ICARUS: International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space

The "ICARUS initiative" is the abbreviation of the "International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space". ICARUS was founded in 2002 by an international consortium of scientists who realized the global lack of knowledge on dispersal and migration of small animals (such as bats, insects, songbirds).


ICARUS' mission is to work towards establishing a remote sensing platform for scientists world-wide that track small organisms globally, enabling observations and experiments over large spatial scales.

The "ICARUS initiative" is the abbreviation of the "International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space". ICARUS was founded in 2002 by an international consortium of scientists who realized the global lack of knowledge on dispersal and migration of small animals (such as bats, insects, songbirds).

Because politicians, health professionals and conservation managers request information about the large-scale movement of small, economically and ecologically important animals, the ICARUS scientists decided to solve this problem on a global scale. For many key questions, the only technologically possible solution appears to be a remote sensing platform in space.

The ICARUS group now explores the installation of a receiver on the International Space Station ISS. In 2010, the European Space Agency ESA gave the ICARUS proposal a favourable scientific and technical review and selected it for a Definition phase within the International Life Sciences Research Announcement (ILSRA).

USGS wildlife biologist Susan Haig is one of 30 international scientists invited to participate in a planning meeting for the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS), a global small-animal tracking system, in Rottach-Egern, Germany on July 8-11. Haig's role in the meeting is to coordinate the "Unknown Migrations" section of a large grant to be submitted to the European Space Agency as they launch their first satellite designed to track animals in 2014. Understanding bird migratory patterns of animals in real time is critical to understanding the connectivity between climate change and Earth's ecosystems. The goal of the ICARUS meeting is to discuss the best uses of the new global tracking system, which is expected to improve conservation and management of natural resources.

Continuing in the area of biology/astrobiology, there has been a modest reduction in experiment funding, though without any significant impact for experiments already under development for the internal Biolab, EMCS, and KUBIK facilities and the Expose-R2 exposure facility. In addition the implementation of the highly ranked ICARUS experiment from ILSRA-09 for global bird tracking over long distances from the ISS will be taken over by national funding from DLR both for the flight segment and ground segments. A further cost reduction had to be accommodated within additional biology hardware development (Life Science Glovebox and KUBIK-II incubator development) through project reconfiguration.

During the Moscow Aero salons diverse consultations between the DLR Executive Board and Russian organizations and enterprises take place. Among other things, with the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos to the joint projects eRosita (extended Roentgen Survey with at Imaging Telescope Array) and ICARUS. eRosita to be on board the Russian satellite Spectrum-X-Gamma (Spectrum X-Gamma) in 2014 put into space with a Zenith-Fregat rocket and collect new scientific evidence regarding the dark energy. In ICARUS is a project for the global observation and study of the movements and behavior of animals using a communication infrastructure on the Russian segment of the International Space Station.

* MAKS-2013: negotiations between management and the Russian Space Agency DLR Roscosmos 27.08.2013

マックス・プランク鳥類学研究所の所長であり、ドイツ、コンスタンツにあるコンスタンツ大学の教授。また、プリンストン大学の生態学部ならびに進化生物学部の外部講師も務める。母国ドイツ、ミュンヘンにあるルートヴィヒ・マクシミリアン大学にて修士号、そしてビーレフェルト大学にて博士号を取得。チャールズ・ダーウィン研究財団の代表でもあり、5大陸、太平洋諸島、そして大西洋諸島にある自然生息地を訪れた経験を持つ。現在助成金を受けて、将来的な動物追跡技術や熱帯雨林での動物同士の関わりだけでなく、スズメ目の大陸間飛行などについての研究を行っている。『生きもの地球大紀行』シリーズ全編を通して主要なサイエンス・コンサルタントを務め、【大移動の科学】では彼自身が作り出した装置をチップ・テイラーと共にオオカバマダラにタグ付けして追跡する場面が紹介されている。

プリンストン大学(Princeton Univ.)のマーチン・ウイケルスキー博士(Dr. Martin Wikelski)と同僚は、動物行動調査に衛星を利用したトラッキング・システムICARUS(International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space)を提案した。

→Going wild: what a global small-animal tracking system could do for experimental biologists　J Exp Biol 210, 181-186.

　ドイツのマックス・プランク鳥類学研究所長で小動物の移動に関する権威でもある動物学者のマーティン・ウィケルスキー氏は現在、ミツバチの移動というほぼ未解明の領域に挑戦している。同氏はミツバチの背に超小型無線追跡タグを取り付ける方法を考案した。受粉媒介者であるミツバチの飛行パターンを直接確認できる画期的な技術になる可能性がある。

Adventurers of the Year 2010 Martin Wikelski is figuring out how animals move en masse so we can save them-and save us. This year, behavioral ecologist Martin Wikelski followed cuckoos from Denmark to the Democratic Republic of the Congo; flew alongside ducks from Sweden and Germany; measured the heart rate of golden-collard manakins in Panama; took a motorcycle across the Alps to shadow songbirds; tracked mountain trangopans and blood pheasants in Bhutan; and—what may be most impressive—precisely measured a mass migration of bumblebees in Germany. He also tracked gulls from Russia to Tanzania, blackbirds from France to Spain, storks from Spain to the Sahel desert, and giant tortoises in the Galápagos. Wikelski is a man on the move. But then, so are his subjects. Wikelski tracks animal migrations, which were not—until recently—sufficiently studied or much understood. The impact of this research is astonishing. If we can begin to understand these mass movements, we can better predict weather patterns and natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis. We can also become better stewards of our wild spaces, protecting corridors so that these animals on the move can stay that way. Wikelski explains.

If Martin Wikelski has his way, the International Space Station will one day keep a close eye on thousands of our planet's bats, songbirds, dragonflies, rodents, and other small creatures.

　ドイツ、マックス・プランク研究所の動物学者で、帰巣性を専門とするマーティン・ウィケルスキー（Martin Wikelski）氏は、「動物の帰巣性には驚くばかりだ。遠くから元の場所に戻ってくるし、季節ごとの大移動で同じ場所をいつも行き来できるのだから」と語る。
　同氏によると、多くの動物には、コンパスのような磁気方位システムが内蔵されているという。ただし、動物の帰巣性については不明な点が多く、ホリーの驚異の旅についても科学的な説明は難しい。
　だが、「最近の研究により、臭覚が受け持つ重要な役割がわかってきた」とウィケルスキー氏は話す。「自分がどこにいるのか、家はどの方向にあるのか、動物たちは鼻を利かせるようだ」。

Through the technology push these developments further miniaturization of the tachograph will in a short time showed the weight of the tachograph is believed, can be halved every two to four years. A major component of global animal monitoring system and the prediction of natural disasters will be. The animal talent, tsunamis (elephants, sea snakes), earthquakes (toads and snakes) or volcanic eruptions display some time ago, we have now for the first time systematically tested and were able to show in Sicily by the example of semi-wild goats on Mount Etna, that they are actually already hours prior to major outbreaks significantly changed their behavior. A patent application for "goats as indicators of volcanic eruptions" has already been filed, it is mainly to show how valuable the communicated from animals information can be about our world. The data collected worldwide serve both science as well as all other interested parties and allow the immediate finding the animals in nature.

Many animals are adapting to human encroachment of their natural habitats. Carnivores in particular require territories of sufficient size and so are often forced to move between numerous small habitat patches. To date, scientists often use mathematical models to predict these important routes, but fishers fitted with GPS sensors are now showing that their calculations may be missing the mark if they ignore animal behavior.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the alert is raised at least 20 minutes, at least 30 minutes, at least 40 minutes, at least 50 minutes, at least 1 hour, at least 2 hours, at least 3 hours, at least 4 hours, or at least 5 hours prior to the environmental event. Preferably, the alert is raised at least 1 or at least 2 hours prior to the environmental event. The alert may be raised at least 5 hours prior to the environmental event.

Drawings 221. (WO2013167661) DISASTER ALERT MEDIATION USING NATURE

11月29日、ドイツの渡り鳥研究者ら3名が来所しました。ドイツのマックス・プランク鳥類学研究所が中心になって進めている、人工衛星を使った新しい渡り鳥研究の国際プロジェクトについて、日本の渡り研究者との協力関係構築の可能性を探りに来訪したものです。
同研究所の渡り・免疫生態学部の、マーティン・ウィケルスキ（Martin Wikelski)教授がセミナーを行い、小鳥類にも応用可能で、取得できるデータも多い、人工衛星を利用した地球規模の研究プロジェクトについて紹介し、尾崎清明・保全研究室長らと意見交換しました。

* Bird banding

Danielle D Brown, Roland Kays, Martin Wikelski, Rory Wilson and A Peter Klimley

Icarus, a wildlife receiver circling above Earth, will monitor the epic journeys of tiny birds and insects, helping to warn us of volcanic eruptions and to protect us from diseases

But as well as monitoring migrations, ICARUS will also be used to look for unusual movements of animals. Martin Wikelski, a professor of ornithology involved with the project, explains that ICARUS will test for the first time whether flying animals can be used as "intelligent sensors" of impending earthquakes.

Dr. Freund found that, because of atomic defects that exist in rock-forming crystals, rocks generate "clouds" of positive electric charge when subjected to stress. (The same clouds are also thought to be behind the startling phenomenon of "earthquake lights", a kind of aurora sometimes seen in the air just before seismic events). Just prior to an earthquake, this positive charge induces magnetic fields at the Earth's surface (which ICARUS hopes to spot by observing changes in the behaviour of the birds and bats it will follow).

A Four-Legged Early-Warning System

In many parts of the world, goats are important suppliers of milk, meat and hides. However, Martin Wikelski, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, has very different plans for these modest animals: he wants to use them to predict volcanic eruptions.

Though an independent mission, DTUsat is a forerunner for the ICARUS (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) project, an ambitious plan to equip birds and other small mammals with tags that transmit their location directly to the International Space Station, rather than via a satellite relay. The ICARUS project reflects growing interest in how small animal migration patterns are influenced by global issues such as climate change. Thorup and Martin Wikelski of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany, the lead researcher for ICARUS, hope that the DTUsat’s launch provides incentive to build location-transmitting tags that have the power to send signals to the ISS. The researchers speculate that the tags will be ready by the end of 2015. Now, the tags are still in the developmental stage and are about 5 grams, but Thorup and Wikelski hope that the tags will weigh as little as 1 gram in the future.

According to Wikelski, insurance companies are already talking to the researchers because current methods can't predict major volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Which is why the Sept. 27 Mount Ontake eruption in Japan caught climbers by surprise.

For the planned comprehensive warning system, the devices worn by animals will emit signals out into space that will be picked up by the International Space Station (ISS). So far the data has traveled over cell phone radio networks, which are full of dead zones, particularly in thinly populated areas.

In the framework of the ICARUS Initiative (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space), project astronauts are due to set up an antenna at the space station in early 2016.

The 1 million euro project is financed by the German Aerospace Center and Russian space travel authorities. "Our present problem is support on the ground," Wikelski explains. "We're looking for private investors."

The major project kicked off in March 2012 with a feasibility study and has been in the implementation phase since August 2013. The Space Administration of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is funding ICARUS as part of the “National space programme space station and manned spaceflight”. In parallel with the DLR funding measures, the Max Planck Society has been providing ? 1.7 million from its own funds since December 2013 for the miniaturisation of the ICARUS radio chip. Funding of approx. ? 19 million is available for the years to come to develop the technologies required for the project. The main contractor and technical project manager of the MPIO is SpaceTech GmbH, Immenstaad, Lake Constance, which has a very high level of competence in the field of aerospace technology.

The experimental ICARUS system is expected to be installed on the Russian service module of the international Space Station ISS in spring 2016. The scientists hope the data generated by ICARUS will provide them with revolutionary findings on the life, behaviour, vital functions and death of animals on our planet. The Russian side of the scientific collaboration is headed by Dr. Grigori Tertitski, a biologist at the Institute for Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is currently coordinating 16 major projects of Russian ecologists, who will use the ICARUS technology from 2016 onwards. The globally collated data allow conclusions to be drawn on the spread of diseases (zoonoses), findings on climate change, and the forecasting of disasters. “There is no doubt that the anticipated research findings will be of inestimable importance for humankind, and ultimately for our life on Earth,” emphasises Martin Wikelski.

Masterclass: Space - Knowing No Boundaries The ability to follow the movements of animals hour by hour from space will revolutionize our understanding of i.e. long-distance bird migrations, and could help to protect human populations from animal-borne diseases like avian flu, SARS and West Nile Virus. It will also enable numerous applications in farm management, animal husbandry and fisheries. Several already existing applications like bird strike avoidance and vector borne disease transmission monitoring and mapping will be presented.
Moderator: Martin Wikelski (Max Planck Institute For Ornithology)
Speakers: Halvor Mjøen (findmysheep), Els Ducheyne (VECMAP project), George Gunn (SRUC), Tony Sephton (ESA), Davide Coppola (FlySafe project)
Presentations:
Martin Wikeski, ICARUS, European Regulations for Animal Tracking, VECMAP, FlySafe, findmysheep

The CDR (Part 2) covering the ISS Antenna is expected for review by end of July. The launch of ICARUS is now scheduled for August 2016.

Martin Wikelski, Elena Arriero, Anna Gagliardo, Richard A. Holland, Markku J. Huttunen, Risto Juvaste, Inge Mueller, Grigori Tertitski, Kasper Thorup, Martin Wild, Markku Alanko, Franz Bairlein, Alexander Cherenkov, Alison Cameron, Reinhard Flatz, Juhani Hannila, Ommo Hüppop, Markku Kangasniemi, Bart Kranstauber, Maija-Liisa Penttinen, Kamran Safi, Vladimir Semashko, Heidi Schmid & Ralf Wistbacka

Natural disasters threaten humanity, and the early warning times are usually too short. Now scientists have the idea: animals should help us to recognize natural catastrophes at an early stage.

The resulting experimental scientific data should help in solving various environmental problems, study of the climate change, biodiversity keeping, control of distribution of invasive species and infectious diseases, prevention of catastrophic events, ensuring the safety of air traffic and others.

It’s one small step for man, but one giant leap for University of Warwick students who will be launching a fully-orbiting satellite to the International Space Station.
The satellite, which will help global conservation projects, was designed and built by engineering students on the University of Warwick Satellite Project (WUSAT)
The 3-unit CubeSat will be deployed into low Earth orbit via the NanoRacks CubeSat deployment system on board the ISS.
The WUSAT-3 could aid the protection of bird and animal species by monitoring migration patterns from space.
It has been designed to work alongside the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) hardware, already on board the ISS.
The satellite will be able to track birds and animals on Earth by locating smart tags attached to them, using its four deployable antennae, high-resolution direction finder, and highly accurate orientation system.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Max Planck Society honour scientists with awards for their pioneering research into the sensory perception of organisms

rof. Dr. Martin Wikelski, Honorarprofessor an der Universität Konstanz und Direktor am Max-Planck-Institut für Ornithologie, Radolfzell und Seewiesen, erhält den Max-Planck-Forschungspreis für seine Forschung zur Interaktion von Tieren mit ihrer Umwelt. Martin Wikelskis Arbeit, die als weltweit führend gilt, bedient sich eines grundsätzlich neuen Ansatzes – der Lebenszeitbeobachtung von Tieren im Freiland. Mithilfe des von ihm initiierten Satellitensystems ICARUS wird es ab 2017 möglich sein, das Verhalten auch kleiner Tiere weltweit durchgehend zu beobachten. Auch die globale Datenbank Movebank geht auf Initiative des Biologen zurück. Langfristiges Ziel dieser Forschung ist, durch das Verhalten der Tiere, insbesondere durch Wanderbewegungen auch kleiner Tiere, das Leben auf der Erde zu beobachten und dadurch Naturkatastrophen oder den Ausbruch von Krankheiten wie Ebola voraussagen zu können. Der gemeinsame Forschungspreis der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung und der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft ist mit 750.000 Euro dotiert.

Roscosmos, DLR, RSCE, MPIO, I-GOS and STI have held a successful meeting on February 16th to conduct the first part of the acceptance test of the qualification model of ICARUS (QM AT 1) and coordinate the future milestones of the project.
Due to the failue of the December Progress Launch, there is a complicated situation with respect to the resources on the ISS. This situation has caused a delay for the ICARUS launch. Instead of the June 15th date, we expect the confirmation of the ICARUS launch date now for October 12th, 2017.

The United States Geological Survey notes on its website that “anecdotal evidence abounds of animals, fish, birds, reptiles and insects exhibiting strange behavior anywhere from weeks to seconds before an earthquake.” But the federal agency, responsible for recording earthquake activity in the United States, goes on to say that “consistent and reliable behavior prior to seismic events, and a mechanism explaining how it could work, still eludes us.”

Recognizing that many scientists remain skeptical about his line of research, and that many variables remain, Mr. Wikelski said he was eager to carry out experiments on a broader scale.

“Even if we can show that this is something that is being sensed by these animals,” Mr. Wikelski said, he noted that it was only “on one farm in one area of the world, so it’s very limited in what we can say.”

“It’s a huge claim, so we’d better have good proof for it,” he said.

* 動物は地震を予知しているのか　ナマズ４０匹の行動を昼夜監視したが…

by Nicholas Pevzner & Stephanie Carlisle

Dr Martin Wikelski is part scientist part action hero. He flies planes and climbs volcanoes to study whether goats truly can predict eruptions and whether birds can sense earthquakes. What he’s discovering has the world taking note.

Martin is part of an international group of scientists studying animal movements on a global scale. For the first time, satellite technology is making it possible to understand long-standing secrets from the animal world. And in the process, we’re discovering some unlikely allies.

The Icarus project is tagging animals for use as early-warning systems for earthquakes and other events.

* Martin Wikelski will Tiere aus dem All beobachten

* Progress MS-07 enters orbit, heads to ISS (Russianspaceweb)

Several hours before a volcanic eruption, the animals are unusually restless

The members of the new crew of ISS-56 in the Center of training cosmonauts trained to go into space to install on an external surface of the station equipment of the ICARUS experiment for the study of migrations of wild animals, the release may take place after may 2018, according to the message of the cosmonaut training Center (CTC) named after Gagarin.

SIXTH SENSE OF ANIMALS (I): Researchers want to improve the warning of volcanic eruptions with the help of goats.

* SIXTH SENSE OF ANIMALS (II): A solar storm can confuse the magnetic senses of sperm whales to strand and die.

Relief was evident at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) in Bonn, and at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (MPIO) in Radolfzell on Lake Constance. A Russian Soyuz 2-1A launcher and a Progress cargo spacecraft carrying the antenna block for the German-Russian project ICARUS (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space) set off for the International Space Station (ISS), which orbits Earth at an altitude of 400 kilometres. Lift-off occurred on 13 February 2018 at 09:13 CET (14:13 local time) and Progress is scheduled to reach the ISS on 15 February 2018 at 11:45 CET. "The Russian Progress MS-08 cargo spacecraft carries approximately 2500 kilograms of supplies, of which about 200 kilograms are allotted to ICARUS – the most technically advanced project for animal observation from space," explains Johannes Weppler, ICARUS Project Manager at the DLR Space Administration in Bonn. "We are very happy that ICARUS will soon enter its operational phase after several years of intensive preparation and that the hardware required for this – the antenna and on board computer will soon both be at the Zvezda module in the Russian sector of the space station." The computer was already transported to the ISS by a Soyuz launcher on 14 October 2017.


* Ears for Icarus | ICARUS Antenna arrived at ISS

Since 13 February, two key components of the Icarus mission have been orbiting in space. Following the on-board computer, which was carried to the International Space Station (ISS) in October 2017, another Soyuz Progress rocket has now transported the antennas of the joint German-Russian Icarus project to the ISS. Martin Wikelski, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell and head of the Icarus Mission, talks about his very first countdown in life and the future of the global animal tracking system.

Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Alexei Ovchinin will set out on a spacewalk on August 8.
"The spacewalk is scheduled for the beginning of August, and now the date is August 8," Artemyev said ahead of his training.
The Russian cosmonauts will head off into space in order to install equipment on the external surface of the International Space Station for the ICARUS experiment on monitoring wild birds.

Wikelski and his colleagues have tested the system on the ground by outfitting larger animals with the tags and collecting data via land-based antenna. They were able to predict eruptions of Italy's Mount Etna six hours in advance by observing moving patterns of goats on the volcano’s slopes. Tagging flying foxes in Africa showed how these foxes spread seeds across vast areas. In the future, Wikelski says, the team could track the spread of diseases like avian flu or Ebola, by testing bats for antibodies that show up in their blood after disease exposure, and then figuring out where those animals have been.


* From space during the experiment "Ikarus" will monitor the migration of animals and birds (Korolev TV)

Mit dem Icarus-Projekt wollen Forscher besser vor Erdbeben warnen, Epidemien verfolgen und Tiere schützen. Zwei Kosmonauten auf der ISS haben es nun einen wichtigen Schritt vorangebracht.

It is 01:28 on 16 August 2018, and applause has suddenly broken out in the MCC-M, the Russian control centre for the International Space Station (ISS). The room is full of happy faces. The ICARUS antenna, which will be used to track animals from space, has just been successfully installed on the exterior of the Russian Zvezda module on the ISS.


* 宇宙から地上の動物を追跡！国際宇宙ステーションに専用アンテナが設置される | 最新式の地震予測システム、鍵を握るのは野生動物の動き？ Wild! Tracking animals from space could predict earthquakes on the ground