Collaboration

COSMOCal collaboration

The project is led by A. Ritacco (Principal investigator), P. Morfin (Project manager) and F. Boulanger (Project scientist). It involves scientists and engineers from five institutes in the region of Paris: APC, IAP, IAS, Paris Observatory, and LPENS; four institutes: LPSC, IPAG, Institut Néel, and IRAM in Grenoble and IRAP in Toulouse. COSMOCal is also supported by the Centre Spatial Universitaire de Grenoble (CSUG) and the Centre pour les Nanosatellites en Sciences de l'Univers (CENSUS) in Paris. In Italy, researchers from the observatory of astrophysics and space science (OAS) and the astronomical observatory of Cagliari (OAC) as part of the national institute of astrophysics (INAF), together with the University of Milano-Bicocca, Rome Tor Vergata and Sapienza University contribute to the project. These research institutes have experience with ground and space instrument design and development, microwave observations from the ground and space, and CMB data analysis. 

Eutelsat partnership

We have established a collaboration with EUTELSAT Group, which is offering us the possibility to install the COSMOCal source as a guest payload on a satellite in geostationary orbit to be launched in 2030.  COSMOCal would be installed on the satellite that will replace the current E7WA Eutelsat platform, located on the Earth equator at 7.3° West. From this longitude, the COSMOCal source will be seen at an elevation of about 40° for the IRAM and SRT telescopes and of 20° for the telescopes in Northern Chile (Atacama site).