New Space Mission Involving ZHAW Approved
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Science Programme Committee has adopted the Arrakihs mission. Planned for launch by the end of 2030, Arrakihs will capture the faint light from nearby galaxy haloes. By seeing the unseen, Arrakihs will dig up cosmic history and reveal how galaxies like our own form and evolve. The ZHAW School of Engineering is also participating in the project.
With its official adoption by ESA, Arrakihs is now entering the construction phase in preparation for its launch in 2030. Arrakihs will open a new observational window onto the largely unexplored low surface brightness Universe, enabling the study of previously hidden stellar components of the galaxy haloes. The low surface brightness diffuse stellar halos around galaxies like the Milky Way preserve crucial information about how galaxies formed and evolved, revealing the combined effects of dark matter, galaxy mergers, and other processes that shape galaxies over cosmic time.
By mapping stellar streams, Arrakihs will allow us to piece together the history of past mergers and give an estimate of the number of ‘lonely’ stars that were ripped away from their galaxies during mergers. In total, Arrakihs plans to investigate at least 80 galaxies with a similar mass to the Milky Way galaxy.
Arrakihs is developed through international collaboration. The consortium includes more than 250 scientists and engineers from seven ESA member including Switzerland.
Switzerland’s contribution to the mission will focus on the thermal and structural subsystem (TSS) for the ARRAKIHS payload. In the initial phase, known as Phase 0/A, the Swiss ARRAKIHS consortium will be responsible for developing and simulating a detailed thermal concept and architecture. This development will be based on the evolving mission parameters, science requirements, and the concept of operation.
Several Swiss universities are participating
Within the Swiss consortium, the ZHAW Institute of Materials and Process Engineering (IMPE) is responsible for activities in the “Materials and Processes” (M&P) area, where a comprehensive development program was carried out to test and validate the performance of the materials and joints used in satellite construction.
Other Swiss institutions participating in the mission include the University of Zurich (UZH), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU), and the company Koegl Space.