The International Meridian Circle Program Workshop, organized by the Chinese Society of Space Research, China Research Institute of Radiowave Propagation and National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences was held in Qingdao, 15-18 May, 2017. The sponsors of the workshop include Chinese Academy of Sciences, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Ministry of Science and Technology of China, and China National Development and Reform Commission.
More than 80 participants attended the workshop coming from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, India, Japan, Russia, Korea, UK and USA with representatives from the Chinese Meridian Project, and SCOSTEP. 59 presentations were made touching upon a range of topics including implementation or plans of space weather observation, collaboration and cooperation about International Meridian Circle Program, ionospheric study, middle and upper atmospheric study, instrumentation and the general space weather.
In the plenary session, Prof. Wang Chi, Deputy Director General of the National Space Science Center, CAS, Prof. Wu Jian, the Director General of China Research Institute of Radiowave Propagation, Prof. Nat Gopalswamy from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Prof. Wan Weixing the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, CAS, Prof. John C.Foster from MIT Haystack Observatory and Prof. Michel Blanc from International Space Science Institute-Beijing delivered invited talks.
Prof. Wang Chi introduced the space weather activities in China. The Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) was officially approved by CAS in 2016 and will be launched in 2022. The mission will take X-ray image of the geo-magnetosphere at the first time. China’s first Solar Observatory Satellite (ASO-S) and Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere Coupling Exploration (MIT) is under the phase A. For the ground-based space environmental observation, Chinese Meridian Project II has been listed as one of the national key mega scientific infrastructure in 2016-2020 in China. Based on the Chinese Meridian Project, Chinese scientists have initialized the International Space Weather Meridian Program for international cooperation.
During the workshop, international scientists made discussions of the observation, the research, the implementation and the cooperation of the International Meridian Circle Program and the hotspot issues about Space Physics. The achievement of the workshop will play an important role in condensing the objectives and facilitating the development of the International Meridian Circle Program.
