The goals

The main goal of the expedition is scientific outreach: using the 2012 Venus Transit as a trigger to share with the population of the four main islands of the Marquesas Archipelago our knowledge of the heavens, from close to Earth to the early days of the Universe.
It follows the successful design of the IYA2009 voyage: public conferences, school visits, with the addition of star gazing sessions.

For the Venus Transit itself, we will conduct a scientific experiment as part of the Venus_Tex network. We will bring scientific equipment and observe the ingress of Venus in front of the Sun. It will give the Expedition an interesting by-product!

Finally, we will also transmit from the Islands through amateur (ham) radio, using the special call sign TX5VT (for Venus Transit), exposing students to radio-communication the old way: a nice way to describe how solar activity affects the Earth's space environment!

The plan (as on May 26)

Below is the current plan. Flight dates are now secured. The planning will still evolve as activities are fine-tuned on each island.

Once back on Tahiti, I anticipate to continue our outreach effort, this time on Moorea where we did not go in 2009. I will also likely visit a few more schools and perhaps give a public conference in Tahiti before flying back to Hawaii in the wee hours of June 17.

Use the left menu for more details on what is planned on each Island and how both the science experiment and the radio operations are anticipated to work.
Come back if you want to know in more details what will happen!