Sharing planet Earth as a common habitat, the well-being of humans is directly connected to the existence of animals, be it as a source of food, the origin and carrier of diseases, or as an early warning system for human impacts on nature.
However, we poorly understand the biology of most wild animals because we cannot track their locations, internal and external state, their behavior, and most importantly, the reasons for their death. And yet we need to know where, why and when animals are in trouble to preserve essential ecosystem services and to safeguard our own human livelihoods.
The ICARUS Initiative (International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space), a research endeavor that transcends disciplines and continents, will close this knowledge gap by globally monitoring the local, regional and global movement patterns of tagged animals via an in-orbit communication node on the International Space Station (ISS).
ICARUS was founded in 2002 by an international consortium of scientists - among them Martin Wikelski from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology - who realized the global lack of knowledge on dispersal and migration of small animals
More information: www.animalsensors.mpg.de
Icarus initiative: [ Ссылка ]
Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Radolfzell, Germany: www.orn.mpg.de/wikelski
Unfortunately, the animation is without sound, but we have some additional information on the individual sequences:
00:12
The International Space Station ISS is flying on a nearly circular orbit with a mean altitude of 400 km.
00:15
A new module (MLM) is scheduled to arrive at the station in 2014.
00:20
Downlink antennas on the ISS establish a RF connection to the logger tags which are fixed on the observed animals. Uplink antennas receive the RF signal with the tracked logger data sent from the tags.
00:40
The logger tag is fixed onto the back of a migratory bird and tracks its actual positioning data.
00:57
During the movement phase, the logger tag periodically determines its position using a GPS module to trace the flight track.
1:13
the receiver of the logger tag will be switched on at a predefined time to detect the presence of the ISS downlink signal.
1:25
upon detection of the ISS presence, the tag switches into active mode.
1:35
The logger tag reaches the receive window of the ISS uplink antennas.
1:36
Start of transmission - positioning data are transferred to the uplink antenna of the ISS
and allow the tracking of the animals.
1:45
With the help of the recorded fixed points a chronicle of movement schemes will be created.
