Teachers and researchers from ISEP and INESC TEC, are part of the team of scientists onboard the Sagres training ship (NRP Sagres) that is reproducing the circumnavigation voyage. This mission is part of the Commemoration program for the V Centenary of the Circum-Navigation of Fernão de Magalhães.

The main goal is to measure the planet's atmospheric electric field and collect information that has not been updated for more than 100 years, having been acquired only by the ship Carnegie, between 1909 and 1920.

In addition to two electric field sensors placed on the mast, the NRP Sagres has a visibility sensor, ion counter, microcintillator (cosmic ray sensor), gamma rays and GNSS. The researchers also developed the towfish, a torpedo, towed by the ship and which is instrumented with different sensors that allow recording sounds of high frequency, conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD), chlorophyll, turbidity, spectrometer and oxygen dissolved in the water.

At the end of the trip, a volume of information of 20 TB is expected, which will have to be processed by the team and may extend over several years.

This is the first time that the ship has scientific projects onboard. The training ship Sagres left January 5 from the port of Santa Apolónia, Lisbon, and will visit 22 ports in 19 countries. The navigators will stop in Tokyo to deliver the flag that Portugal will use at the Olympic Games, and return in January 2021.