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Dates of Tachomag experiment for solar studies from ISS depend on funding

Due to unstable funding the testing of the device at the International Space Station has been postponed indefinitely, IZMIRAN’s director, Vladimir Kuznetsov, told

MOSCOW, May 7. /TASS/. The Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IZMIRAN) continues to develop a space-based device for measuring the solar magnetic fields, Tachomag, but due to unstable funding the testing of the device at the International Space Station has been postponed indefinitely, IZMIRAN’s director, Vladimir Kuznetsov, told TASS.

"The device is in the development phase. Everything has been postponed once again. I have repeatedly mentioned the deadlines that were indicated in the documents, but they keep moving to the right all the time. Its financing resumes and stops again," Kuznetsov said.

He stressed that Tachomag was one of the priority experiments on the ISS. At the moment, the issue of financing and concluding contracts is being resolved.

Tachomag is a magnetograph capable of observing the magnetic fields on the Sun, which play a key role in all of its activities - the generation of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and so on. The device will be tested on the ISS, and its improved successor will be used in the Intergeliozond spacecraft.