The Sunrise project is a balloon-borne solar observatory. It consists of a 1m aperture Gregory telescope, a UV filter imager, an imaging vector polarimeter, an image stabilization system and further infrastructure.

The SUNRISE project aims at high-resolution spectro-polarimetric observations of the solar atmosphere on the intrinsic spatial scale of its magnetic structure. The SUNRISE telescope with 1 m aperture and its instruments will provide spectra and images resolving spatial scales down to 35 km on the Sun. The main scientific goal of the mission is to understand the formation of magnetic structures in the solar atmosphere and to study their interaction with the convective plasma flows. The first science flight of Sunrise yielded high-quality data that reveal the structure, dynamics and evolution of solar convection, oscillations and magnetic fields at a resolution of around 100 km in the quiet Sun.

The Aerospace Corporation is a private, non-profit corporation headquartered in El Segundo, California that has operated a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) for the United States Air Force since 1960.

The purposes of the corporation are exclusively scientific: to engage in, assist and contribute to the support of scientific activities and projects for, and to perform and engage in research, development and advisory services to or for, the United States Government. As the FFRDC for national-security space, Aerospace works closely with organizations such as the United States Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to provide "objective technical analyses and assessments for space programs that serve the national interest."

Spaceport Colorado is America's hub for commercial space transportation, research and development.

Horizontal launch spaceports are developing around the world and will become the foundation for a global suborbital transportation network. The U.S. is at the forefront of this next generation of connectivity. Located just 18 minutes from Denver International Airport (DIA), the 11th busiest airport in the world, Spaceport Colorado is conveniently accessible from anywhere. Colorado companies already conduct business with Europe in the morning, Asia in the evening and South America in the same business day. Future suborbital trips will reduce flight times to these destinations to a few hours. Locally, Spaceport Colorado offers hundreds of acres of development opportunity just 40 minutes from downtown Denver and less than an hour from major research universities and laboratories.

TeraComp is an EU-funded project with the objective to develop Terahertz heterodyne receiver components for future European space missions.

Objective

Sub-millimeter wave or terahertz heterodyne receivers are key instruments for many space applications. For example, they are required for monitoring of the earth s atmosphere or detection of molecules that might be tracers of life on other planets or moons. However, key components of these systems are currently supplied from outside Europe and performance as well as mass and power requirements often prohibit the implementation.

The TeraComp project aims at developing European industrial level capability to design and manufacture terahertz front-end electronics based on high frequency Schottky diodes, Hetero-structure Barrier Varactor (HBV) diodes and mHEMT MMICs for space and other applications. The prototype components will be integrated into a compact 557 GHz heterodyne receiver and evaluated for space instrument applications.

This development will significantly contribute to mass and power reduction and it will improve the performance of terahertz heterodyne receivers. In addition, the dependence on critical technologies and capabilities from outside Europe for future space applications will be reduced.

see also: TeraComp on Chalmers website.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), is an agency of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

JMA is charged with gathering and providing results for the public in Japan, that are obtained from data based on daily scientific observation and research into natural phenomena in the fields of meteorology, hydrology, seismology and volcanology, among other related scientific fields. Its headquarters is located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan.

Omnisys Instruments main operations are development and production of high performance electronics hardware, mainly for space industry but also for other scientific, security and medtech applications.

Omnisys two major business areas are:

• Power systems for satellites.
• THz range scientific radiometer instrumentation.

Multifunctional Transport Satellites (MTSAT) are a series of weather and aviation control satellites.

They are geostationary satellites owned and operated by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), and provide coverage for the hemisphere centred on 140° East; this includes Japan and Australia who are the principal users of the satellite imagery that MTSAT provides.

They replace the GMS-5 satellite, also known as Himawari 5. They can provide imagery in five wavelength bands — visible and four infrared, including the water vapour channel. The visible light camera has a resolution of 1 km; the infrared cameras have 4 km (resolution is lower away from the equator at 140° East). The spacecraft have a planned lifespan of five years. MTSAT-1 and 1R were built by Space Systems/Loral. MTSAT-2 was built by Mitsubishi.

• MTSAT-1R (140 ° E), also known as Himawari 6, was launched February 2005 and is now (Oct. 2013) in standby. It performed 5 years operations.
  
  
• MTSAT-2, also known as Himawari 7, successfully launched 18th February 2006, is operational since 2010  (text dated Oct. 2013). 
  

The ground stations for both satellites are located in Kobe and Hitachiota, Japan.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it.

The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The USGS is a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS employs approximately 8,600 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, USA. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, and Menlo Park, California.

The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), a nonprofit organization,  is the sole manager of the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory.

The mission of CASIS is to maximize use of this unparalleled platform for innovation, which can benefit all humankind and inspire a new generation to look to the stars.

The organization has been awarded by NASA the responsibility of inciting the imagination of entrepreneurs and scientists alike, accelerating and facilitating space-based research as well as creating public awareness of National Lab research and making space science more accessible to the world.

The High Altitude Drop Test - Balloon Flight Services Program (HADT-BFS) is a project setup to test the parachutes of the future ExoMars program. This project is performed by the Romanian company ARCAS. 

The ExoMars program, consisting of two missions, will be pursued as part of a broad cooperation with the Russian Space Agency ROSCOSMOS. Two missions are foreseen within the ExoMars program for the 2016 and 2018 launch opportunities to Mars.

In order to test the ExoMars concept, ESA will design and build a spacecraft composite named ESA EDL Demonstrator Module. The EDL demonstrator will test the technology of the European Space Agency for landing on the Mars planet surface and will carry out several scientific experiments.

ARCA's role and HADT-BFS objective is testing the atmospheric deceleration parachutes of the EDL module in conditions similar to the ones in the Martian atmosphere. The parameters to be analysed will be parachute deployment speed, parachute stability, the drag coefficient and the overall system stability.