Tag: testing

  • Testing Galileo for space

    Testing Galileo for space

    Galileo has grown to become Europe’s single largest satellite constellation, and the world’s most accurate satellite navigation system, delivering metre-level positioning to more than 3.5 billion users around the globe.

    It all began at ESTEC’s Test Centre, Europe’s largest satellite testing facility. This is where the very first positioning fix took place in March 2013, after the launch into orbit of the initial four IOV satellites. Following that, all 34 Galileo Full Operational Capability satellites also passed by ESTEC for their pre-flight testing.
    This 3000 sq. m environmentally-controlled complex, operated and managed by European Test Services for ESA, hosts an array of test equipment able to simulate all aspects of spaceflight, from the noise and vibration of launch to the vacuum and temperature extremes of Earth orbit.
    The production line at manufacturer OHB in Germany completed one new satellite every six weeks. After integration each satellite was then shipped to the ESTEC Test Centre for a three-month test campaign, after which it would be accepted by the Agency and declared ready for flight. Some facilities have had to be adapted specifically for Galileo, and the ESTEC Test Centre had to institute new security protocols because this was the first time that satellites with security restrictions were being tested at the site.
    Today there are 28 of these Galileo First Generation satellites in service, with 10 more due to be launched in the next years. Upgraded Galileo Second Generation satellites are under development and will follow them into orbit later this decade.
    Members of ESA’s Galileo team and ETS look back on this massive testing effort that established Galileo was ready for space.

    *About Galileo* :
    Galileo is managed and funded by the European Union. The European Commission, ESA and EUSPA (the EU Agency for the Space Programme) have signed an agreement by which ESA acts as design authority and system development prime on behalf of the Commission and EUSPA as the exploitation and operation manager of Galileo/EGNOS.

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    We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.

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  • Ariane 6: Launchpad testing

    Ariane 6: Launchpad testing

    It has been an exciting and busy summer for the European Space Agency, with development and testing of its new Ariane 6 launcher. At Europe’s spaceport in, French Guiana, a test model of the launcher’s central core was assembled for the first time. Ariane 6 is the first Ariane rocket to be assembled horizontally, which is simpler and less costly than more traditional vertical assembly. Then, the rocket was moved to its launchpad and placed upright in the massive mobile gantry for combined tests, to validate the compatibility between all components of the complete launch system. Soon more testing will be done on Ariane 6’s upper stage at a purpose-built @DLRde facility in Lampoldshausen, Germany.

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    We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.

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  • Testing Our Mega Moon Rocket and Ground Systems on This Week @NASA – April 15, 2022

    Testing Our Mega Moon Rocket and Ground Systems on This Week @NASA – April 15, 2022

    Testing our mega Moon rocket and ground systems, preparing the James Webb Space telescope for science, and testing an instrument for future X-59 research … a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

    Download Link: https://images.nasa.gov/details-Testing%20Our%20Mega%20Moon%20Rocket%20and%20Ground%20Systems%20on%20This%20Week%20@NASA%20%E2%80%93%20April%2015,%202022

    Producer: Lacey Young
    Editor: Shane Apple
    Voiceover: Pat Ryan
    Music: Universal Production Music

  • Artemis I stacked

    Artemis I stacked

    Time lapse of the stacking of the Orion spacecraft on top of the fully assembled Space Launch System (SLS) rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on 21 October 2021, in preparation for the uncrewed Artemis I launch.

    For Artemis I, the European Service Module will take the spacecraft more than 64 000 km beyond the Moon in a test flight to demonstrate its capabilities.

    The European Service Module is ESA’s contribution to NASA’s Orion spacecraft that will send astronauts to the Moon and beyond. It provides electricity, water, oxygen and nitrogen as well as keeping the spacecraft at the right temperature and on course.

    Learn more about Orion: http://bit.ly/ESAOrion

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    We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.

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  • Perseverance Rover’s Descent and Touchdown on Mars (Official NASA Video)

    Perseverance Rover’s Descent and Touchdown on Mars (Official NASA Video)

    NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance mission captured thrilling footage of its rover landing in Mars’ Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021. The real footage in this video was captured by several cameras that are part of the rover’s entry, descent, and landing suite. The views include a camera looking down from the spacecraft’s descent stage (a kind of rocket-powered jet pack that helps fly the rover to its landing site), a camera on the rover looking up at the descent stage, a camera on the top of the aeroshell (a capsule protecting the rover) looking up at that parachute, and a camera on the bottom of the rover looking down at the Martian surface.

    The audio embedded in the video comes from the mission control call-outs during entry, descent, and landing.

    For more information about Perseverance, visit https://mars.nasa.gov/perseverance

    Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

  • Ariane 6 launch complex – December 2020

    Ariane 6 launch complex – December 2020

    Tour the Ariane 6 launch complex at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

    The 8200 tonne 90 metre-high mobile gantry has platforms to enable engineers to access the vehicle for integration of the stages. This steel structure protects Ariane 6 before launch and is rolled back prior to liftoff.

    At the entrance of the gantry are two mockup Ariane 6 P120C rocket boosters. These are representative of the real boosters, having the same size and mass but filled with water instead of solid propellant and used in mechanical tests.

    The hydrogen and oxygen storage facilities are close by. Underground, engineers are preparing the launch support systems.

    A pumping station at the reservoir will supply the water to quell the exhaust at liftoff.

    Credits: CNES/ESA

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    We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.

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  • Testing Orion’s “Powerhouse” on This Week @NASA – August 9, 2019

    Testing Orion’s “Powerhouse” on This Week @NASA – August 9, 2019

    A critical test of the “powerhouse” for our Orion spacecraft, Curiosity is still going strong after seven Earth years on Mars, and Hubble’s new portrait of Jupiter … a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!

    This video is available for download from NASA’s Image and Video Library: https://images.nasa.gov/details-NHQ_2019_0809_Testing%20Orion%E2%80%99s%20%E2%80%9CPowerhouse%E2%80%9D%20on%20This%20Week%20@NASA%20-%20August%209,%202019.html

  • Testing Solar Orbiter

    Testing Solar Orbiter

    The Solar Orbiter spacecraft is undergoing important pre-launch tests at the IABG National Space Centre in Ottobrunn, Germany, ahead of its launch, scheduled for February 2020.

    The mission will study the Sun, but first the spacecraft must pass vibration, acoustic and shock tests. This will ensure the spacecraft can withstand the stresses of lift off and the extreme environments it will encounter while in orbit around the Sun – from the coldness of space, 150 million km away, to temperatures up to 500 ºC reached when it will be a mere 46 million km away, closer than Mercury.

    Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led mission with strong NASA participation. The spacecraft was built and is being tested by Airbus.

    This film contains interviews with César García, ESA Solar Orbiter Project Manager, and Ian Walters, Solar Orbiter Project Manager at Airbus Defence and Space.

    More information: http://bit.ly/GoodVibesForSolarOrbiter

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    ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.

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  • Noordwijk shake

    Noordwijk shake

    ESA’s Test Centre based in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, simulates every aspect of space for satellite testing – including recreating the equivalent vibration of a rocket launch. This is ESA’s most powerful shaker: the Hydra hydraulic shaker, able to generate vibration equivalent to a 7.5 Richter scale  earthquake.

    Find out more about the test centre: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering_Technology/Test_centre

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    ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.

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  • Orion service module – from components to shipping

    Orion service module – from components to shipping

    A look at the elements that make up the European service module that will provide power, water, air and electricity to NASA’s Orion Moon module.

    Made in Europe the service module is integrated in Bremen, Germany, from where it will be shipped to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in the USA for testing and getting ready for launch.

    Inside the Service Module, large tanks hold fuel as well consumables for the astronauts: oxygen, nitrogen and water.

    Radiators and heat exchangers keep the astronauts and equipment at a comfortable temperature, while the module’s structure is the backbone of the entire vehicle, like a car chassis.

    The European Service Module is built by main contractor Airbus, with many companies all over Europe supplying components.

    Orion will eventually fly beyond the Moon with astronauts, the first time a spacecraft will support humans with European hardware will also be the farthest humans ever travel from Earth. The first mission – without astronauts – is getting ready for launch in 2019.

    Find out more about Orion and ESM: http://www.esa.int/orion

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    ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.

    Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.

  • Successful first test of the Ariane 6 Vulcain 2.1 engine

    Successful first test of the Ariane 6 Vulcain 2.1 engine

    The first hot firing of Ariane 6’s Vulcain 2.1 main engine was performed in January 2018 at the DLR German Aerospace Center test facility in Lampoldshausen, Germany.

    The engine, developed by ArianeGroup, has a simplified and more robust nozzle, a gas generator made through additive manufacturing, and an oxygen heater for oxygen tank pressurisation. These features lower the cost of the engine and simplify manufacturing.

    Credit: ArianeGroup

    Latest news from ArianeGroup on Facebook at:
    https://www.facebook.com/ArianeGroup/

  • BepiColombo prepares for Mercury

    BepiColombo prepares for Mercury

    ESA’s first mission to Mercury, BepiColombo, is now set for final thermal tests before launching to the hottest planet in our Solar System in October 2018. Europe said farewell to the spacecraft in July when it was at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in its launch configuration.

    BepiColombo is a joint mission to Mercury between the ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and consists of two science orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter.

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

  • ESA-RAL Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory

    ESA-RAL Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory

    Located on the UK Space Gateway, Harwell Campus, the ESA-RAL Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory provides expertise and test services to investigate and optimise advanced materials and manufacturing processes in support of cutting-edge research and development. The facility is physically located within the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL).

    The laboratory takes in samples of material destined for future space projects and puts them through various tests. A wide range of material properties and characteristics can be investigated in order to provide recommendations on how the materials can best be applied or improved before they can be considered for further development and used in a fully-fledged space mission. It has access to a metal-based 3D printer and is equipped with a suite of powerful microscopes, an X-ray CT machine and a range of furnaces.

    Mechanical testing such as tensile and micro hardness testing is also performed.The lab is a gateway to accessing some of the extensive on-site testing facilities based on Harwell Campus, such as STFC’s ISIS Neutron Source, the Diamond Light Source synchrotron and the UK’s Central Laser Facility.

    More about the new lab on our website:
    http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering_Technology/New_lab_for_advanced_manufacturing_techniques_and_materials

  • ESA Euronews: Sport and Internet via satellite

    ESA Euronews: Sport and Internet via satellite

    Dozens of Euro 2016 matches are being beamed via satellite to television sets and phones all over the world this summer. But did you know that there is a technology, based on internet and satellite, that allows even a small football club to live stream their games and target a new audience?

    Claudio Rosmino and the Space team travelled to Italy to see this innovation in action – and also to France to explore the science behind the technology.

    This video is available in the following languages:
    English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI9He-OCyY0
    French: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PS6HbTzUvkE
    German: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFys7MGwrVk
    Italian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T82rBP-bBow
    Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-gJxC7ch1Y
    Portuguese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmVgrd5CoXY
    Greek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h41xGsJ745Y
    Hungarian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKhGZKaXnmQ

  • ESA astronaut Tim Peake controls rover from space

    ESA astronaut Tim Peake controls rover from space

    On 29 April 2016, ESA astronaut Tim Peake on the International Space Station took control of a rover, nicknamed ‘Bridget’, in the UK and over two hours drove it into a simulated cave and found and identified targets despite the dark and limited feedback information.

    Before and after Tim came online from the orbiting Station, control of the rover was passed several times between engineers at the Airbus D&S ‘Mars Yard’ in Stevenage, UK, Belgium’s ISS User Support Centre in Brussels and ESA’s ESOC operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany. This complex real-time choreography was possible thanks to the ‘Internet in space’ – a network that tolerates disruptions – put in place by teams at ESOC. This network enables remote control of rovers or other devices in the difficult environment of space, with its long distances and frequent connection blackouts inevitable with orbital motion.

    During the experiment, a representative mission scenario was set up in which the rover was commanded to go from a lit environment into a challenging dark location (simulating a cave or a shaded crater) and identified a number of science targets. The Mars yard (30 x 13 m) was split into two areas, one lit and one in the dark. From one end of the yard, Bridget was commanded from ESOC until it reached the edge of the shaded area. Then at the edge of the ‘cave’, control was passed to astronaut Tim Peake, on board the Station, who controlled Bridget to drive across the yard, avoiding obstacles and identifying potential science targets, which were marked with a distinctive ultraviolet fluorescent marker. Once the targets were identified and mapped, Tim drove the rover out of the shaded area and handed control back to ESOC, who drove the rover back to its starting point.

    This video is a compressed extract that includes highlights of the experiment and includes scenes of the network control centre at ESOC, the Mars Yard at Stevenage and Tim Peake on the ISS. On audio, the voices of astronaut Time Peake, Lionel Ferra, the Eurocom ‘capcom’ controller at ESA’s Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, and Kim Nergaard, the ground segment manager at ESOC, can be heard periodically.

    More information

    http://www.esa.int/ESA_in_your_country/United_Kingdom/ESA_astronaut_Tim_Peake_controls_rover_from_space

    http://blogs.esa.int/meteron/

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_events/albums/72157667946502135

  • Radiation testing for space

    Radiation testing for space

    The apparent void of space is actually awash in high-energy particle radiation, which can have just as harmful an effect on delicate satellite components as it does on living tissue. The threat to spacecraft varies greatly based on their orbits.

    Ali Zadeh, head of ESA’s Components Space Evaluation and Radiation Effects section explains how electrical, electronic and electro-mechanical (EEE) components – the fundamental building blocks of any space mission – are tested for this harsh environment, assessing their suitability for space.

    The Agency’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, hosts a Cobalt-60 irradiation facility for highly-penetrating gamma ray testing, supplemented by a network of external European particle accelerator sites for electron, proton and heavy-ion radiation testing.

  • Testing ESA’s Mercury mission

    Testing ESA’s Mercury mission

    Europe’s Mercury mission is moved through ESA’s ESTEC Test Centre in this new video, positioning it for testing inside the largest vacuum chamber in Europe, for a trial by vacuum.

    BepiColombo, Europe’s first mission to study Mercury, is a joint mission with Japan. Two spacecraft – the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter – will fly in two different paths around the planet to study it from complementary perspectives.

    Flight hardware for the mission is undergoing testing at ESA’s Technical Centre, ESTEC, in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, the largest spacecraft test facility in Europe, to prepare for its 2016 launch.

    The Mercury Planetary Orbiter was placed inside the chamber in late October for ‘thermal–vacuum’ testing. It will sit in vacuum until early December, subjected to the equivalent temperature extremes that will be experienced in Mercury orbit.

    Liquid nitrogen runs through the walls of the chamber to recreate the chill of empty space, while an array of lamps focuses simulated sunlight 10 times more intense than on Earth.