From september 23rd to 25th, UCM hosted the II Astronomical instrumentation Workshop organized by ASTRID and The Astronomy Infraestructures Network (RIA). The goal of this workshop was to gather the scientific teams and the industries of the sector to expose their needs and projects, and share experiences. The workshop was aimed as well at serving as an echo to convince financing agencies and the astronomical community in general of the need to promote with decision the development of astrophysical instrumentation and the tools for the analysis of related data. The formation and acknowledgement of instrumentation astronomers will be a key factor for Spain to meet the requirements of its position in Astronomy in the next decades. See the ASTRID projet web page at http://www.astrid-cm.org/ for more details. For a summary visit the weblog "cuaderno de bitácora estelar" at http://weblogs.madrimasd.org/astrofisica/archive/2009/09/25/125429.aspx

A few days ago, Gil de Paz, Zamorano and Gallego GUAIX researchers carried out a detailed visit to the Laboratorio de instrumentación espacial (LINES) of INTA headquarters in Torrejón (Madrid).

The visitors were kindly received by Drs. M.D. Sabau and T. Belenguer. The superb capabilities and quality of the LINES shops were the subject of the meeting, where future UCM/INTA coordinated projects were addressed.

The image show the researchers visiting the clean lab where special clean-lab clothing and shoes have to be put.

The II General Meeting of the ASTRID project was held last February 18th, at the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), in Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid). Thirty five scientists of seven different research institutions from Madrid attended to the meeting, as well as several agents from private partners associated to the ASTRID project. The goals of the meeting were to inform to the project members about all the activities developed in the project, and to identify and start new collaboration lines between the different research groups involved in the project.

The first IDT FISIR meeting was held on friday June 6th by videoconf. Attendants were Jesús Gallego (FISIR PI; UCM), R. Guzmán (FISIR project scientist; Univ Florida), Steve Eikenberry (CIRCE PI; Univ. Florida) and Marisa García-Vargas (Fractal S.L.N.E.).

Physics students of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and future engineers have only a partial knowledge of work positions when they finish their careers. We will gather some aero-space industries belonging to ASTRID; at the Physics building of UCM on may 13 to inform interested students. This event is made with the collaboration of the UCM Physics.