Team

PrincipaI Investigator : F.X. Schmider
Project Manager : Juien Dejonghe

• Laboratoire Lagrange (OCA)
Lagrange laboratory at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice is composed of about 100 permanent staff members, from whom about 70 researchers in field of planetology, stellar physics, extragalactic astrophysics, hydrodynamic turbulence and data processing. Lagrange has also a large technical staff composed of more than 30 engineers that has produced instruments for ground-based observatories like AMBER and MATISSE for the VLTI at Paranal Observatory in Chile, and developed several concepts of imaging spectrometers. Lagrange is involved at different level in several space missions, particularly on GAIA, EUCLID and PLATO.
This technical staff has expertises in project management, system engineering, optical and mechanical engineering, scientific and instrumental software engineering. It has experience in leading ground-based network for helio and asteroseismology, as IRIS and SYMPA.
Lagrange offers general facilities for the development of instruments like ISO7 clean rooms, integration rooms, mechanical workshop with metrology, general tests equipment (light sources, interferometer, wavefront analyzers, spectrographs, microscope, thermal chambers,…)
The Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur provides different support for the laboratories, in particular workshops, support for computer and network, administrative and financial services. OCA hosts the Calern observatory equipped with several 1m-class telescopes for tests on the sky and realization of the observations. The C2PU telescopes are full refurbished 1-m telescope offering observing capabilities for student and professional. These telescopes offer a possibility of remote control observations. Adaptive Optics is being developed at C2PU telescope with the support of OCA.

• IAS
The Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale (IAS) is a laboratory of the National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS) and of the University of Paris-Sud 11, having in addition the status of Observatory. The IAS comprises 140 scientists, engineers, technicians, administrators and graduate students.
The main research themes at the IAS are : solar and stellar physics, solar system and extrasolar planets, extraterrestrial and interstellar matter, galaxies and cosmology. The institute is heavily involved in space instrumentation, as well as having a large Research and Developpment (R&D) program. The IAS is a major partner for space agencies, national (CNES), or international (ESA, NASA) and works with many industrialpartners (Alcatel, Air Liquide, EADS…). The IAS also leads researches in experimental astrochemistry about extraterrestrial and interstellar solid matter and its evolution in relation with astronomical observations.
The scientific and technical teams of the IAS conceive and exploit the instruments data from CNES, ESA and sometimes NASA space missions. Several spatial projects can be managed simultaneously by the IAS: the institute drives the conception and development of instruments, tests and operates them. For this, the institute possesses large technical infrastructure used to simulate a space environment.The IAS has expertise in thermal studies for space experiment and in development of vacuum chambers for laboratory tests.
The data and operations center of IAS - IDOC – is in charge of some of the operations of the solar mission SoHO, the Mars Express planetary mission and of the Planck cosmology mission. The center also ensures the analysis, the archiving and the access, for the national and international community, to the data of missions in which generally the IAS took part.

• New Mexico State University (NMSU)

The Department of Astronomy at NMSU is actively engaged in a variety of research programs, including planetary science, solar physics, interstellar medium, variable stars, and extragalactic and cosmological studies. Research efforts include both observational and theoretical aspects. The department is composed of 12 Faculty members, 5 post-docs and about 30 NMSU graduate students, who play key roles and/or lead the efforts as they work toward earning their PhD degree.

The Department of Astronomy has been involved in the development of the Doppler Sismo Imager in the past. In 2014, the Department obtained a support from the NASA/EPSCOR program to develop a copy of the DSI instrument to be placed of one of the telescope that the NMSU operates or have access to.This project started under the name of JIVE in NM.

The Department of Astronomy owns and operates a 1m telescope at the Apache Point Observatory and to the Dunn Solar Telescope at Sacramento Peak, where the JIVE instrument is planned to be mounted. It has also access to the 3.5 m telescope at Apache Point. In addition, the Electrical and Engineering Laboratory offers facilities to build the mechanical interface between the instrument and the telescope, as well as the development of the software interface between the automatic 1m telescope and the instrument.

• Tokyo Institute of Technology, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS)
The Dept of Earth and Planetary Science (EPS) of the Tokyo Institute of Technology (and particularly prof Bun’ei Sato and prof. Shigeru Ida) is known internationally for its contributions in radial velocity observations of exoplanets and for major progresses in the understanding of the formation of planetary systems.
Through its network of observations in Japan, EPS will ensure for JOVIAL the access to telescope time in Japan, either at Okayama observatory where is located the largest telescope in Japan, a 188 cm telescope, or at some other observatories, where smaller but more recent telescopes exist.
EPS will also participate in the scientific exploitation of JOVIAL, in particular through a determination of how constraints on the compositions of Jupiter and Saturn affect our knowledge of the formation of planets and the origin of the Solar System.

Technical Group Leader: Julien Dejonghe

Technical Group

Science Group Leader: Tristan Guillot

Science Group