(Roscosmos)
The Icarus project, a joint program of Russian and German scientists to track the migrations of animals using an antenna on board the ISS, was stopped at the request of Roscosmos.
Data transmission from the space station has been stopped since March 3, 2022.
German scientists began discussing the project of a global system for the study of animal migrations back in 2002.
Its main task was to monitor the movements of small animals in the first place: bats, small birds and even insects (like locusts).
Information about these routes can tell a lot about the state of ecosystems as a whole and potential threats to human well-being.
This will allow, for example, to predict the transmission of dangerous viruses or a threat to crops.
Such a system should be space-based, since there is no one to receive the signal of traditional radio beacons in sparsely populated regions, and the entire surface of the Earth is accessible to satellites.
The second restriction: in order not to influence the behavior of the tagged animal, the mass of the transmitters themselves should not exceed five percent of its body weight.
In 2014, Roscosmos and the German Aviation and Cosmonautics Center - DLR signed an agreement under which the antenna and data processing equipment will be installed on the Russian segment of the ISS in the spring of 2016, while Russian scientists will have access to data.
Initially, it was planned to install the antenna on the Nauka module, but due to the launch delay, it was decided to transfer it to the Zvezda module.
In August 2018, Russian cosmonauts installed an antenna on the outer surface of the station, the operation of the system at that moment was planned to begin in the summer of 2019.
However, a defect was discovered in the onboard computer and it had to be sent to Earth on the unmanned Soyuz MS-14, which traveled to the ISS with the robot Fedor.
In December 2019, the Progress MS-13 ship delivered a working computer to the station, and in March 2020 the entire system was put into test operation.
In September 2020 ornithologists in Europe, Russia and North America began to catch thrushes and place transmitters on them.
At that time, the first test batch of five thousand four-gram devices was ready, which are capable of operating without recharging and maintenance for at least one bird migration cycle.
Energy savings were achieved, among other things, due to the operation algorithm.
The transmitter turns on according to the schedule. only at the moment when the ISS appears above the horizon, and only then transmits to the station information about all the movements of the bird and its condition during the period of silence.
Anyone could participate in the project: scientists developed a mobile application where the user could see if there was a tagged bird next to him, and try to take pictures and inform ornithologists about his observations.
The Russian scientists who participated in the project planned about 16 different environmental studies based on the information obtained with the help of Icarus.
Now it has become known that data transmission from the ISS has been stopped since March 3, 2022 at the initiative of Roscosmos.
German researchers are currently trying to determine whether it is possible to receive data from satellite transmitters that are mounted on animals without equipment on the ISS.
The transmitters will probably remain on the birds - small birds don't live long, and by the end of their battery life, many will die of natural causes.
The representative of Roscosmos confirmed that the Russian side suspended the transfer of data to the German partners.
At the same time, the equipment on board the station is working, the data is coming to Russian scientists.
Source: