[HeliosphereNews] Heliosphere News - September 1, 2020

Tue Sep 1 13:44:57 EDT 2020

Heliosphere News - September 1, 2020

http://heliospherenews.unh.edu/

A newsletter devoted to Heliospheric Science.
Editor: Nathan Schwadron (nschwadron at unh.edu)
Co-Editor: Mihir Desai (mdesai at swri.edu)
Co-Editor: Eric Zirnstein (ejz at princeton.edu)
Co-Editor: Matina Gkioulidou (matina.gkioulidou at jhuapl.edu)
Co-Editor: Jamie Rankin (jsrankin at princeton.edu)

Coordinator: Liz Wilber (Elizabeth.Wilber at unh.edu)
Web site editor: Ken Fairchild (Ken.Fairchild at unh.edu)

If you are interested in being added to the list, being removed from the list, or posting an announcement, please send information to Nathan, Mihir, Eric, Matina, or Jamie. Posts are limited to ascii text.

Newsletters are archived on the following website:
http://heliospherenews.unh.edu/.

******************* Announcements *******************

1. MEETING: 3rd Annual Interstellar Probe Exploration Workshop, November 17-19, 2020, Silver Spring, Maryland

2. MEETING: COSPAR Scientific Assembly, NEW DATES: 28 January - 4 February, 2021

3. MEETING: MUAN 2020: Upper Atmospheres and Ionospheres in the Inner Solar System, September 9-11, 2020, New York, New York

4. ANNOUNCEMENT: Solar Orbiter In-situ Working Groups

5. JOB OPPORTUNITY: Civil Servant Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

6. JOB OPPORTUNITY: Research Associate position in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at CU Boulder supporting NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

7. JOB OPPORTUNITY: Space Weather Forecast Applications Scientist Position in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)at CU Boulder supporting NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)

8. ANNOUNCEMENT: Special Issue on Dynamical Processes in Space Plasmas in Applied Sciences Journal

9. ANNOUNCEMENT: Heliophysics 2050 Workshop and Call for White Papers - Extension Message

10. ANNOUNCEMENT: Access to Solar Orbiter Low Latency Data

11. ANNOUNCEMENT: New AGU SPA Student Committee - Join us!

12. ANNOUNCEMENT: Interstellar Probe Study Webinar Series - Thursday, September 3, 2020

13. ANNOUNCEMENT: SPA Registration Waivers for Fall AGU Meeting 2020

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1. MEETING: 3rd Annual Interstellar Probe Exploration Workshop November 17-19, 2020 Silver Spring, Maryland

The 3rd Annual Interstellar Probe Exploration Workshop is scheduled for November 17-19, 2020 at the Tommy Douglas Conference Center in Silver Spring, Maryland.

The workshop is being organized for heliophysicists, planetary scientists,astrophysicists, and engineers from all over the world. The purpose of the workshop is to gather together and discuss the objectives, design, and operations for a near-term, pragmatic interstellar probe mission.

The workshop is organized by a team at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory studying such a mission for the Heliophysics Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
Visit the JHU APL Interstellar Probe website for detailed information about the ongoing study.

IMPORTANT: To be added to the mailing list to receive pertinent information about this workshop and to indicate your interest in participating, please submit an Indication of Interest.

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/interstellarprobe2020/
#interstellarprobe2020

For more information, contact:
Meeting and Publication Services
USRA/Lunar and Planetary Institute
meetinginfo at hou.usra.edu

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2. MEETING: COSPAR Scientific Assembly, NEW DATES: 28 January - 4 February, 2021.

43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly will take place on 28 January - 4 February at the International Convention Center in Sydney, Australia. The 2021 Assembly will combine the latest in space research findings with activities designed to enrich the global space research community - including helping equip our future leaders, and workshopping with space industry - and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. You will have the opportunity of a lifetime to interact directly with everything
that Australia has to offer - our science and innovation, our people, our heritage, and our beautiful environment. The Assembly website is https://www.cospar2020.org/.

IMPORTANT DEADLINES:
Early Bird Registration Deadline 31 October 2020
Speaker Registration Deadline 31 October 2020
Accommodation Booking Deadline 15 December 2020

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3. MEETING: MUAN 2020: Upper Atmospheres and Ionospheres in the Inner Solar System, September 9-11, 2020, New York, New York

This three-day workshop will bring together scientists interested in the general dynamics of, and coupling between, ionized and neutral atmospheric constituents of three key inner Solar System planets: Mars, Earth, and Venus. Other bodies, such as comets and moons are also welcome. The objective is to embrace comparative studies between different planetary bodies in addition to the usual Mars aeronomy and plasma physics discussions, as this will lead to a better understanding of the role of upper atmospheres on planetary evolution and habitability at Mars and in the
Solar System.

The main topics for discussion are:
- Planetary aeronomy - past, present and future.
- Thermosphere-ionosphere-magnetosphere-exosphere (TIME) coupling.
- Lower-upper atmosphere connections.

A significant part of the workshop will be devoted to brainstorming and opportunities to discuss different science aspects, and to help establish fruitful collaborations. Our workshop will be hosted by Columbia University in New York City, with opportunities to present posters or talks. The workshop will be limited to 100 attendees, so to aid us in planning, we encourage all those interested to please indicate your interest here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdVgrQ8cIQx8mOgF5rVV76Re6hh6u1_xwtK4XXhKSpVSOU2_A/viewform

SOC:
Beatriz Sanchez-Cano (University of Leicester) David Andrews (Swedish Institute of Space Physics) Mark Lester (University of Leicester) Robert Lillis (UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory)
Hermann Opgenoorth (Umea University) Dmitri Titov (ESA) Michael J. Way (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies) Olivier Witasse (ESA)

Email inquiries about this meeting can be directed to Linda Sohl (LOC) at linda.sohl at columbia.edu.

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4. ANNOUNCEMENT: Solar Orbiter In-situ Working Groups

The Solar Orbiter In-situ Working Groups are now ready for you to sign up!

The goals of these community-driven Working Groups are to form collaborations, to avoid overlap in research activities, to make the community aware of ongoing work with Solar Orbiter data, and to guarantee the delivery on the Solar Orbiter Science Activity Plan (SAP).

Membership in the Working Groups is open for interested researchers on all career levels and without restrictions. We recommend, however, that you only sign up to the Working Groups that you want to actively participate in.

You can find more detailed information about the Working Groups,
including short summaries of the groups' objectives and the instructions to sign up, on this website that Andrew Dimmock has set up: https://sites.google.com/view/soloiswg/

We also have created a shared Google Calendar with the information about all meetings. You can subscribe to the calendar to stay up to date about the ongoing meetings.

The Working Groups will start their work in early September.

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5. JOB OPPORTUNITY: Civil Servant Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

The Energetic Particle Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is looking to hire a scientist with experience in designing, building and analyzing data from instruments that measure ionized and neutral high-energy particles in the heliosphere and magnetosphere. The laboratory currently has instruments in development for the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission (launch in 2024), several cubesats for Low-Earth Orbit and interplanetary space, and the Lunar Gateway.

The Energetic Particle Laboratory is in the Heliospheric Science Laboratory (Code 672) of Goddard's Heliophysics Science Division.
This is a US Government Civil Servant position, therefore applicants are required to be either US citizens or currently holding a green card and are expected to have a PhD in a related field and several years of experience beyond completion of their PhD. Interested individuals should send a current CV to Adam Szabo (adam.szabo at nasa.gov), Code 672 Lab Chief, and Eric Christian (eric.r.christian at nasa.gov), Code 672 Associate Lab Chief and head of the Energetic Particle Laboratory.

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6. JOB OPPORTUNITY: Research Associate position in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at CU Boulder supporting NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado at Boulder has an immediate opening for a Research Associate supporting NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). This position is for an Energetic Particle Space Scientist in NCEI's Solar and Terrestrial Physics (STP) Group. A team of dedicated scientists within STP works to ensure that current and future space weather sensors on NOAA satellites provide effective operational products for use by the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) Space Weather
Prediction Center (SWPC).

STP's overall responsibilities also include providing access to these environmental data by spacecraft engineers and the
scientific community. The Energetic Particle Space Scientist will be primarily responsible for ensuring the quality and availability of data from the Space Environment In-Situ Suite (SEISS), operated on-board NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-R series system.

SEISS measures the local charged particle environment across a broad energy range at multiple pitch angles. The GOES-R series is NOAA's newest generation of GOES spacecraft. The first GOES-R satellite, GOES-16, was launched in November 2016. The fourth and last GOES-R satellite is expected to launch in 2024. SEISS calibration and validation activities are ongoing.

Required:
- This position involves handling export-controlled documents and data, thus only applications from US citizens or permanent residents (green card holders) can be considered.
- If hired, you will need to pass a National Agency Check with Inquiries(NACI, Federal background check).
- Ph.D. in Physical Science, Engineering or similar technical discipline.
- Four years of experience at the post-bachelor's level in satellite sensor design, algorithm development, and/or scientific research with space environmental data.

What We Would Like You to Have:
- Ph.D. in Space Plasma Physics.
- 1-2 years postdoctoral experience working with space plasma
instrumentation and instrument data.
- Familiarity with NOAA's satellite programs, particularly GOES.
- Willingness to pursue independent funding for research.
For additional information and application instructions go to
https://jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDetail?jobId=23539
Please direct questions about this position to Brian Kress (brian.kress at noaa.gov).

* Note, this position was originally posted on 09-Jan-2020, but the hiring process has been on hold due to rapidly changing hiring policy at CU Boulder during the coronavirus pandemic. We are restarting the search for this position.

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7. JOB OPPORTUNITY: Space Weather Forecast Applications Scientist Position in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at CU Boulder supporting NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)

The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) encourages applications to fill a Research Associate position resident at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)! SWPC is the nation's official source of space weather alerts and warnings. SWPC forecasts and products support a wide range of customers, including power grid operators, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), aviation, satellite operators, and emergency managers.

Our Research Associate will work within the SWPC Testbed section of the Space Weather Prediction Center, working with the wider Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), Space Weather Follow On - L1 (SWFO-L1), and Compact Coronagraph teams. Specifically, this position will initially support the DSCOVR mission, with the expectation the candidate will take a lead in developing experimental space weather forecasting applications for the benefit of forecasters and customers. In addition to data from DSCOVR, the successful applicant is encouraged to investigate future missions including the SWFO-L1 and Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) for their use in crafting new space weather applications. Together, these missions are important to ensuring the highest quality space weather forecasts and it is encouraged that the applications developed using these missions will be used to improve and enhance SWPC?s geomagnetic and radiation storm forecasts. Through this role, the successful candidate will participate in preparing these missions, ground systems, and forecast products for post-launch, real-time operations!

For Additional Information and to Apply:
https://jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDetail/?jobId=26121

For Direct Questions Regarding the Position,
Please Contact Eric Adamson: eric.adamson at noaa.gov

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8. ANNOUNCEMENT: Special Issue on Dynamical Processes in Space Plasmas in Applied Sciences Journal

From: Georgios Nicolaou

We are happy to announce our special Issue on Dynamical Processes in Space Plasmas in Applied Sciences Journal by mdpi.

https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/special_issues/Dynamical_Processes_Space_Plasmas

We welcome original papers with theoretical, modelling and/or data-analysis research on dynamical mechanisms in collisionless space plasmas. We strongly encourage papers demonstrating new methods, measurement and analysis techniques to resolve physical processes in space plasmas.

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9. ANNOUNCEMENT: Heliophysics 2050 Workshop and Call for White Papers - Extension Message

Earlier this year, the Heliophysics 2050 Workshop was moved to April 2021. This workshop is envisioned as an agency-enabled, community-driven event to help the science community better prepare for the next Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey.

In order to mitigate some of the impact of COVID-19 on the community, the deadline for the submission of whitepapers to be used for planning the Heliophysics 2050 Workshop has been extended to September 11, 2020.

The agency understands the difficulties experienced by many community members in the current public health situation. Community members are strongly encouraged to proactively involve colleagues that may be experiencing significant time constraints due to the COVID-19 situation that would allow participation in but prevent the leading of white papers.

The workshop will examine current scientific understanding and what near-term investigations can enable and inform future investigations. From this scientific progression, the Workshop will create a “Science Web” that maps current understanding to the next set of science investigations which, in turn, lead to still later studies. These investigations will cover the range of work from basic research to operational efforts and would be agnostic to their mode of execution (e.g. theory, observations, spaceflight missions).

The white papers invited are to be short (expected <=3 pages) documents that succinctly identify a progression of linked scientific investigations starting from the current state-of-the-art and leading towards the desired state-of-the-art in 2050. There will be no limit of the number of white papers that an individual may submit, but the ideal white paper would contain as much of the links between and progression of related science investigations as possible. 

The original call for whitepapers and links for submission can be found at https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/helio2050/whitepapers/. Information about the purpose and philosophy of the workshop itself can also be found on that webpage.

Any questions about the Heliophysics 2050 Workshop or whitepapers should be directed to Jared Leisner (jared.s.leisner at nasa.gov).

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10. ANNOUNCEMENT: Access to Solar Orbiter Low Latency Data

The Solar Orbiter teams are making public the Low Latency data from the four in-situ instruments (EPD, MAG, RPW, SWA), available via the ESA Solar Orbiter Archive.

Low Latency data are a limited subset of each instrument's data, downlinked in full during every communications pass. They are primarily an operational product, designed to provide situational awareness to the Solar Orbiter team, while the spacecraft is far from Earth, and it takes several weeks to months for science data to be returned to Earth. Within the team, low latency data will be used to perform high-level instrument health checks, to help choose the best targets for the high-resolution imagers, and, for some instruments, to help us select the most interesting events to downlink at the best resolution. 

These data will be immediately available to the whole community from now on and for the entire duration of the mission. However they should be used with caution: they are not of a sufficient quality to undertake science analysis and results derived from them should not be submitted for publication. Full science-quality level 2 data products will be released later this year. 

More details on how to access these data, together with a list of caveats are provided in this link: https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/solar-orbiter/access-to-solar-orbiter-low-latency-data

For more information, feel free to contact the instruments' Principal Investigators:

EPD (Energetic Particle Detector) PI: Javier Rodríguez-Pacheco, University of Alcalá, Spain, fsrodriguez at uah.es
MAG (Magnetometer) PI: Tim Horbury, Imperial College London, UK, t.horbury at imperial.ac.uk
RPW (Radio and Plasma Waves) PI: Milan Maksimovic, LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, France, milan.maksimovic at obspm.fr
SWA (Solar Wind Analyser) PI: Chris Owen, MSSL, University College London, UK, c.owen at ucl.ac.uk

For mission-level questions, please contact the ESA Project Scientists:

Daniel Müller: daniel.mueller at esa.int
Yannis Zouganelis: yannis.zouganelis at esa.int

For questions about the Solar Orbiter Archive, please contact the Archive Scientist, Pedro Osuna (Pedro.Osuna at sciops.esa.int).

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11. ANNOUNCEMENT: New AGU SPA Student Committee - Join us!

Greetings to all students and early career scientists!

Are you interested in making the upcoming Virtual AGU Fall meeting more accessible and inclusive? Do you have ideas about things that the SPA Section could be doing to serve our community in general? Then come join me in the new AGU SPA student committee! 

My name is Gilly, and I am your student representative on the SPA Executive Committee. Last month, the student representatives from all of the AGU sections had a meeting where we talked about what each section was doing to support their communities: https://docs.google.com/document/d/163sbXaCpzzsy67I0X-wVXckjfw1r1a2Tf1eArI_2U5I/edit

In response to that meeting, our section has decided to form our own SPA Student Committee. This committee will be responsible for communicating the needs of the students at AGU meetings (and throughout the rest of the year too!) to the executive committee, and will be well positioned to spearhead initiatives that serve our community. And because this is a new committee, there is a lot of room for the role of the committee to evolve to best meet our needs. If you are interested in volunteering, please fill this brief form (full link below). Open to anyone who wants to improve the student experience at AGU, including high schoolers, undergraduates, grad students, postdocs, and EC scientists. Feel free to email me directly at chris.gilly at colorado.edu if you have any comments, questions, or concerns. 

I hope to hear from you soon!

Chris Gilly  (he/him)
AGU SPA Student Representative 
PhD Candidate, Heliophysics
University of Colorado Boulder, APS Dept.
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics
Public Talk Facilitator, Fiske Planetarium
www.gilly.space

Student Rep Meeting Minutes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/163sbXaCpzzsy67I0X-wVXckjfw1r1a2Tf1eArI_2U5I/edit?usp=sharing

Interest in Joining Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdElI8G3qjZURc9qjpr7whN7qaLQHXhaCbFvb7eGTfeczUXxg/viewform

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12. ANNOUNCEMENT: Interstellar Probe Study Webinar Series - Thursday, September 3, 2020

Please join the Interstellar Probe Study Team for another installment of the Interstellar Probe Study Webinar Series on Thursday, September 3rd 2020, at noon EDT via Zoom.

Title: Engineering Discussion: Mission Trade Space

Panelists
Jim Kinnison: Concept Study System Engineer, Interstellar Probe Study, JHUAPL
Wayne Schlei: Mission Design Lead, Interstellar Probe Study, JHUAPL
David Copeland: Telecommunications Lead Engineer, Interstellar Probe Study, JHUAPL   

The webinar will present the mission concept trade space and show a candidate spacecraft architecture. The presenters will define the trajectory trade space and link it with the operations concept. Additionally, the potential mission telecommunications will be presented along with the trade space on the data downlink strategy.

Following the presentations there will be a question and answer session.

To watch this webinar please visit the following event page, which has the zoom link.
http://interstellarprobe.jhuapl.edu/Resources/Meetings/agenda.php?id=87

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13. ANNOUNCEMENT: SPA Registration Waivers for Fall AGU Meeting 2020

Is the registration cost for the Fall AGU meeting a barrier for your participation (or for someone you know)? We are happy to announce several opportunities that could help.

Since the meeting is all virtual and travel isn’t required, the Fall 2020 meeting provides a unique opportunity for more scientists with limited means to participate. In order to promote more participation, AGU has reduced or waived registration fees for some students, teachers, and scientists. Registration rates for undergraduates and for K12 educators who are AGU members is $0. Graduate students and retirees are $100. [Please notice that it is the same cost or cheaper to become a member and pay the member rate than it is to pay the non-member rate!] 

AGU is also waiving registration fees for any participant (member or non-member) from Low Income or Lower-Middle Income countries. A list of eligible countries can be found here:
https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519#Low_income

The SPA leadership team recognizes that there may be other scientists who do not qualify for AGU’s registration waivers but would still have difficulty participating due to financial limitations. Therefore we are accepting applications for registration waivers for participants in need (members and non-members). Priority will be given to first-time attendees and those from Minority Serving Institutions. Anyone is eligible but priority will also be given to graduate students and early career scientists (<10 beyond PhD).   

Applications are currently being accepted for SPA registration waivers. Selections will be made on or before October 15. The application for registration waiver can be found here:
https://forms.gle/WnEaDsgtFJDiurgC7

We encourage you to forward this email and application link to those you believe would benefit from attending the fall AGU meeting an are in need of financial support to do so.

Sincerely,
The SPA leadership team
Christina Cohen
Geoff Reeves
Larry Paxton
Liz MacDonald
Romina Nikoukar
Christina Lee
Ale Pacini
Chris R. Gilly

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