The team of the ESA ‘ARRAKIHS’ mission meets at the Institute of Space Sciences
July 31, 2023
The research team that will lead ARRAKIHS, the first mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), has gathered at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) in Barcelona for three days, during which more than 30 researchers have discussed the status of the space mission, its initial steps, and its technical, operational, and scientific challenges.
During the opening session, Ignasi Ribas, a researcher at ICE-CSIC and director of the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC-CSIC), welcomed the participants to the institute, and Rafael Guzmán, a researcher from the Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA, CSIC-UC) and coordinator of ARRAKIHS, provided an overview of the mission. The closing of the session was conducted by the ICE and IEEC researcher, Santiago Serrano, who presented the mission concept.
The ARRAKIHS mission (acronym for “Analysis of Resolved Remnants of Accreted galaxies as a Key Instrument for Halo Surveys”) was approved by ESA in November 2022, and its development involves an international consortium with research centers from Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, and the United States.
The main scientific objective of the mission is the study of dark matter in the universe, which, according to various cosmological observables, could be up to five times more abundant than ordinary matter. Due to its properties, direct detection is very complex, and for now, we are only aware of its existence through its gravitational effects. It is precisely these effects on satellites orbiting in the halo of galaxies like our Milky Way that ARRAKIHS will be able to discover and characterize, in order to unveil the nature of dark matter.
ICE-CSIC, on the other hand, will provide significant contributions in instrumentation for the mission, and IEEC currently coordinates the main payload instrument, with expectations that contributions to the Fine Orientation System and the characterization of visible and infrared detectors created for the mission will be supported by ICE and its facilities. In terms of science, the ICE Cosmology group is conducting cosmological simulations that are useful for ARRAKIHS and is participating in the ESA scientific study team.
Furthermore, the Spanish node of the mission has the collaboration of a research group from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), the Center for Astrobiology (CAB, INTA-CSIC), the Institute of Physics of Cantabria (IFCA) and the Center for the Study of Cosmic Physics in Aragon (CEFCA), in collaboration with the Basque company Satlantis.
