Greek Team Chosen to Participate in European Jupiter Expedition

 (Photo credit: nudenut)

A scientific experiment by a Greek team has been chosen for the European Space Agency (ESA) Jupiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. The Particle Environment Package is one of 11 experiments selected, after tough competition, according to a JUICE announcement. Planned to launch in 2022 and arrive at Jupiter in 2030, it will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the biggest planet in the Solar System and three of its largest moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

Prominent Greek-American astrophysicist Stamatios Krimigis is among the researchers involved in the Particle Environment Package experiment. JUICE is the first Large-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program that will carry out scientific experiments to study the gas giant planet and its large ocean-bearing moons.

He has contributed to the majority of the United States' unmanned space exploration programs of the Solar system and beyond as well as to exploration missions to almost every planet of our solar system.

In 1999, the International Astronomical Union named the asteroid 8323 Krimigis (previously 1979 UH) in his honor.

He was born in 1938 in Vrontados, Chios, where he also attended school.

He then immigrated to the United Staes and studied at the University of Minnesota, and earned his Bachelor of Physics, 1961, his Master of Science at the University of Iowa in 1963 and his Ph.D. in 1965 in Physics.

Presently, he is Head Emeritus of the Space Department Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University Laurel, Maryland, in the US and a member of the Academy of Athens, Greece, where he has the Chair of Science of Space.

He is also the President of the Greek National Council for Research and Technology.

Krimigis has been the Principal Investigator for MIMI on Cassini–Huygens, the Low Energy Charged Particle Experiment (LECP) on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, and for the CPME on Explorer 47. He is Co-Investigator for LAN/HI-SCALE on Ulysses solar polar orbiter, EPIC on GEOTAIL, EDP for Galileo mission, TRD on Mariner 3, and for the LECR on Mariner 4. Also, Krimigis has also worked on the Advanced Composition Explorer experiment for the Explorer 50, the Mariner 5, MESSENGER and New Horizons programs. Wikipedia