International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space
ICARUS' mission is to work towards establishing a remote sensing platform for scientists world-wide that  track small organisms globally, enabling observations and experiments over large spatial scales.

The "ICARUS initiative" is the abbreviation of the "International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space". ICARUS was founded in 2002 by an international consortium of scientists who realized the global lack of knowledge on dispersal and migration of small animals (such as bats, insects, songbirds).

Because politicians, health professionals and conservation managers request information about the large-scale movement of small, economically and ecologically important animals, the ICARUS scientists decided to solve this problem on a global scale. For many key questions, the only technologically possible solution appears to be a remote sensing platform in space.

The ICARUS group now explores the installation of a receiver on the International Space Station ISS. In 2010, the European Space Agency ESA gave the ICARUS proposal a favourable scientific and technical review and selected it for a Definition phase within the International Life Sciences Research Announcement (ILSRA).