Professor Robert Wicks

Professor

Department: Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Dr. Wicks research covers the physics of plasma in the solar corona, solar wind, and near-Earth environment. He is an expert in the design and use of space plasma instrumentation onboard satellites and is a co-investigator of the ESA Solar Orbiter mission Solar Wind Analyser EAS instrument. He analyses data from spacecraft to investigate the processes that heat and accelerate plasma, especially turbulence and waves. He also works on space weather and risk mitigation. Dr Wicks is a keen space technologist with current projects including the development of a laser communications system for CubeSats and the proposal of future missions to the UK Space Agency and ESA for astrophysical plasma physics research.

Key Publications

Severe Space Weather Impacts on UK Critical National Infrastructure, Allcock, M., Pidgeon, A., Black , G., Prestwood, E., Frayling, A., Cucaro, S., Lecky, W., Coxon, J., Smith, A., Bentley, S., Watt, C., Wicks, R., Rae, J. 1 Jan 2025
Design and control of a steering mirror for a freespace optical communications CubeSat for gigabit inter-satellite links, Graham, C., Bramall, D., Younus, O., Riaz, A., Binns, R., Scullion, E., Wicks, R., Bourgenot, C. 3 Oct 2024, CubeSats, SmallSats, and Hosted Payloads for Remote Sensing VIII, San Diego, SPIE
Overview of Space-Based Laser Communication Missions and Payloads: Insights from the Autonomous Laser Inter-Satellite Gigabit Network (ALIGN), Younus, O., Riaz, A., Binns, R., Scullion, E., Wicks, R., Vernon, J., Graham, C., Bramall, D., Schmoll, J., Bourgenot, C. 5 Nov 2024, In: Aerospace
Steering Mirror System with Closed-Loop Feedback for Free-Space Optical Communication Terminals, Graham, C., Bramall, D., Younus, O., Riaz, A., Binns, R., Scullion, E., Wicks, R., Bourgenot, C. 23 Apr 2024, In: Aerospace
Turbulent Energy Conversion Associated With Kinetic Microinstabilities in Earth's Magnetosheath, Lewis, H., Stawarz, J., Matteini, L., Franci, L., Klein, K., Wicks, R., Salem, C., Horbury, T., Wang, J. 28 Dec 2024, In: Geophysical Research Letters
An ESA Nanosatellite Constellation to Monitor Space Weather Effects, Eckersley, S., Rowe, S., Hill, W., Forsyth, C., Wicks, R., Eastwood, J., Brown, P., Dániel, V., Gromeš, J., Junas, M., Ryden, K., Heil, M., Terzo, S., Gonzalo, A., Jiggens, P. 2 Oct 2023, In: Proceedings of the International Astronautical Congress, IAC
Observation of Alfvén Ion Cyclotron Waves in ICME Magnetic Clouds at 1 au, Dhamane, O., Pawaskar, V., Raghav, A., Shaikh, Z., D’Amicis, R., Ghag, K., Kumbhar, K., Telloni, D., Nicolaou, G., Tari, P., Wicks, R., Panchal, U., Sathe, B., Pathare, P. 1 Nov 2023, In: The Astrophysical Journal
The Radial Variation of the Solar Wind Turbulence Spectra near the Kinetic Break Scale from Parker Solar Probe Measurements, Lotz, S., Nel, A., Wicks, R., Roberts, O., Engelbrecht, N., Strauss, R., Botha, G., Kontar, E., Pitňa, A., Bale, S. 17 Jan 2023, In: The Astrophysical Journal
A Case for Electron-Astrophysics, Verscharen, D., Wicks, R., Alexandrova, O., Bruno, R., Burgess, D., Chen, C., D’Amicis, R., De Keyser, J., de Wit, T., Franci, L., He, J., Henri, P., Kasahara, S., Khotyaintsev, Y., Klein, K., Lavraud, B., Maruca, B., Maksimovic, M., Plaschke, F., Poedts, S., Reynolds, C., Roberts, O., Sahraoui, F., Saito, S., Salem, C., Saur, J., Servidio, S., Stawarz, J., Štverák, Š., Told, D. 1 Dec 2022, In: Experimental Astronomy
A Distributed Space-Weather Sensor System using Small Satellites, Eckersley, S., Rowe, S., Antoniou, N., Forsyth, C., Wicks, R., Eastwood, J., Brown, P., Dániel, V., Gromeš, J., Junas, M., Ryden, K., Heil, M., Terzo, S., Gonzalo, A., Jiggens, P. 18 Sep 2022, In: Proceedings of the International Astronautical Congress, IAC

PGR Supervision

Utsav Panchal Plasma thermodynamics of the inner heliosphere with Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe Start Date: 01/10/2022

Further Information

Dr Wicks was the PI for the mission proposal to the ESA F-Class mission call in 2018/19.

Find out more about the ESA Solar Orbiter mission . If you are interested in the use of data from Solar Orbiter for scientific research, public outreach, or any other purpose, you can find the Solar Orbiter data archive , and please ask Dr Wicks if you would like adivce on how to use the data.

You can watch Dr Wicks lecture on the topic of space weather , if you are interested in learning more as part of an undergraduate or graduate physics degree, then take a look at the Northumbria Physics BSc, Physics with Astrophysics BSc, MPhys and PhD programme webpages.

Qualifications

Physics PhD December 01 2008
Physics MSc June 30 2005
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy FHEA 2018

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