XClose

UCL Department of Space and Climate Physics

Home
Menu

Prof. Andrew Fazakerley is the new director of MSSL

4 October 2017

Professor Andrew Fazakerley has recently been appointed as Head of the Department of Space and Climate Physics, also known as UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL).

MSSL News

Professor Andrew Fazakerley has recently been appointed as Head of the Department of Space and Climate Physics, also known as UCL’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL).

Andrew has been at MSSL for more than 20 years. His scientific background is in the area of space plasma physics, but he has also been involved in space mission preparation and operation for much of this time.

“I am looking forward to my new role at MSSL, which is the UK’s largest university space science laboratory. I will be helping our unique team to continue to achieve excellence in scientific research, space instrumentation and teaching, and to explore new opportunities in all those areas. We have current roles in many orbiting missions, including the recently launched UCLsat. Only a few weeks ago, we said farewell to our instrument on the Cassini mission at Saturn."

He is the Principal Investigator for the PEACE instruments on each of the 4 spacecraft of the European Space Agency’s Cluster mission, which have been orbiting the Earth since 2000, studying the Earth’s magnetosphere and the solar wind. Andrew is also the Principal Investigator for the PEACE electron spectrometer instruments on each of the 2 Double Star spacecraft; Double Star being the first joint scientific mission between China and the European Space Agency. He is the Lead Proposer on a mission proposal (called Alfvén) to study the plasma physical processes that produce the Northern Lights (or aurora). He is also the prospective PI for an advanced electron plasma instrument on the THOR mission, one of three candidates in the final stages of the “M4” competition to become the next ESA science mission.

"MSSL is also involved in creating a diverse range of exciting new projects, including the Solar Orbiter mission to study the Sun and solar wind, the Euclid mission to study dark matter and dark energy, the Exomars mission to land a European rover on Mars, the Plato mission to find and study extrasolar planetary systems, and the second China-Europe science mission, SMILE, which is led by one of our senior academics. Advanced instrument technology built at MSSL can also be found in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the extraordinary successor to the famous Hubble Space Telescope, due for launch next year”.