The University of Cyprus announces its participation in the two-year project, led by the European Space Agency (ESA) PICSAR-2, a follow-on to the recently successfully completed Photonic Integrated Circuit-based Micro-LIDAR (PICSAR) project, which it also led by the University of Cyprus.

This new project will have a total funding of €250,000 and partners are the companies EFACEC (Portugal), Eventech (Latvia) and the University of Madrid Charles III (Spain).

Interest in lunar, planetary and asteroid missions in recent years has created a need for planetary landers (ie, spacecraft that land on the planet’s surface).

The critical elements are the altimeters, which determine the height above the planet’s surface and the landing speed as it approaches the planetary body, as well as the imaging devices that identify obstacles such as boulders and crater rims.

The goal is for the project consortium to develop a combined altimeter that will be compact and low-mass, space-critical requirements. This will be based on the use of photonic integrated circuit technology.

The person in charge of the PICSAR-2 project from the University of Cyprus is the Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Temporary Director of the EMPHASIS Research Center Stavros Iezekiel (https://www.ucy.ac.cy/directory/el/profile/iezekiel) . To date, Professor Stavros Ezekiel’s team has secured a total of six projects, financed by the European Space Agency, with a total value of €1,200,000.