Video Kidibot

Tag: Satellite testing

  • Spreading EarthCARE’s solar wing

    Spreading EarthCARE’s solar wing

    ESA’s EarthCARE satellite mission will soon be launched to answer some critical scientific questions related to the role that clouds and aerosols play in reflecting incident solar radiation back out to space and trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth’s surface. As engineers are preparing EarthCARE for its life in orbit, the satellite is being put through its paces at ESA testing facilities in the Netherlands – the largest satellite test facility in Europe, equipped to simulate every aspect of the space environment.

    One of the first tests involved the deployment of the satellite’s 11 metre solar wing from its folded stowed configuration, which allows it to fit in the rocket fairing, to its fully deployed configuration as it will be in orbit around Earth.

    This timelapse video shows this deployment test from various angles.

    Read full story: EarthCARE takes a big stretch https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/FutureEO/EarthCARE/EarthCARE_takes_a_big_stretch

    Credit: ESA–M. Cowan

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  • Making moves on MetOp

    Making moves on MetOp

    It’s known colloquially as a ‘flying Dutchman’ operation: lowering an engineer down into ESA’s Large Space Simulator to make adjustments on the test item within; in this case the payload module of the newest in the MetOp series of weather satellites. The LSS is the largest vacuum chamber in Europe, based at ESA’s Test Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.

    MetOp is a set of three polar-orbiting satellites whose temperature and humidity observations from a relatively close 800 km-altitude orbit have sharpened the accuracy of weather forecasting. Procured by ESA for Eumetsat, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, MetOp-A was launched in 2006 and MetOp-B in 2012, with MetOp-C due to follow next year.

    The 2.1 tonne module carries a suite of meteorology and climatology instruments, variously procured by ESA or sourced from Eumetsat, France’s CNES space agency and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Once testing is complete, MetOp-C’s payload module will travel to the Airbus Defence and Space facility in Toulouse, France, to be integrated with its service module – the segment of the satellite providing attitude and orbit control, electrical power and communications, and hosting the main computer. The launch of MetOp-C by Soyuz from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana is scheduled for October 2018.

  • BepiColombo status

    BepiColombo status

    BepiColombo, Europe’s first mission to Mercury, is currently being put through its paces at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands. Mechanical and vibration tests will get underway in April with a view to a launch in October 2018. BepiColombo will arrive at Mercury, the smallest planet in our Solar System, in December 2025.

    The ESA-led joint European and Japanese mission consists of two spacecraft – the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) – as well as a sunshield and a Mercury Transfer Module, which will power its seven year journey using its solar electric propulsion engine. It will be a mission of further discovery after NASA’s Messenger spacecraft uncovered a number of surprises – including evidence of water ice at the closest planet to the Sun and a magnetic dipole field.

    This video covers the mission status as well and its plan to follow up on Mercury’s unexpected features and properties. It includes an interview with Johannes Benkhoff, ESA BepiColombo project scientist.

    More about BepiColombo on our website: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/BepiColombo_overview2