The NASA/JPL program in microgravity fundamental physics

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been supporting research in microgravity low temperature physics tor about 20 years. In the last 10 years the program has seen srgnrhcant growth rn the number ot funded investigations and in the breadth of the research activities being pursued. Currently, flight experiments are being performed exclusively on the Space Shuttle. For the future, a cryogenic Space Station facility is being developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and industrial partners to support the microgravity needs ot the international scientific community. The facility will be attached to the Japanese Experiments Module’s Exposed Facility and will operate with a 6 month helium cryogen lifetime. Flights of the facility are planned at 2 year intervals starting in 2003 with each flight accommodating multiple scientific experiments. Capabilities, conceptual designs and development plans for the facility are discussed along with a summary of potential near term flight candidate experiments

Testing critical point universality along the l - line

We are currently building a prototype for a new test of critical-point universality at the lambda transition in ⁴He, which is to be performed in microgravity conditions. The flight experiment will measure the second-sound velocity as a function of temperature at pressures from 1 to 30 bars in the region close to the lambda line. The critical exponents and other parameters characterizing the behavior of the superfluid density will be determined from the measurements. The microgravity measurements wdl be quite extensive, probably taking 30 days to complete. In addition to the superfluid density, some measurements of the specific heat will be made using the low-g simulator at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The results of the superfluid density and specific heat measurements will be used to compare the asymptotic exponents and other universal aspects of the superfluid density with the theoretical predictions currently established by renormalization group techniques

Euclid. I. Overview of the Euclid mission

The current standard model of cosmology successfully describes a variety of measurements, but the nature of its main ingredients, dark matter and dark energy, remains unknown. Euclid is a medium-class mission in the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) that will provide high-resolution optical imaging, as well as near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy, over about 14,000 deg^2 of extragalactic sky. In addition to accurate weak lensing and clustering measurements that probe structure formation over half of the age of the Universe, its primary probes for cosmology, these exquisite data will enable a wide range of science. This paper provides a high-level overview of the mission, summarising the survey characteristics, the various data-processing steps, and data products. We also highlight the main science objectives and expected performance

Euclid. I. Overview of the Euclid mission

International audienceThe current standard model of cosmology successfully describes a variety of measurements, but the nature of its main ingredients, dark matter and dark energy, remains unknown. Euclid is a medium-class mission in the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) that will provide high-resolution optical imaging, as well as near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy, over about 14,000 deg^2 of extragalactic sky. In addition to accurate weak lensing and clustering measurements that probe structure formation over half of the age of the Universe, its primary probes for cosmology, these exquisite data will enable a wide range of science. This paper provides a high-level overview of the mission, summarising the survey characteristics, the various data-processing steps, and data products. We also highlight the main science objectives and expected performance