Professor Lennard Fisk, from University of Michigan, USA, was elected president of Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) during COSPAR 40th Scientific Assembly. Professor Mikhail Panasyuk, director of Skobeltsyn Institute for Nuclear Physics (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia), was elected a member of COSPAR Bureau.
Results of COSPAR president and bureau elections were made public during 40 Scientific Assembly of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). Professor Lennard Fisk (University of Michigan, USA) was elected President of COSPAR for the next four years. Professor Fisk is currently conducting theoretical research on the physics of the solar atmosphere and the heliosphere.
In 1987–1993 Professor Fisk the Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and in February 2013 he was appointed US National representative to COSPAR.
After the final Bureau meeting Professor Fisk gave a brief interview and shared his vision on the future of space science and further development of the Committee. He also recollected some details of his first visit to Russia, then the USSR, during COSPAR 13th Scientific Assembly in Leningrad, in 1970, and then in 1988, when he witnessed a rocket launch from Baikonur (Phobos mission).
During COSPAR Council meeting Professor Mikhail Panasyuk was elected a new member of the Bureau. Professor Panasyuk, director of Skobeltsyn Institute for Nuclear Physics (Lomonosov Moscow State University), is also Russia National representative to COSPAR since June 2014 and chair of Program Committee for the 40th Scientific Assembly, which ended on 10th August in Moscow.
***
COSPAR, short for Committee on Space Research, was established in 1958 by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), now the International Council for Science. COSPAR's objectives are to promote on an international level scientific research in space, with emphasis on the exchange of results, information and opinions, and to provide a forum, open to all scientists, for the discussion of problems that may affect scientific space research. COSPAR's first Space Science Symposium was organized in Nice in January 1960. In 1970, the thirteenth Scientific Assembly of COSPAR was held in Leningrad, than in the USSR. COSPAR 40th Scientific Assembly in Moscow is held in Lomonosov Moscow State University and supported by the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, the Federal Space Agency of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Moscow City Government. Arkady Dvorkovich, Deputy Chair of the Government of the Russian Federation, heads the National Organizing Committee.
Assembly's web page http://www.cospar2014moscow.com/