Nebula Public Library

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The project, part of the ESA Discovery Campaign on Remote Sensing of Plastic Marine Litter, developed a method to estimate floating macroplastic accumulation and transport rates in rivers using remote sensing. It combined the detection of floating water hyacinths using Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 with in-situ estimates of macroplastic densities carried by this invasive aquatic weed. Water hyacinths typically form large patches of several meters of width and length, and can thus be detected from space.

With the increased frequency of shipping activities, such as tourism and freight’s transport, navigation safety has become a major concern, especially when human casualties, environmental issues and economic losses are considered. Even if new technologies have already supplied aids to pilots for the navigation risk reduction, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) reports that the majority of accidents could have been avoided by providing suitable input to the navigation decision-making process.

Light-trapping helps enhance the light absorption in space solar cells and hence enables their thickness to be reduced to increase the radiation hardness. We have optimised light-trapping structures (LTS) inspired in the diatom frustule and moth’s eyes. As a solar cell reference, we use the commercial 3G30C model from Azure Space Solar Power GmbH. We have developed a physical model to describe the solar cell absorption and derive the efficiency. The optical description relies on the Fourier modal method and the solar cell performance on the detailed balance limit.