Fundamental and applied microgravity

This year, 2022, has seen a resurgence of ‘traditional’ activities, in the sense that we understood them before the pandemic. The life of our Research Group has also been marked by this. We were able to get together twice this year, on 10 May at the Cité de l’Espace for an exceptional day to celebrate the 30 candles of our Research Group, and from 2 to 4 November in Hyères for our annual conference.

In Toulouse in the spring, Alain Karma, Paolo Di Marco, José Torero and Dominique Langevin kindly gave us talks in which they explained the context of some of our research within past, present and future international programmes linked to the science of matter in microgravity. Once again, we would like to express our sincere thanks to them. There is no doubt that our national community, which CNES and CNRS have been stimulating for 30 years now, will be able to draw on these assessments and the rich discussions that they have fuelled to focus on the challenges of the next decade of the Research Group.

Among the many scientific achievements of 2022, the public will long be mesmerised by the beauty of the photographs of deep space taken with the launch of the James Webb telescope. It should also be remembered that this project has required continuous human and financial investment over the last 30 years. On our own scale, the members of our Research Group spare no effort, and we are once again demonstrating the diversity and quality of our work at our annual conference in Hyères. They are undoubtedly contributing to the production of original knowledge in the field of the sciences of matter, as well as to the ability of our national agency to meet the deadlines imposed by space exploration, which is becoming ever more imminent. Several teams contributing to our Research Group are heavily involved in European Space Agency programmes and in experiments currently on board the International Space Station (DECLIC/DSI, Transparent Alloys, Soft Matter Dynamics/ FOAM C, SCEM, etc.). In this respect too, the two CNES parabolic flight campaigns that the GdR teams are regularly involved in provide excellent support for the development of our activities.