Professor of Physics, Deputy Director (Solar System) at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UCL
I am Professor of Physics and Deputy Director (Solar System) at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL), University College London, located in Surrey.
My specialty is the plasma interaction with unmagnetized objects, such as comets, Titan, Enceladus, Venus, and Mars, planetary magnetospheres, and planetary exploration. Through my career I've been lucky to work on many of the planetary and magnetospheric missions with plasma instruments on board. One of these was Cassini, which I've been fortunate to have been involved with (as lead co-investigator for the Electron Spectrometer (ELS), part of the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) since the instrument proposal in 1989. This included selection, getting the money, design, build, test, test, and test, calibrate launch, arrival at Saturn, the prime mission to 2008, equinox mission to 2010—and it still worked well (until 2012) into the current (extended estended) "solstice" mission (North polar summer on Saturn) with a spectacular end of mission in 2017.
I am Principal Investigator for the ExoMars PanCam instrument going to Mars in 2018. I am also co-investigator on the JUICE PEP instrument, and on Mars Express ASPERA-3, Venus Express ASPERA-4, MMS-FPI, Rosetta RPC, Cluster PEACE and Giotto JPA.
I am a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a Member of both the American Geophysical Union and European Geophysical Union.
Astronomers spot strange, bow-like structure in Venus' atmosphere
Jan 17, 2017 15:01 pm UTC| Science
Venus is known both as the planet of love and the Earths evil twin. And although research suggests its environment is more hellish than romantic, theres actually a lot we dont know about our celestial neighbour. Now...
Decades of attempts show how hard it is to land on Mars – here's how we plan to succeed in 2021
Dec 04, 2016 02:07 am UTC| Science
Europe has been trying to land on Mars since 2003, but none of the attempts have gone exactly according to plan. A couple of months ago, the ExoMars Schiaparelli landing demonstrator crashed onto the planets surface,...
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