The EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS) is a European satellite system that offers remote sensing capabilities to both meteorologists and climatologists. It consists of a series of three polar orbiting Metop satellites, to be flown successively for more than 14 years, from 2006, together with the relevant ground facilities. 

The satellites form the space segment component of the overall EPS system, which in turn is the European half of the EUMETSAT/NOAA Initial Joint Polar System (IJPS).

Metop-A (launched on 19 October 2006) and Metop-B (launched on 17 September 2012) are in a lower polar orbit, at an altitude of 817 kilometres, to provide more detailed observations of the global atmosphere, oceans and continents. The two satellites will operate in parallel for as long as Metop-A's available capacities bring benefits to users. Metop-C is due to be launched in 2017.

EPS Programme Background

EUMETSAT is responsible for coordinating all elements of the development, launch and operation of EPS satellites. This includes developing and procuring the ground segment; procuring the launcher and launch site, and operating the systems. Under the IJPS and Joint Transition Activities (JTA) agreement, EUMETSAT and NOAA have agreed to provide instruments for each other's satellites; exchange all data in real time, and assist each other with backup services. Other partners are European Space Agency and CNES.

The European and American satellites carry a set of identical sensors:

AVHRR/3 and the ATOVS suite consisting of AMSU-A, HIRS/4 and MHS. NOAA provides most of the joint instruments on board the satellites and EUMETSAT has developed and provides NOAA with the Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS).

In addition, the Metop satellites carry a set of European sensors, IASI, ASCAT, GOME-2 and GRAS, aimed at improving atmospheric soundings, as well as measuring atmospheric ozone and near-surface wind vectors over the ocean. They also carry the Argos Advanced Data Collection System (A-DCS).

The International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) was established in response to "The Global Exploration Strategy (GES): The Framework for Coordination" developed by fourteen space agencies and released in May 2007.

This GES Framework Document articulated a shared vision of coordinated human and robotic space exploration focused on Solar System destinations where humans may one day live and work. Among the many Framework Document findings was the need to establish a voluntary, non-binding international coordination mechanism through which individual agencies may exchange information regarding their interests, plans and activities in space exploration, and to work together on means of strengthening both individual exploration programs as well as the collective effort.

the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a US Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics.

As of January 1, 2007, Fermilab is operated by the Fermi Research Alliance, a joint venture of the University of Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology and the Universities Research Association (URA). Fermilab is a part of the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor. 

Fermilab's Tevatron was a landmark particle accelerator; at 3.9 miles (6.3 km) in circumference, it was the world's second largest energy particle accelerator (CERN's Large Hadron Collider is 27 km in circumference), until being shut down on September 30, 2011. In 1995, both the CDF and DØ (detectors which utilize the Tevatron) experiments announced the discovery of the top quark. 

In addition to high energy collider physics, Fermilab is also host to a number of smaller fixed-target and neutrino experiments, such as MiniBooNE (Mini Booster Neutrino Experiment), SciBooNE (SciBar Booster Neutrino Experiment) and MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search). The MiniBooNE detector is a 40-foot (12 m) diameter sphere which contains 800 tons of mineral oil lined with 1520 individual phototube detectors. An estimated 1 million neutrino events are recorded each year. SciBooNE is the newest neutrino experiment at Fermilab; it sits in the same neutrino beam as MiniBooNE but has fine-grained tracking capabilities. The MINOS experiment uses Fermilab's NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) beam, which is an intense beam of neutrinos that travels 455 miles (732 km) through the Earth to the Soudan Mine in Minnesota.

The Tevatron was a circular particle accelerator in the United States, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (also known as Fermilab), and holds the title of the second highest energy particle collider in the world after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland.

The Tevatron was a synchrotron that accelerated protons and antiprotons in a 6.86 km, or 4.26 mi, ring to energies of up to 1 TeV, hence its name. The main achievement the Tevatron was discovery in 1995 of the top quark—the last fundamental fermion predicted by the standard model of the particle physics. On July 2, 2012, near the end of Tevatron's operation, scientists of the CDF and DØ collider experiment teams at Fermilab announced the findings from the analysis of around 500 trillion collisions produced from the Tevatron collider since 2001, and found that the existence of the suspected Higgs boson was highly likely with only a 1-in-550 chance that the signs were due to a statistical fluctuation. The findings were confirmed two days later as being correct with a likelihood of error less than 1 in a million by data from the LHC experiments.

The Tevatron was completed in 1983 and significant upgrade investments were made in 1983–2011. The Tevatron ceased operations on 30 September, 2011,[3] due to budget cuts and because of the completion of the LHC, which began operations in early 2010 and was far more powerful (planned energies were two 7 TeV beams at the LHC compared to 1 TeV at the Tevatron). The main ring of the Tevatron will probably be reused in future experiments, and its components may be transferred to other particle accelerators.

NEXT, the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster project at Glenn Research Center aims to build an ion thruster about three times as powerful as the NSTAR used on Dawn and Deep Space 1.

By 2008, flight qualification models of the thruster were available. NEXT has 6.9 kW thruster power and 236 mN thrust, can be throttled down to 0.5 kW power, and has an ISP of 4190 seconds (compared to 3120 for NSTAR). The thrusters are manufactured at Aerojet and the power-management units at the ETI division of L3 Communications.

BOINC, the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing is an open source middleware system for volunteer and grid computing.

It was originally developed to support the SETI@home project before it became useful as a platform for other distributed applications in areas as diverse as mathematics, medicine, molecular biology, climatology, and astrophysics.

The intent of BOINC is to make it possible for researchers to tap into the enormous processing power of personal computers around the world.

The Mighty Eagle is a Prototype Robotic Lander developed by NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

The vehicle is an autonomous flying testbed that is used for testing hardware, sensors and algorithms. These sensors and algorithms include such things as onboard cameras that, with specialized guidance, navigation and control software, could aid in the capture of orbiting space debris, in-space docking with a fuel depot, docking of a robotic lander with an orbiting command module and the rendezvous of multiple unmanned stages for deep space human exploration of the solar system.

TRIUMF is Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics.

Its headquarters are located on the south campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia. TRIUMF houses the world's largest cyclotron, a source of 500 MeV protons, which was named an IEEE Milestone in 2010.

TRIUMF's activities involve particle physics, nuclear physics, nuclear medicine, and materials science.

Kymeta is an Intellectual Ventures spin-off company which aims to develop and commercialize the metamaterials surface antenna technology (M-SAT).

Metamaterials Surface Antenna Technology (MSA-T) was invented by Intellectual Ventures, where a dedicated team of engineers performed significant research and development to de-risk the technology. Recognizing the enormous potential of MSA-T, Kymeta was formed as a spin-out company from Intellectual Ventures. Kymeta has been granted an exclusive license from Intellectual Ventures to leverage MSA-T to create game-changing satellite user terminal products.

Kymeta received funding from Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates; a global cable company Liberty Global; and the investment firm Lux Capital. Kymeta's applied science is derived from the collaborative efforts of Dr. Nathan Kundtz and David R. Smith, at Duke University. metamaterials surface antenna technology is a new invention that is intended to be more efficient and compact than conventional satellite antennas.

Spacebel is a software engineering company operating in the Space and Earth monitoring application sectors, serving space agencies, major aerospace prime companies, EU institutions and the commercial market. Our skills include the mission definition and analysis of EO microsats, the design, development, integration, validation of IT space systems and geospatial information systems.

• On board software systems for satellites and space vehicles
• Satellite simulation systems
• Ground systems for control and mission centres
• Geospatial information systems support and services
• Earth observation microsatellite solutions