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The SPICE instrument on board ESA's Solar Orbiter mission has successfully obtained its first measurements of the Sun on April 21, 2020. This is a major step for the instrument and for the mission, which was launched on February 10, 2020 and is currently on its way to study the Sun closely.
One and a half year after its launch in October 2018, the BepiColombo spacecraft has performed an Earth flyby on April 10, 2020, so as to reach Venus on its way to an orbital insertion around Mercury end of 2025. BepiColombo is the first European mission using ionic propulsion, which makes it possible to implement major changes in the trajectory with a limited impact on the mass budget.
The Solar Orbiter probe will bring new views of the Sun. This mission is operated by ESA with a contribution from NASA and is complementary to the Parker Solar Probe, an American mission launched in August 2018. France is strongly involved in this mission to the Sun.
About 120 scientists from French labs belonging to the European cosmology space mission Euclid gathered in a conference organized by IAS in november 2019 in Orsay. Euclid launch is scheduled in 2020.
During the Mercury transit on November the 11th, 2019, IAS researchers and the ALCOR astronomy club will organize an afternoon with observations of the Sun, conferences, and workshops. This event will take place on the University campus at the new physics teaching building, "hbar" (building 625).
