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PICARD: a landmark in solar and climate physics

PICARD is a french scientific mission dedicated to Sun, Earth's atmosphere and climate physics. Named after the French astronomer of the XVIIth century Jean Picard (1620-1682) who achieved the first accurate measurements of the solar diameter, PICARD is a CNES led scientific mission dedicated to unravel the origin of the Sun's variability and the links between the sun and our climate. Orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 725 km, the payload carries three instruments to precisely measure simultaneously key parameters that characterize the Sun and their variability in time. An imaging telescope will precisely measure the solar diameter, asphericity and oscillation mode to contribute to increase our understanding of the internal structure of the Sun. This instrument was built by LATMOS-CNRS (France). The measurements of the total solar irradiance will be carried out by two radiometers under the responsibilty of IRM (Belgium) and PMOD (Switzerland) to improve our knowledge of the solar atmosphere. The combination of both will support to develop the modeling of the solar machine allowing us to predict the evolution of our star, and providing us for more realistic assessments of future climate scenarios.

Canada is proud of being part of the scientific team that will work with the PICARD invaluable dataset. A team of experts in solar and climate physics from different Canadian Universities and Government Departments have been working together during the last 3 years preparing for this mission. PICARD measurements will support to improve solar and climate models being developed in Canada, France and Switzerland. The synergistic interaction with our colleagues from different Countries working together in this mission is positively impacting the scientific development in Canada and enhancing the utilization of the space to address one of the most pressing questions of our time: the importance of natural variability in driving climate changes.

PICARD will be launched on June 15 at 14 42 UT from Yasny (Russia) on a sunsynchronous orbit. The launch date is particularly appropriate as the sun is still close to its minimum activity that will allow the measurements to be obtained during the rising phase of the solar activity, an essential condition for the success of the mission.

The payload in Yashni prepared for launch.
(Credit: CNES)



The payload being tested at the CNES in Toulouse.
(Credit: CNES)