Colin Wilson's Home Page in Oxford

I work in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics at Oxford University. For my doctoral degree, I developed a wind sensor for the Beagle 2 Mars lander, which was lost on arrival in December 2003. We are now designing a new wind sensor as part of the Advanced Environmental Package to be flown on Europe's ExoMars mission to Mars, due to launch in 2013.

I now work on the European Space Agency's Venus Express mission, mainly on observations of atmospheric dynamics using the VIRTIS instrument. Venus Express was launched on the 9 Nov 2005, and has been orbiting Venus since the 11 April 2006.

I also served on the Steering Committee for the European Venus Explorer (EVE) (formerly the Venus Entry Probe), a joint ESA/Russia mission which was proposed to ESA under the Cosmic Vision AO. Click here for presentations from, and a report of, the VEP meeting hosted in Oxford 24-25 January 2007, or see below for an EVE poster from EPSC 2007. As of October 2007, it was announced that EVE has not been selected to continue to the final selection round.

Recent Publications

C. F. Wilson, C.C.C. Tsang, P.G.J. Irwin, F.W. Taylor B. Bézard, P. Drossart G. Piccioni, R.W. Carlson, R.C. Holmes, Analysis of thermal emission from the nightside of Venus at 1.51 and 1.55 microns, Icarus, 2009, doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2009.03.010.

C.F. Wilson, S. Guerlet, P.G.J. Irwin, C.C.C. Tsang, F.W. Taylor, R.W. Carlson, P. Drossart, G. Piccioni, Evidence for anomalous cloud particles at the poles of Venus, Journal of Geophysical Research . Planets, 113, E00B13, 2008, doi:10.1029/2008JE003108.

C. F. Wilson, A.L. Camilletti, S.B. Calcutt & P.M. Ligrani, .A wind tunnel for the calibration of Mars wind sensors., Planetary and Space Science, 2008, doi:10.1016/j.pss.2008.05.011.

C. F. Wilson, E. Chassefière, et al., "Why we need to go to Venus: the future of European Venus exploration". International Astronautical Congress, paper #1789, Glasgow 3 Oct 2008. Download here.

For full publication list click here.

Posters:

Click here for a poster describing the EVE mission proposal. (Presented at Europlanet conference, Potsdam, August 2007).

Click here for a poster on initial atmospheric dynamics results from VIRTIS/Venus Express. (Presented at 1st European Planetary Sciences Conference, Berlin, Sep 2006).

Click here for a poster on 100-gramme Venus microprobes. (Presented at Chapman conference "Exploring Venus as a terrestrial Planet", Florida, Feb 2006).

Click here for a poster describing the Venus Entry Probe Workshop. (Presented at Chapman conference "Exploring Venus as a terrestrial Planet", Florida, Feb 2006), or click here to go to the VEP Workshop website.

Click here for a poster reviewing Mars wind sensing techniques. (Presented at DPS conference, Cambridge, Sep 2005).

Click here for a poster reviewing water vapour measurements in Venus atmosphere before Venus Express. Presented at EGU, Nice, April 2004.

The Beagle 2 Wind Sensor. This poster summarises the B2WS development, and includes preliminary work done on an experimental analogue of the convective updraft above a hot lander on Mars. Presented at EGS/AGU/EUG conference in Nice, April 2003.