Nicolas André

 About

My research focuses on planetary space plasmas and comparative magnetospheric physics, with particular emphasis on plasma sources, transport, and losses in planetary environments.

I obtained my PhD in 2003 on the theoretical modeling of astrophysical instabilities in collisionless, multispecies plasmas, with application to the fast rotating magnetospheres of giant planets. During my early career I contributed to the analysis of the first data obtained by the Cassini-Huygens mission at Saturn, with an emphasis on multi-instrument and pluridisciplinary approaches, and was a core proposer of the LAPLACE mission to Jupiter (now Juice).

Since my recruitment at IRAP, the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology, as a CNRS Research Staff Scientist in 2008, I am deeply involved in the preparation and data analysis of current and future planetary missions (MAVEN, Juno, Juice, BepiColombo, Comet Interceptor, M-MATISSE) and space plasma instruments (electrostatic analyzers, faraday cups, charged particle detectors) in order to explore in situ planetary environments. In support of IRAP’s participations in space missions I led the full development of a new, modern, space instrumentation platform, CALIPSO, which is used for developing new instrumentation, new technologies (CNES R&D), testing of prototypes and of sub-units, testing of flight instruments in a fully representative space environment, as well as for the calibration of space instruments with ion and electron beams in the 100s eV-10s keV energy range.

I was leading planetary space weather activities for the Europlanet Research Infrastructures funded by the European Commission since 2015. I was in charge of planetology aspects for the french space plasma data center (CDPP, https://cdpp.eu) since 2008 and I am currently the Project Scientist and Executive Director of CDPP since 2020 where I promote and coordinate the development of the Virtual Observatory in Solar and Planetary Sciences and Added-Values services and tools for the scientific community.

At ISAE-SUPAERO since March 2024 I will tackle new challenges related to the exploration of the Moon, Mars, and Venus in particular, focusing on the space weathering of planetary surfaces and atmospheres.

 News

On Thursday-Friday 26-27 June I will be at Pic du Midi to discuss future telescopic observations of the Io torus, together with students from the Astronomy Club of ISAE-SUPAERO.

On Saturay-Sunday 21-22 June I will be at Le Bourget for the Aeronautics and Space Show ! I will present formation and research at ISAE-SUPAERO.

On Wednesday 8 January 2025 BepiColombo will fly past planet Mercury for the sixth and last time before Mercury Orbit Insertion in November 2026 ! MEA was turned ON.

On Sunday 1 December 2024, BepiColombo flew past planet Mercury for the fifth time ! MEA was not turned ON since this flyby was a distant one.