The ASIM experiment, launched from Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 launcher, will be installed on the ISS by a Space Station’s robotic arm. On the ISS, the ASIM will be switched on for a two-year science mission.
The ASIM, developed by TERMA (Norway), is an Earth observation system for the study of severe thunderstorms and their impact on the Earth’s atmosphere and climate. Flashes appearing above the thunderstorms in the upper layer of the atmosphere (also known as Transient Luminous Events) result from electrical discharges and develop at very high altitudes over lightning and storm clouds. The mission will be studying the connection between Transient Luminous Events (TLE) and the Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGF).
The ASIM project is an initiative from the Technical University of Denmark (Denmark), the University of Bergen (Norway) and the University of Valencia (Spain), with Mr. Torsten Neubert as principal investigator.
Space Applications Services NV/SA (Sint-Stevens-Woluwe, Belgium), in close collaboration with the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), will be performing the scientific operations of ASIM in the Belgian User Support and Operations Centre (B.USOC) in Uccle (Brussels). The B.USOC, that provides operation services to the Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO) and space agencies, is responsible for preparing and executing ASIM operations, as well as distributing data to different scientific teams.
