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Physics World January 201712
News & Analysis
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Mars lander hit by computer glitch
The European Space Agency (ESA) has
confirmed that the recent crash of a
Mars probe was caused by a computer
glitch that made it assume it had already
landed on the red planet. ESA’s Entry,
Descent and Landing Demonstrator,
known as Schiaparelli, was launched
together with ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter
and arrived at Mars in October. It was
supposed to test landing techniques that
would be used on the upcoming ExoMars
rover. However, as the probe entered
Mars’s atmosphere, ESA scientists lost
contact with Schiaparelli after it cast
its parachute. Investigations have now
shown that the parachute was deployed
too early – at some 4 km above the
surface of the planet – and that the
probe also briefly fired its breaking
thrusters too soon. The problem was
due to a sensor failure that generated a
negative altitude reading and made the
probe think it was below ground level. A
full report on the cause of the crash is
expected early this year.
Argentina hit by funding protests
Physicists in Argentina have bemoaned
cuts to the science budget for 2017 that
they say will hurt research and lead to a
brain drain. Following a series of protests
around the country, spending on science
will be around 32 billion pesos (about
$2bn) in 2017 – a cut of 7% in real terms
from the 2015 budget. Particularly hit will
be the National Scientific and Technical
Research Council, which will see the
number of new researchers supported
reduce to 385 in 2017 – down from 900
last year.
Fukushima costs double
The costs of clearing up the 2011
Fukushima nuclear accident will double
to some 20 trillion yen ($180bn),
according to the Japanese government.
The original estimate had been $50bn,
but that already rose to nearly $100bn
three years later. Most of the costs
will go on compensation as well as the
decontamination effort. The Fukushima
nuclear accident was caused by an
earthquake and tsunami that struck
north-eastern Japan on 11 March 2011.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant,
located some 225 km north-east of
Tokyo, seemed to withstand the 9.0
Richter-scale earthquake. However,
the tsunami that followed poured over
a seawall, which flooded the plant and
caused the back-up diesel generators
to fail. With nothing to cool the reactors,
their cores began to melt.
Better late than
never?
ITER will not use a
deuterium–tritium
plasma until 2035.
Joining the club
Physicists in Brazil
want the country to
become an
associate member of
the CERN particle-
physics lab, which
would involve a
membership fee of
around €10m per
year.
Physicists in Brazil have called on
the government to support a bid
to become an associate member of
the CERN particle-physics lab near
Geneva. After a meeting last month
with Gilberto Kassab, the country’s
minister of science and technology,
senior physicists noted that the gov-
ernment’s support was said to be
positive. Big hurdles remain, how-
ever, before Brazil can join the Euro-
pean lab – in particular it will have to
clear a two-year debt to CERN and
faces a lack of funds for high-energy
physics in the 2017 federal budget.
Brazilian physicists have been
working at CERN for over three dec-
ades, participating in a number of
experiments at the lab including the
Large Hadron Collider’s ALICE,
ATLAS, CMS and LHCb detectors.
The country, which is a non-member
but has a co-operation agreement
with CERN, was invited to be an
associate member in late 2013. If that
happens, then it would be required
to pay an annual fee based on a per-
centage of its gross domestic product
– amounting to around €10m in Bra-
zil’s case. In return, the country can
then join the CERN Council.
In return, companies in Brazil can
then participate in tendering bids for
contracts. “The Brazilian govern-
ment sympathizes with the country’s
accession to CERN as an associate
member,”saysphysicistRonaldShel-
lard, director of the Brazilian Centre
for Research in Physics (CBPF) in
Rio de Janeiro. “However, because
of the current economic crisis, it has
been extremely cautious in making
commitments it could not honour.”
But Brazil is not even honouring
its current financial commitments.
According to Ignacio Bediaga, a
CBPF physicist who is president
of the National Network of High
Energy Physics in Brazil (RENA-
FAE), the country has accumulated
debts of €1.1m with the lab due to
existing commitments.
“Every year, our federal budget
provides R$1m (€260 000) to
RENAFAE – money that covers
operation and maintenance of the
experiments at CERN”, says Bedi-
aga. “However, the Brazilian fed-
eral government has not disbursed
the resources due this year and, in
addition; they withdrew it from the
2017 budget.”
Bediaga adds that if the Brazilian
government does not begin to repay
its debts, then future participation
will be at risk. “Losses will be enor-
mous,” he says. “The lack of credibil-
ity of Brazil would affect the future
of our participation in international
scientific collaborations.”
Alicia Ivanissevich
Rio de Janeiro
Latin America
Brazilians push for CERN membership
The ITER Council has approved
an updated schedule for the huge
fusion experimental facility that is
currently being built in Cadarache,
France. At a meeting held in Novem-
ber 2016, the council approved the
plan that was proposed by the ITER
Organization earlier in the year,
with first plasma now set for 2025 – a
delay of five years – and ITER only
moving on to deuterium–tritium fuel
in 2035.
ITER is a collaboration between
China, the EU, India, Japan, Russia,
South Korea and the US that aims to
demonstrate that nuclear fusion can
generate useful energy. It will involve
a giant doughnut-shaped chamber,
known as a tokamak, which will use
strong magnetic fields to contain
a heated plasma of deuterium and
tritium at a temperature of tens of
millions of degrees so that atomic
nuclei collide and fuse. In theory,
the reactor will produce 10 times the
power it takes to heat it.
The slip in the schedule was
initially announced in June after
French nuclear physicist Bernard
Bigot, former head of France’s
Alternative Energies and Atomic
Energy Commission, was brought in
as ITER director-general in 2015 to
shake up the organization and draft
a credible schedule. In its November
meeting, ITER Council reported
that all 19 project milestones for this
year had been completed on time
and on budget.
Michael Banks
ITER council endorses new ‘baseline’ schedule
Fusion
CERNITEROrganization