora Project

[Katie Herlingshaw]

The first human spaceflight in a polar orbit (Fram2) will launch next week - Tue April 1 2025 ~ 3UT! The Fram2 astronauts are in a scientific collaboration called the SolarMaX project with The University Centre in Svalbard and the ARCTICS ISSI group.



The goal of the SolarMaX project is to create an open-source database of aurora photographs for researchers over a 3-5 day orbit window. This collection will include videos captured from Fram2, as well as those taken from the ground by anyone on Earth who can observe the aurora and measurements from scientific instruments.



During the mission, scientists and citizen scientists will monitor conditions for certain types of what we call ‘weird aurora’. The astronauts will then be alerted if any types are spotted along their orbit path, so they can be ready. Photos should be submitted to the Skywarden database for researchers to use and a selection of people who do this will win prizes that have been to space.



If you have instruments that could be useful for the mission, then turn them into high-resolution mode and let us know! If you can spread the word about the mission in your network then that is also great - anyone can take part using a camera or smartphone in any area with the opportunity for aurora!



Read more information on www.solarmaxmission.com<http://www.solarmaxmission.com> and contact katieh at unis.no<mailto:katieh at unis.no> with any questions or comments.
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