Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences

Space Research Centre
Centrum Badań Kosmicznych
Agency overview
Abbreviation	SRC
Formed	29 September 1976
Type	Space agency
Headquarters	Warsaw, Poland
Administrator	Piotr Orleański
Employees	180 (2010)
Website	www.cbk.waw.pl

The Space Research Centre (SRC, Polish: Centrum Badań Kosmicznych) is an interdisciplinary research institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. It was established in 1976 and began operations in 1977. SRC PAS is the only institute in Poland whose activity is fully dedicated to the research of terrestrial space, the Solar System and the Earth using space technology and satellite techniques.

The SRC also acted as Poland's national space agency until the Polish Space Agency (POLSA) was fully established in 2014.

Since 1977 the SRC staff developed, constructed and prepared for launch over 60 instruments and participated in the experiments in more than 50 space missions, for example: European Space Agency's Cassini–Huygens mission (investigation of Saturn and Titan), INTEGRAL (space laboratory of high energy astrophysics), Mars Express (Mars orbiter), Rosetta (mission to comet), Venus Express (Venus orbiter), Herschel Space Observatory (investigation of the coldest and most distant objects in the Universe), BepiColombo (mission to Mercury), Roscosmos's Koronas-F, Koronas-I, Koronas-Foton and Fobos-Grunt missions, and CNES' DEMETER and TARANIS missions. Space Research Centre has co-operated with the ESA since 1991. SRC has also collaborated with NASA (IBEX mission) and ISRO (Chandrayaan programme).

Organisation structure

The Space Research Centre is composed of multiple R&D facilities spread across locations in Warsaw, Wrocław, as well as Borówiec near Poznań.^[1]

Research groups

Solar System Dynamics and Planetology Division
- Mars Exploration Laboratory
Plasma Physics Division
- Heliogeophysical Prediction Service Laboratory
Solar Physics Division Wrocław
Solar System Physics and Astrophysics Division
Planetary Geodesy Division
- Astrogeodynamic Observatory Borówiec
Earth Observation Division
- Crisis Information Center

Engineering groups

Photonics and Micromechanics Laboratory
Electronic Constructions Laboratory
Space Mechatronics and Robotics Laboratory
- Space Robot Dynamics Laboratory Zielona Góra
Laboratory of Satellite Applications of FPGA