The magazine Bilanz has called him the “most powerful Swiss scientist”: Thomas Zurbuchen, Head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Whatever one thinks of Bilanz’s assessment, there’s no doubt that Zurbuchen has enjoyed a meteoric rise. The son of a vicar, he grew up in Heiligenschwendi in the hills high up above Lake Thun. A teacher at secondary school told him he probably wasn’t clever enough to pass his university entrance exams. But today, he’s at the summit of the space world, and commands a vast budget.

“Space travel is at the forefront of developing new technologies”.Säm Krucker

But Zurbuchen isn’t an isolated case. Since the 1960s, Switzerland has been at the forefront of many space missions. This has a rather banal reason, as the astrophysicist Säm Krucker from the University of Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) explains: “Space research costs a lot of money. That’s why rich countries play an important role in it”. Switzerland invests some CHF 200 million each year in the conquest of space, CHF 180 million of that in the form of contributions to the European Space Agency (ESA), of which Switzerland has been a member since it was founded. The remainder of the money is invested partly in Horizon 2020 projects, partly in activities on a national level that are intended to strengthen Switzerland’s status as a space nation. This is not a huge amount in terms of the total of CHF 22.5 billion that Switzerland invests in research and development. But the concrete outputs are impressive. Switzerland has 60 instruments on 50 different space missions, of which only a selection is illustrated here.

An X-ray telescope for the sun

Experiment: Stix
Institution: University of Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW)

On 10 February 2020, ESA’s space probe Solar Orbiter set off towards the sun. On board, it’s carrying the Spectrometer Telescope for Imaging X-Rays (Stix), which was developed by FHNW to make images and record spectra of solar flares. X-rays enter through the opening in the heat shield of the space probe and are filtered through grids and recorded by 32 detectors. This will allow for the construction of images of the hottest regions of solar eruptions (up to 40 million degrees Celsius).

A laboratory of laser rays

Mission: Lisa
Institution: ETH Zurich

In 2034 ESA will start its Lisa mission (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna). This space laboratory will comprise three satellites that “form an equilateral triangle with sides of about five million kilometres”. Gravitational waves that flow through it will alter this distance on an incredibly small scale. Such low-frequency gravitational waves arise when massive black holes collide, and they can offer information about the origins of the Universe. The Gravitational Reference Sensor (GRS) is at the heart of Lisa, and ETH Zurich is responsible for its sensing and control electronics.

A sail for solar particles

Experiment: Solar Wind Composition Experiment
Institution: University of Bern

The photo of astronaut Buzz Aldrin in front of the US flag on the moon has become a symbol for how humans conquered space. But before Aldrin planted the US flag on the surface of the moon on 21 July 1969, he unfurled a solar wind sail that was ‘made in Bern’. The device, the ‘Solar Wind Collector Experiment’, was the first-ever non-American experiment in the Apollo programme. It collected particles from the sun that were then analysed in Bernese laboratories using purpose-built mass spectrometers.

Switched to receive

Mission: Data analysis
Institution: University of Geneva

The INTEGRAL Science Data Centre (ISDC) is located in an old house in Versoix near Geneva. It was founded as an interface between the worldwide research community and the INTEGRAL satellite – a gamma-ray satellite developed by ESA that has been orbiting the Earth since 2002 and has been observing the greatest energy sources in the Universe. Today, the ISDC is also home to further missions, but its core task remains the constant data analysis and processing of INTEGRAL data.

Searching for beginnings

Experiment: Rosina
Institution: University of Bern

In August 2014, the ESA probe Rosetta came within 200 km of the Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. This is when Rosina started its work – it was one of 21 research instruments located on the probe. It was developed by the University of Bern and comprised two mass spectrometers and a gas pressure sensor. It collected gases and molecules from the comet’s shell, and measured their mass. With this data, researchers were able to determine, for example, whether cometary impacts could have brought water to the Earth.

Hunting for black holes

Mission: Athena
Institution: University of Geneva

In 2028 ESA aims to launch the X-ray observatory mission entitled Athena (Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics). Its purpose is to measure the distribution, state and movement of hot gases in intergalactic space, and to investigate black holes, supernovae and solar eruptions. According to ESA, Athena will enable “a major leap forward”. The University of Geneva is taking a lead role in developing the filter wheel mechanism for the X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) and its control electronics.

Is there life on Mars?

Experiment: Cassis
Institution: University of Bern

Cassis is on a long, long journey. It is a space camera (its name means ‘Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System’), and it will take the highest-resolution colour images ever seen of the surface of Mars. It is currently on the space probe Exomars Trace Gas Orbiter, and was developed by scientists at the University of Bern. Cassis will search for evidence of water, rock sediments and geological events such as avalanches or the formation of dunes. The Exomars mission is a joint enterprise between ESA and the Russian agency Roskosmos. It began in 2018 and will run until 2023, which is when the Exomars Rover is due to land on Mars, with the Orbiter acting as a linking station to Earth.

The Nobel Laureates and the exoplanets

Mission: Cheops
Institution: Universities of Geneva and Bern

In 1995 Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of the University of Geneva discovered the first exoplanet orbiting a sun like ours. For this discovery, they were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2019. Since their initial work, thousands of exoplanets have been discovered and investigated. The space telescope Cheops (‘Characterising Exoplanet Satellite’) under the joint management of ESA and Switzerland is observing stars known to have exoplanets orbiting them. The telescope measures the brightness of stars, because a star dims slightly when an exoplanet moves past it. The degree by which the brightness is diminished enables scientists to determine the size of the exoplanet.

Swiss pioneering spirit

Switzerland’s status as a spacefaring nation is also thanks to pioneers such as the astrophysicist Johannes Geiss, who was 93 when he died in February 2020. His research group at the University of Bern developed the solar wind sail that was unfurled by Buzz Aldrin on the moon (see the box ‘A sail for solar particles’). For this, he was awarded NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1973. He was one of the founders of the International Space Science Institute in Bern, and was later appointed its director. Geiss also laid the foundations for the Rosetta Mission of 2004 to the Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet (see ‘Searching for beginnings’), whose Rosina experiment was directed by the Bernese astrophysicist Kathrin Altwegg.

During the Cold War, the space race was first and foremost a race between different ideologies, with manned space flight a matter of prestige to prove which system was the best. Today, many people ask why so much money should be invested in searching for exoplanets or for measuring temperatures in space. “When these questions arise during my lectures, I always show people my mobile phone”, says Säm Krucker. “Space travel is at the forefront of developing new technologies”. What’s more, space flight creates jobs. “Basic scientific research ultimately helps to promote industry”, emphasises Krucker. For example, the 21 companies in the Swiss Space Industries Group SSIG employ some 900 people who are directly involved in space technologies. And indirectly, several thousand people in Switzerland are also employed in the services of the space industry – such as supplier companies that provide important components. Switzerland’s enthusiasm for space exploration thus brings results that are very much down to earth.

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