Profile

The work I deliver is based on fundamental scientific/engineering knowledge and broad working experience in the high demanding areas of Astronomy and Space, Maths and Physics, Instrumentation, Image processing and more.

Innovative thinking and practical results in Research and Development are key words, having worked in both industrial and publicly funded projects, especially in the areas of optics, including ESA.

Managing projects, working autonomously and keeping to time and budget limits, is supported by having attended several project management courses, presented results to the customer, and produced reliable documentation of products and methods, as well as dozens of publications.

Gaining high achievements is supported by strong skills in complex programming in many languages, and in handling and analysing big data sets.

Easily building up relationships, successful communication and team-work originate from having worked also in education and having been trained in counselling.

Skills

University degree in Astronomy, with Physics and Mathematics and specialisation in Instrumentation.

Many years of innovative optical design research with emphasis on space based optics for astronomy - design, analysis, simulation, verification, test, evaluation, optimisation, innovation; using ray-tracing, diffraction integration, Fourier analysis; visual, X-ray, Gamma-ray spectrum; for Astronomy, space, physics, biology; for ESA, SPIE, IAU.

Hands-on experience in optical bread-boarding, fibre optics, lasers, clean room work.

Experienced in documentation, publication, presentation, communication, translation, teaching, tendering, organisation and management of projects.

Many years of scientific software development – mainly C/C++, Fortran, Mathematica, Matlab, R, Latex, Typo3, InDesign, MS-Office, Windows, Mac; also some IDL, Maple, Code-V (similar to Zemax) and Unix. Certified in C-Programming, Digital Video and Web-design (Frontpage).

Ph.D. in Digital image/video processing/compression (MPEG), information theory.

Fluent in English, German and Dutch; working knowledge of French.

Person

enjoying people, science and challenges

broad interest and capacities - reliable

empathizing with people -  building bridges with humour

Details

Professional Experience

Scientist, freelance (01.2012 - present)
Astronomy, Mathematics, Physics, Technology
Astronomical research, a.o. orbit mechanics, S/W development in Mathematica, R; writing a manuscript .
Research on platonic geometry, S/W development in R, consultation on in C(++).
Translation work, a.o. projective geometry, fundamental physics, astronomy.
Giving lectures, a.o. on astronomy; leading a working group on cosmology.
Working with the 50cm telescope of the Astronomical Section / Goetheanum.
Secretarial work for the Mathematical-Astronomical Section at the Goetheanum/CH (2016-2017 part-time), using Latex, Indesign, MS-Office, Mac/Windows; conference organisation, journal publication.

Space Research Centre, University of Leicester (UK) (04.2007 - 11.2011)
Research Fellow X-ray Telescope Design
Design of optical instrumentation for astronomy.
Optical design research for the space telescope Athena (International X-Ray Observatory) by ESA (http://sci.esa.int/cosmic-vision/54517-athena/).
Simulation of visual and Gamma-ray optics for Astronomy.
Management, documentation, publication, presentation.

Adaptive Optics Group, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh (UK) (01.2004 - 03.2007)
Postdoctoral Research Associate Exo-Planet Imaging
Optical design for space based instruments for exo-planet imaging.
Simulation of optics for many Coronagraph Projects like Predris, TPF-C (NASA), Darwin (ESA).
Experimental verification, publication presentation, teaching.

Information Theory Group / Delft University (NL) (04.1996 - 04.2000)
Ph.D. Research: Error resilient compression of digital video data (MPEG).
Designing and programming of compression algorithms.
Theoretical analysis and evaluation.

Space Division, National Aerospace Laboratory (NL) (03.1990 - 9.1992)
Research Engineer Micro-gravity Instrumentation
Design of optical instruments for space experiments in physics and biology.
Phase A and B Studies, Breadboarding,.
Project management, a.o. for ESA-Projects.

University of Utrecht / Laboratory for Space Research (NL) (08.1980 - 8.1989)
Study and Degree: Astronomy; with Physics, Mathematics, Astronomical Instrumentation
Theory, Experiments, Research.
Publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Observation with the Infrared-Telescope at the Eureopean Southern Observatory in Chile.

More details on the next 4 pages, followed by a publication list

Further skills

More than 35 publications, one reviewed in Nature, see separate list.

Certificates in programming in C, digital video, MS-Frontpage, driving, typing, swimming, first-aid/epileptics, biographical counselling skills.

Fluent in English (C2), German (C2) and Dutch (mother tongue); basic knowledge of French.

Scientific experience - details

Scientist

In the areas of Astronomy, Mathematics, Physics, and Technology I have undertaken several scientific activities, thereby applying the research experience, which I have built up in my work at several institutions. I have written a manuscript, which deals with astronomy and related fields on a fundamental level. I kept up to date with scientific developments through the latest publications in the field. I have written and used software well known to me and also gained new experience, f.i. C/++, Mathematica, R, Latex, Indesign, Office; Mac/Windows.

I have organised conferences, did simultaneous and written translation work, and gave lectures and courses in the scientific areas indicated. I have built up connections with international scientists and shared their and my work in different areas. I have also been active in several areas of education during this time.

In the Mathematical-Astronomical Section of the Goetheanum I did part-time work in 2016-2017, running the internationally oriented section-office. At the Observatory of the Goetheanum I have taken care of the 50cm refractor and other equipment, and guided celestial tours.

Research Fellow - X-ray Telescope Design

At the Space Research Centre of the University of Leicester I worked for almost 5 years on the analysis and numerical simulation of optical systems.

The main subject of my work was the optics for the next generation X-ray telescope by ESA/NASA/JAXA: Athena (http://sci.esa.int/cosmic-vision/54517-athena/ , formerly known as the International X-ray Observatory,  XEUS and Constellation-X). This included analysis and numerical simulations based on different optical design options because the final design for the telescope was not yet fixed. The optics involve parabolic, hyperbolic, conical and flat surfaces with angle and wavelength dependent properties. Calculations also have to take into account diffraction, as one of the promising designs builds on Silicon pores, which show diffraction at energies lower than about 1 keV. Trying to find a way to calculate the combined effect of diffraction and scattering off the rough mirror surface over the whole energy range (0.1-40 keV) was one of the first activities, the results of which I published. In this part of the work my experience from modelling high contrast imaging systems for exo-planet imaging was of use.

A second activity was finding a way to pack square optical modules consisting of plates into a round mirror area. Thirdly I wrote a ray-tracing program for the three different optical designs, in order to be able to compare the performance in terms of point spread function, efficiency, vignetting and other properties. These results were presented at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Other work included analysis and numerical simulation of a combination of Kirkpatrick-Baez and Angel-Lobster designs using stacked Silicon plates, of stray light in the three design options and of an additional curvature of the second reflective surface of the Silicon pore Wolter-I design to improve the angular resolution.

The Cherenkov Telescope Array is a concept for a ground based optical observatory for gamma-ray astronomy; I modelled an optical design for such a telescope and analysed the point spread function. I wrote a simulation for the analysis of a Laue lens design for gamma-ray astronomy to establish its off-axis imaging properties.

Tracing of micro-meteoroids through grazing incidence optics to assess potential CCD damage, partly based on experimental data, has also been part of the work.

Post-doctoral Research Associate – Exoplanet Imaging and Spectroscopy

My main task at Heriot-Watt University in the Adaptive Optics Group was to work on a new optical technique called pupil replication. It can be applied to high contrast imaging and spectroscopy for astronomy because it reduces the size of the on-axis star image, thereby decreasing the inner working angle – this way an exo-planet can be imaged closer to the star, while maintaining the high contrast. In this technique, the exit pupil of the telescope is replicated N times and the replications are then joined side by side. This new pupil is then lead into the entrance pupil of the high contrast system – a Lyot coronagraph, shaped pupil, apodised pupil or other system. For the on-axis source this has the same optical properties as an N times larger telescope, therefore a thinner point spread function results. For broad band observations the off axis planet point spread function stays by and large the same.

To find out the properties and applicability of such a system I did research through mathematical analysis and numerical simulations on many aspects of this principle: the on- and off-axis behaviour of the point spread function of the star and the planet, the spectral behaviour, application to different high contrast imaging techniques like the Lyot coronagraph, amplitude pupil apodisation, quadrant phase mask, shaped pupil mask, interferometric nulling. I also calculated the influence of errors in the replication-optics like piston, tip, tilt, shift, shear, amplitude, and looked at the influence of rotation, magnification, statistical amplitude and phase errors, pointing and obscuration effects. As a basis I used square and hexagonal pupils, NxM replications and extended broadband sources. Comparison with the hyper telescope, application to the Darwin and Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph (TPF-C) system cases were also part of this work.

I gave a lecture at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Nice Sophia-Antipolis Nice, visited the Paris Meudon observatory, presented at IAU and SPIE conferences and published several papers for journals and conferences; one of them was reviewed in Nature. Furthermore I assisted in three student projects on the experimental verification of the pupil replication principle in the optical lab.

Apart from the topic described above I also worked briefly on the analysis of the possibility of using a multi-mirror Fabry-Perot interferometer for high dynamic range imaging, and on wave front sensing using phase diversity. For phase diversity wave front shape measurement, the main principle used is to measure the intensity in two planes, for instance at both sides of the focus. From the difference between these measured intensity distributions, the shape (phase information) of the wave front can be reconstructed using the intensity transport equation. In this field, the main application I worked on was the optimisation of the on-site alignment of the WFCAM telescope by using this technique.

I also worked briefly on the mathematical optimisation of the wave front sensing technique (generalised phase diversity) by using a small angle expansion of the principle equations. Through literature and interactions in the group and at conferences I am also familiar with optical interferometry, aperture synthesis and adaptive optics. I have worked at Heriot-Watt University for about 3½ years.

Research Engineer – Microgravity Instrumentation

I have worked for 2½ years at the Department of Space-Systems, Micro-Gravity Research, of the National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) in the Netherlands as a Research Engineer. The content of the research-assignments was mostly carrying out feasibility-studies. My work was on the one hand in the field of technical physics, both theoretical and experimental, and on the other hand the first steps of project management. Most of this research was done for customers, like the European Space Agency ESA, which meant working within time- and financial limits, and reporting to the client. I have made phase A and B designs of mostly optical instrumentation to observe and analyse different physics and biological experiments to be performed in a space-station in micro-gravity. I focus here on three projects:

Bio-screening with Robotics: The aim was to perform biological experiments in micro-gravity; to get better statistical values, a larger number had to be performed which requires tele-operation or automation. The analysis instrument of this experiment had to be developed by the NLR. I performed both phase A and B studies for this instrument which included a long distance microscope and a photometer.

The Mini-Fluid Science Laboratory: This is a facility for preparation on earth of micro-gravity (weightless) fluid physics experiments using simulation of micro-gravity by scaling down experiment dimensions. The main experiment area was a liquid column of millimetre size on which phenomena can be studied like stability, resonance, and Marangoni convection. One of the problems was the three dimensional visualisation of the flow within the liquid. I worked on solving this by designing a system that uses tracers which are opaque for X-rays. An X-ray source and detector are used to make a shadow graph instrument for fluid flow visualisation.

The Tele-operated Prototype Optical Diagnostic Instrument (TelePODI): The concept of this instrument aimed for a tele-operated facility for fluid physics experiments under micro-gravity on-board spacecraft such as Columbus. It includes a one litre exchangeable test cell, a whole field Schlieren deflectometer, a narrow field laser Michelson interferometer, 2 beam splitters, 3 CCD cameras and tele-operation facilities. A breadboard had been made to demonstrate the feasibility of the concept and to serve as a test bed for optical diagnostics, image data handling and tele-operation. I first finished the work that had been carried out on the design and implementation of the path length reduced whole field refractive index mapping part of PODI. Then I performed a study of the tele-operated or automated alignment of the optical Schlieren system of PODI. A new technique was used to calculate the misalignment of the system when small changes in the position (x, y, z, rotation, tilt) of the main grating are applied.

Ph. D. – Error Resilient Compression of Digital Video Data

At the Delft University of Technology I obtained a position as a Ph. D. researcher in the Information Theory Group. My research was part of a project at the Delft University of Technology, called Mobile Multi-media Communication (MMC) which consisted of five fields of research. Working as a team was important, also for the research results. I first searched in the international scientific literature to establish what the state of the art is in video-compression. I then focused on what the remaining problems are, specifically for mobile video-communication. This turned out to be the sensitivity to errors in the transmission, which occur in mobile communication. In my research I then focused on three subjects:

H.263: Modification of this compression standard to make it more error resilient. H.263 is a normal hybrid compression technique, which is the basis for most standards, like MPEG. In the modification I applied, instead of using the previous frame for prediction, a prediction frame is used which is composed of several previous frames which are each weighed with a factor, and this smooths the impact of errors. This technique is known and analytically proven for differential pulse code modulation (DPCM). Another advantage is that this technique is not dependent on knowledge whether or not, or where, any errors have occurred. Another important part of the research was then to establish how this technique works with respect to error resilient network protocols, which also reduce the errors but thereby produce overhead in the bit-stream. Since this is a complex multi-dimensional problem, a numerical experimental approach was chosen.

Shape Compression: In current coding techniques, such as the MPEG-4 standard, the coding of video objects and their shapes is important. Not many error resilient shape coding techniques exist, so I worked specifically on the error-resilient compression of the shapes (contours) of the video objects. To this aim I developed a new shape compression technique, described and evaluated it mathematically and tested it. The technique is based on the fact that the contours originate from two-dimensional shapes of three-dimensional objects and therefore starts with a description in polar co-ordinates, which is then spectrally decomposed, quantised and prioritised transmission of the coefficients is used. This leads to a gradual decrease in image quality when the error rate increases. I wrote from scratch a complete compression-decompression (codec) programme in C++ using Microsoft Visual Studio and Matlab.

System concept: The interdisciplinary research carried out in the Mobile Multi-media Communication project resulted in showing the importance of the user interaction in the field of video compression and I incorporated this in the compression software. Furthermore, in the course of the Mobile Multi-media Communication project I introduced a quantitative concept for a mobile multi-media communication system if it were to be in operation five years later.

University Degree – Astronomy, Physics, Mathematics, Astronomical Instrumentation

I have studied Astronomy at the University of Utrecht, including Physics and Mathematics. For the doctoral examination I chose the specialisation Astronomical Instrumentation. In the first half of my study I studied subjects from Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy and Instrumentation. In the second half I studied subjects from Astronomy and Instrumentation and carried out one year equivalent of full time research.

This research can be divided into two parts:

Alpha Persei. This research was based on observation data collected with an Ultra-Violet balloon borne telescope and on optical observations, which I processed and interpreted. I used computer simulations of several models of star atmospheres and numerical techniques to find solutions to derive a value for the micro-turbulence in the upper photo-sphere of this star. This has an effect on its energy distribution and stability. The results were published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Another part of this research was on the star HD119796, a G8Ia+ hyper-giant with a B0Ibp companion. Here I derived star parameters from photometric data which were gathered over several years and in different wavelengths.

The Coded Mask Imaging Spectrometer COMIS is an X-Ray (2-32 keV) telescope which was developed in the Laboratory for Space Research in the Netherlands, and was active in the Space-Station MIR. Its detector had to be spectrally calibrated in-flight based on a software-method, for which I implemented the technique to do this and tested it. In the beginning of this research, a failure was present in the detector in the space station, for which the cause was unknown; I was able to simulate in software this unexpected output of the detector.

As part of my study, I also made observations on the Infra-red telescope of the European Southern Observatory in Chile, wrote a text on Adaptive Optics, wrote an article on COMIS for the popular astronomical magazine Zenit, performed research on numerical techniques for multi-parameter fitting and wrote a simulation programme for the output of the SOHO satellite.

This is a list of publications of Frank Spaan which are retrievable from

SAO/NASA ADS Astronomy Abstract Service and Google Scholar;

additionally some publications are listed which are available on request.

Space Telescope Optics for X-ray and Gamma-ray

Spaan, F.H.P. and Willingale, R.: An assessment of the problem of stray light in the optics of the International X-ray Observatory, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2010: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray. Edited by Arnaud, Monique; Murray, Stephen S.; Takahashi, Tadayuki. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 7732, article id. 773240, 9 pp. (2010).

Willingale, R. and Spaan, F.H.P.: Improving the angular resolution of the conical Wolter-I silicon pore optics (SPO) mirror design for the International X-ray Observatory (IXO), Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2010: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray. Edited by Arnaud, Monique; Murray, Stephen S.; Takahashi, Tadayuki. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 7732, article id. 773241, 5 pp. (2010).

Willingale, R. and Spaan, F.H.P.: The design, manufacture and predicted performance of Kirkpatrick-Baez Silicon stacks for the International X-ray Observatory or similar applications, Optics for EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Astronomy IV. Edited by O'Dell, Stephen L.; Pareschi, Giovanni. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 7437 (2009)., article id. 74370B, 9 pp. (2009).

Spaan, F.H.P. and Willingale, R.: Optimisation of the X-ray Optics for IXO, American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #457.09; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.359, 2009.

Spaan, F.H.P. and Willingale, R.: The point spread function of Silicon pore X-ray optics, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2008: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray. Edited by Turner, Martin J. L.; Flanagan, Kathryn A. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 7011, article id. 70111B, 12 pp. (2008).

in't Zand, J.J.M.; Jager, R.; Spaan, F.H.P.: COMIS, een röntgencamera aan boord van Mir, Zenit, 15. Jaarg., Nr. 12, p. 414 - 419, 1988.

Space Telescope Optics for Exo-Planet Imaging

Spaan, F. H. P. and Greenaway, A.H.: Analysis of Pupil-Replication, Astrophysical Journal, Volume 658, Issue 2, pp. 1380-1385, 2007.

Spaan, F. H. P., Greenaway, A. H.: Decreasing the Inner Working Angle in High-Contrast Imaging by Pupil Replication, Proceedings of the SPIE Symposium on Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation I: Optical, Infrared and Millimetre, 2006, Florida, U.S.A..

Spaan, F. H. P., Prot, E., Mourai, V., Greenaway, A. H.: Pupil Replication, EAS Publications Series, Volume 22,  "Astronomy with High Contrast Imaging III: Instrumental Techniques, Modelling and Data Processing", M. Carbillet, A. Ferrari and C. Aime (eds.), 2006, ISBN 2868839029.

Spaan, F. H. P., Prot, E., Mourai, V., Greenaway, A. H.: Pupil Replication: Implementation Aspects, Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union Colloquium No. 200 "Direct Imaging of Exoplanets: Science and Techniques", IAU Symposium and Colloquium Proceedings Series, C. Aime and F. Vakili (eds.), Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 0521571561.

Greenaway, A.H., Spaan, F.H.P. and Mourai, V.: Pupil-Replication for Exo-Planet Imaging, Astrophysical Journal Letters, 10 January 2005 (reviewed in Nature, 6 January 2005).

Optical Diagnostic Instruments for Space

Spaan, F.H.P., Kramer, A.J.: Analysis of the Alignment of a Schlieren System for Tele-Operation. Proceedings of the VIIIth European Symposium on Materials and Fluid Sciences in Micro-Gravity, Brussels, Belgium, 12-16 April 1992, ESA SP-333, pages 435-440, August 1992

Spaan, F.H.P., Kramer, A.J.: Feasibility assessment of the in-flight alignment of a Schlieren system using tele-operation and automation. NLR Report CR-1992-310 L , Contractor NIVR, 1992.

Spaan, F.H.P.: Feasibility assessment of the analysis facility of the "Bio-screening with robotics" facility, NLR Report CR-1992-053 L, Contractor NIVR, 1992.

Spaan, F.H.P., Krinkels, R: Optical path length reduction of the whole-field refractive index mapping of the prototype optical diagnostic instrument (PODI), NLR Report CR-1990-380 L, Contractor NIVR, 1990.

Pinches, G.L., Kuijpers, E.A., Spaan, F.H.P.: A study on focusing in tele-science using the Tele-operated Prototype Optical Diagnostic Instrument breadboard, NLR Report TP-1991-036 U, Contractor NIVR, 1991.

Astronomy – Star-atmospheres

Spaan, F.H.P., de Jager, C., Nieuwenhuijzen, H., Kondo, Y.: Micro-Turbulence in the Upper Photo-Sphere of Alpha Persei (F5Ib) derived from Ultra-Violet Spectral Observations. Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), Volume 185, Numbers 1-2, pages 229-232, October 1987.

Boer, B.; Carpay, J.; de Koter, A.; de Jager, C.: Nieuwenhuijzen, H.; Piters, A.; Spaan, F.: Turbulence-Driven Atmospheric Instability and Large-scale Motions in Super Giants and Hyper-giants, Proceedings of the 108th. Colloquium of the International Astronomical Union, Tokyo, Japan, September 1-4, 1987, Lecture Notes in Physics, Volume 305, Editor, K. Nomoto; Publisher, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, New York, 1988.

Video Compression for Mobile Communication

Spaan, F.H.P.: Error-Resilient Compression of Digital Video Data. Thesis Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems, ISBN 909013218X, April 2000.

Spaan, F.H.P., Lagendijk, R.L., Biemond, J.: Error Robustness of Polar Contour Coding. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 1425, David Hutchison and Ralf Schaefer (Eds), Third European Conference on Multi-Media Applications, Services and Techniques ECMAST 98, Springer Verlag Berlin, ISBN 3-540-64594-2, pages 402-414, May 1998.

Spaan, F.H.P., Lagendijk, R.L., Biemond, J.: Error Robust Video Coding based on H.263. Proceedings of the International Conference on Image Processing ICIP 98, Chicago, USA, October 1998.

Spaan, F.H.P., Lagendijk, R.L., Biemond, J.: Shape Coding using Polar Co-ordinates and Fourier Transformation. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing ICIP 97, Santa Barbara, California, USA, Volume1, pages 516-519, October 1997.

Bakker, J.D., Spaan, F.H.P.: Establishing a Trade-off between Error Robust Network Protocols and Error Robust Video Compression Algorithms. 18th Symposium on Information Theory in the Benelux, Veldhoven, the Netherlands, May 15-16, 1997.

Publications available on Request

Spaan, F.H.P., Ambrosi, R. and Willingale, R.: Tracing micro-meteoroids through grazing incidence telescope optics, 2011.

Spaan, F.H.P, Imaging properties of a Laue lens, 2011.

Spaan, F.H.P. Pupil Replication for Extreme Dynamic Range Imaging Spectroscopy; Overview, 2007.

Spaan, F.H.P., Lagendijk, R.L., Biemond, J.: A Concept for a Mobile Multimedia Communication System. International Workshop on Multi-Media Signal Processing MMSP 99, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1999.

Spaan, F.H.P.: Error Robust Contour Coding using Polar Coordinates. Proceedings of the Advanced School for Computing and Imaging, ASCI 98, 1998.

Zaletelj, J., Pecci, R., Spaan, F.H.P., Hanjalic, A., Lagendijk, R.L.: Rate Distortion Optimal Contour Compression using Cubic B-Splines. European Signal Processing Conference EUSIPCO 98, Rhodos, Greece, September 1998.

Spaan, F.H.P.: Some considerations concerning tele-focusing in micro-gravity instrumentation, NLR Report TR-1992-358 L, 1992.

Spaan, F.H.P.: Phase B1 of the analysis facility of "bio-screening with robotics" Part I: Analysis of the requirements, NLR Report CR-1992-331 L (1), Contractor NIVR, 1992.

Spaan, F.H.P.: Phase B1 of the analysis facility of "bio-screening with robotics" Part II: Technical analysis, NLR Report CR-1992-331 L (2) , Contractor NIVR, 1992.

Spaan, F.H.P.: Report on the user meeting on "Bio-screening with Robotics", Friedrichshafen, 23 - 24 September 1991", NLR Report CR-1991-412 L, Contractor NIVR, 1991.

Spaan, F.H.P.: On the improvement of the image acquisition in the tele-operated optical diagnostic instrument (TELEPODI) and the cells in space (CIS) microscope, NLR Report TR-1990-403 L, 1990.

Spaan, F.H.P., Assem, D. v.d., Falk, F., Heide, W., Langbein, D.: Conceptual study of a mini fluid science laboratory (MFSL) Part III: Conceptual design, NLR Report CR-1990-378 L PIII, Contractor ESA, 1990.

Krinkels, R., Spaan, F.H.P., Vreeburg, J., Falk, F., Heide, W. et.al.: Conceptual study of a mini fluid science laboratory (MFSL) Part II: Technology inventory, NLR Report CR-1990-378 L PTII, Contractor ESA, 1990.

Falk, F., Heide, W., Langbein, D., Krinkels, R., Spaan, F. et.al.: Conceptual study of a mini fluid science laboratory (MFSL) Part IV: Executive Summary, NLR Report CR-1990-378  Pt4, Contractor ESA, 1990.