ORIGINAL PROJECT
Since practically it is impossible for school children to manufacture onboard high-technology devices and facilities, the VTK, ad hoc Dedicated team thoroughly develops a concept of schoolchildren involvement in the research school projects. Participation of Russian and Australian schoolchildren in the project determined its goal - comparative investigation of near-Earth space over the territories of Europe, highly developed industrially, and of Australia, less exposed to technogenic impact.
The end of 2000 is the maximum of the 11-year cycle of solar activity. Hence, the other objective of the project: study of processes with 1) sporadic increase of intesity of fluxes of solar cosmic rays affecting the radiation belts of the Earth; and with 2) ejections from the solar surface of plasma clouds, interacting with the geomagnetosphere and triggering sharp changes in the magnetic and electric fields in the ionosphere and on the Earth surface.
Both these objectives are integrated into the most topical program of the new millenium - SPACE WEATHER study.
The circular orbit 300-400 km high, into which Kolibri2000 will be launched after jettisoning from the near- Earth station MIR or the ISS Orbital Station, seems attractive for research school projects. Here, maximally close to the top atmosphere processes of "space" and atmospheric weather are very intertangled. It is a paradox, that till now physical processes at such altitudes have never been well investigated. It is so, since ballistic lifetime of sattelites at these altitudes is short enough (4 to 6 months), therefore a long run of observations does not seem possible without regular launching new sattelites. With MIR and ISS in orbit, the problem is rather simplified.