This article is on the international collaboration called IMPACT. For the charitable organisation, see IMPACT (organisation). For the Irish trade union, see Irish Municipal, Public and Civil Trade Union. For the television show, see Impact Wrestling.
IMPACT (International Multi-user Plasma, Atmospheric and Cosmic dust Twin laboratory) is a successful merger of many different science communities that need similar instrumentation and resources. IMPACT is a merger of IMPF (International Microgravity Plasma Facility) and ICAPS (Interactions in Cosmic and Atmospheric Particle Systems), originally conceived as two separate experimental facilities, both with their own development history. In May 2002, the dedicated scientific advisory boards for the IMPF and ICPAS recommended the combination of the two experiments into one ESA research laboratory.
Both projects share hardware, space station accommodation and operations, and data processing and downloading functions in common. By…