ESA PROBA-2: Five Years in Space: One Satellite, Three Missions

This artist's view shows Proba-2 fully operational in its final orbit. Its front side is continuously oriented toward the Sun, displaying instruments used for solar observation. 

LYRA (LYman alpha Radiometer) can be seen as the three vertical circles on the right. 

Just below it is SWAP (Sun Watcher using Active pixel system detector and image Processing), the grey surface in the right bottom corner.

In the center of the white panel, we can see the SPC (Solar Panel Concentrator), the two vertical triangle mirrors, and below it, the DSS (Digital Sun Sensor), the yellow grey box with a circular hole.


On the satellite's left side can be seen one of its three TPMUs (Thermal Plasma Measurement Units), the circular shape behind the solar panel, and the two extended DSLP (Dual Segmented Langmuir Probe) antennas extending from each corner of the solar array to study the space environment.

Credit: ESA

ESA's Proba-2 celebrates five years in orbit today. From technology demonstrator to solar observatory and now space weather platform, the mission has provided triple value to European scientists.

The second PRoject for OnBoard Autonomy (PROBA) mission was launched in 2009 as part of ESA’s programme for proving new technology in space.

Orbiting at about 725 km, this minisatellite, smaller than a cubic metre, carries four solar and space weather experiments and supports 17 technology demonstrations, providing companies with the flight experience that is essential for European industry to remain competitive.

In the first phase of its life, into early 2010, Proba-2 was extremely successful in verifying, under harsh space conditions, new technologies that will make future European missions more capable and efficient.

These included a new type of lithium-ion battery, an advanced data and power management system, combined carbon-fibre and aluminium structural panels, and new models of reaction wheels.

ESA’s Sun-watching Proba-2 minisatellite shows the aftermath of 18 February’s ‘coronal mass ejection’. 

Acquired at 0445 GMT, a little more than three hours after the initial eruption, the image demonstrates the Sun’s magnetic field reconnecting in the form of loops. 

Look down and left of the centre of the solar disc to clearly see this distinctive belt of loops.

Credit: ESA


Afterwards, Proba-2 continued as a solar observatory, a science mission studying the Sun and the plasma environment surrounding the satellite.

Information from the four solar and space weather sensors are helping scientists to understand our star’s corona and magnetic fields and the mechanisms responsible for solar eruptions.

This information is crucial to understanding ‘space weather,’ the conditions above Earth that can affect spaceborne and ground-based systems and services, or even endanger property and human health.

The importance of Proba-2 data for European space weather services meant that ESA’s Space Situational Awareness programme has been managing the mission since July 2013.

This programme is developing precursor space weather services. In particular, the solar data are used by the Solar Weather Expert Service Centre coordinated by the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels.

This centre generates solar weather data products and services for various users throughout Europe, including industry, satellite operators and owners of sensitive ground infrastructure, such as power grids.

ESA: Europe to Launch Robotic Space Plane Prototype in November

Artist's impression of the European Space Agency's Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV).

Credit: ESA/J.Huart

The launch of a robotic space plane prototype in November could pave the way toward the creation of a reusable cargo vehicle that would survive the blistering re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, according to the European Space Agency.

ESA officials plan to launch the unmanned space plane, called the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), on a Vega rocket in early November.

The flight plan calls for Vega to make an eastward flight, different than its usual polar orbit track, to release IXV into a suborbital path that would end in the Pacific Ocean.

Officials with the space agency hope to eventually use the reusable space place as an automated vehicle that will fly through the atmosphere aerodynamically, controlled by thrusters and its surfaces, then splash down safely in the sea.

Technicians do final tests on the European Space Agency's Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV) ahead of its expected launch in November 2014. 

Credit: ESA

"In this mission we are not only monitoring the spacecraft all along its autonomous flight, but also tracking its progress back to Earth to a particular spot, this is different [than] what we are used to," Giorgio Tumino, the project manager for IXV, said in a statement.

IXV will include sensors and infrared cameras to examine how heating is distributed across the belly of the spacecraft.

The space plane will also fly with new technologically advanced features.

"The technical advancements that have been made since the first experiments with our Atmospheric Reentry Demonstrator in 1996 are huge," Jose Longo, ESA's head of aerothermodynamics, said in the same statement.

"This is the first flight demonstration of features such as highly advanced thermal structures: thrusters and flaps that are part of the control system, and the 300 sensors and infrared camera to map the heating all along the spacecraft from the nose to the flaps. These things just cannot be tested in the same way in laboratories."



ESA is also going to test an infrared camera on its final automated transfer vehicle (ATV), called Georges Lemaitre, on a mission launching to the International Space Station Tuesday (July 29).

The ATV is designed to break up in Earth's atmosphere during re-entry after it leaves the space station about six months after it docks, according to ESA.

For the first time, ESA plans to track the spacecraft's re-entry using a special infrared camera.

The camera will transmit information to a special pod designed to survive re-entry, which will then send the information on to Earth through the Iridium satellite network.

ESA Fifty Years of European Cooperation in Space

A new book by eminent historian John Krige details fifty years of European collaboration in space, from the origins of the space programmes of the early 1960s, to the many activities and rich complexity of ESA today.

The book, Fifty years of European cooperation in space: Building on its past, ESA shapes the future, charts the early moves by pioneering European scientific statesmen and governments to establish not one, but two organisations, European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) for science and later applications, and European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) for launchers.

The tight financial constraints on ESRO, the tribulations of ELDO's launcher, and a major tilt towards close technological cooperation with NASA in the early 1970s led to the formation of a single organisation in 1975, the European Space Agency, ESA.

EADS Ariane-5

As ESA embarked on developing a new European launcher under French leadership (EADS Ariane), and a human-rated laboratory for scientific experiments to fit in the US Space Shuttle's cargo bay under German leadership (Spacelab), its science programme was put on a secure institutional footing and it launched a number of applications programmes.

Early sketch of ESA Spacelab

The 1980s were marked by the spectacular success of Ariane, the consolidation of a human presence in space through Spacelab and collaboration in the International Space Station (ISS), the development of a new framework for rationalising space science and bruising disputes over engaging users to operate application satellites.

The global upheavals of the 1990s, the interest of the private sector in space, and an awareness of the value of space-based systems to civil society and military action on the ground obliged ESA to refashion itself again.

Russian Soyuz TMA-9M

New partnerships were forged. ESA's launcher fleet was expanded to include the Russian Soyuz and the Italian-led Vega.

A single European Astronaut Corps was created, and major new programmes for Earth observation; Copernicus - Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) and the European GPS satellite navigation (Galileo) were created in cooperation with the European Union.

The history of Europe's presence in space is above all a history of political will, of industrial development, and of the consolidation of extensive scientific, technological and managerial competencies to construct a global space power; one that could compete and collaborate from a position of strength with the US and the USSR/Russia, while adapting to the changing demands of a new geopolitical world order in the 21st century.

Fifty years of European cooperation in space: Building on its past, ESA shapes the future (EAN/ISBN: 97820701020297) is published by Les Editions Beauchesne (June 2014).

ESA Space Weather reports for Venus

This image is part of the Venus space weather report issued 5 June 2014.

During May-August 2014, ground controllers flying ESA's Venus Express will receive daily reports on solar activity issued by experts at ESA’s Space Weather Coordination Centre (SSCC), at the Space Pole in Belgium.

Credit: ESA

The weather updates will deliver the best information from a variety of sources, including ESA’s Proba-2 and solar-orbiting ESA and NASA spacecraft, to the control team as rapidly as possible.

For the first time, ESA is providing regular space-weather reports for a spacecraft orbiting another planet.

When your spacecraft is surfing deep into the atmosphere of an alien world, you need the latest information on conditions that could affect your trajectory.

If that planet is Venus, that means knowing what’s happening on our Sun in real time, because solar activity can greatly influence conditions like atmospheric density and the radiation environment at Earth’s closest neighbour.

Since May, ground controllers flying Venus Express have been receiving daily reports on solar activity issued by experts at ESA’s Space Weather Coordination Centre (SSCC), at the Space Pole in Belgium.

Surfing the Venus atmosphere 
The centre was established by the Agency’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme office, and it began delivering precursor space-weather services for terrestrial clients in last year.

Now that Venus Express has completed its eight-year scientific mission, the reports are especially important as the control team take the satellite through an extraordinary multi-week ‘aerobraking’ campaign.

Artistic vision of Venus Express during the aerobraking manoeuvre, which will see the spacecraft orbiting Venus at an altitude of around 130 km from 18 June to 11 July. 

In the month before, the altitude will gradually be reduced from around 200 km to 130 km. 

If the spacecraft survives and fuel permits, the elevation of the orbit will be raised back up to approximately 450 km, allowing operations to continue for a further few months. 

Eventually, however, the spacecraft will plunge back into the atmosphere and the mission will end.

“Aerobraking means lowering the spacecraft so that for part of each orbit it dips down very low and skims through the very uppermost reaches of the Venusian atmosphere,” notes Adam Williams, Deputy Spacecraft Operations Manager.

“We know that the current state of our Sun can affect Venus’ atmosphere, which could in turn impact the planned orbit of Venus Express as it passes through the atmosphere.”

Adam says that the team do not expect to replan any of the aerobraking orbits based on ‘typical’ solar activity levels.

“The space weather reports will, however, allow us to better understand anomalous behaviour that we may subsequently observe on the spacecraft.

“And in extreme cases, we would be more ready to react to a serious situation. For example, if our startrackers were to be overloaded by radiation.”

ESA Proba-V satellite Image: Springtime in Europe

This image of Europe is a composite of Proba-V images from 1–10 May 2014. 

Launched just over a year ago, the washing machine-sized satellite carries the Vegetation imager designed after the French Spot-Vegetation mission, flown on the Spot-4 and Spot-5 satellites.

Spot Vegetation marked 16 years of service in May, and has now passed the torch to its European counterpart.

Proba-V maps land cover and vegetation growth across the entire planet every two days. 

The data can also be used for day-by-day tracking of extreme weather, alerting authorities to crop failures, monitoring inland water resources and tracing the steady spread of deserts and deforestation.

Credits: ESA/VITO

US test-fires Aegis missile defence system destined for Europe - Video

A previous test of the Aegis missile defence system, a version of which is to be stationed in Europe by the US and Nato. 

Photograph: AP

The United States has announced the first live firing test of a missile interceptor destined to be stationed initially in Romania and then elsewhere in Europe.

The test of the system, known as Aegis, comes amid tensions between Nato and Russia over the annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine.

The Obama administration's current European Phased Adaptive Approach calls for the first Aegis Ashore site to be operational in Romania in 2015, with a second site to follow in Poland in 2018.


The test at the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) in Hawaii late on Tuesday marked a significant milestone for the system, which is designed to protect US and Nato forces in Europe from a ballistic missile attack.

A Pentagon spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, said the test "is important because it's similar to the system that's being shipped to Romania for deployment by the end of next year".

During the test the Aegis system used on US warships around the world detected, tracked and engaged a simulated ballistic missile target using Raytheon's Standard Missile 3 Block IB, according to the US Missile Defence Agency and the companies.

Lockheed said it was the first test of the Aegis system using a land-based missile launcher.

Riki Ellison, founder of the non-profit Missile Defence Advocacy Alliance, said the test meant Nato's missile defence shield, developed at a cost of around US$800m, was becoming a reality.

He said the Aegis missile defence system had achieved 28 successful test intercepts over the past 11 years.

Shipment of components required for the facility that will house the Aegis Ashore weapon in Romania, including the deckhouse, radar and vertical launch system, would begin this summer, said Missile Defence Agency spokesman Rick Lehner. Interceptors would follow when the facility was built, he said.

The land-based system uses the same SM-3 missile deployed on Aegis warships and holds 24 SM-3 missiles at one time. The system could be expanded to hold more launchers and missiles, Raytheon said.

Russia has previously criticised US plans to put missile defence systems in nearby countries and the Obama administration subsequently scaled back the programme, which had originally included ground-based radar and interceptors in the Czech Republic and Poland.

ESA the Go-Between: Europe to manage NASA reletionship with Russia, again

The European Space Agency (ESA) and it's European partners, have no intentions of reviewing its space cooperation with Russia, despite the latter's merger with Crimea and NASA's recent announcement of pulling out from joint projects with Moscow, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain reported.

Last week, NASA posted on its Twitter and Facebook accounts a statement announcing the suspension of direct cooperation with Russia in an apparent move of siding with Washington administration's sanctions in regard to Moscow over the situation in Ukraine.

NASA's statement on Facebook read in particular: "Given Russia's ongoing violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, NASA is suspending the majority of its ongoing engagements with the Russian Federation."

According to Itar-Tass, "Jean-Jacques Dordain, director-general of the 20-nation European Space Agency, said none of his governments - almost all members of NATO - nor anyone from the 28-nation European Union has suggested that Europe shut down any of its multiple space-policy arrangements with Russia,". "Unlike NASA, Europe has multiple programs running with Russia."

The weekly also added that a number of ESA "officials said the diplomatic tensions over Russia's moves in the Ukraine are like a choppy sea surface.

Below the surface, where the real business is done, they said, things are continuing as usual." The American space agency announced, however, that it intended to continue cooperation with Russia on the maintenance of the International Space Station (ISS).

During the Cold War and subsequent tensions between the US and Russia, ESA and it's European partners took the lead in managing NASA's space activities with Russia. Clealry, this task has been returned to them.

German Festo Scientists unveil 'BionicKangroo Robot' - Video

German tech leader Festo has built a robot that mimics the way a kangaroo moves -- able to absorb and store the energy of a jump's landing, and quickly and efficiently use that energy to initiate the next hop.

They call it the BionicKangaroo Robot.

If a human tries to move around simply by jumping, he or she is likely to get very tired, very fast.

The human body isn't designed to jump over and over again.

The same doesn't hold true for a kangaroo, of course -- the hopping mammal, omnipresent throughout most of Australia, gets around exclusively via leaps and bounds.

Now, scientists in Germany have replicated the jumping motion of a kangaroo in a robot.


One of the keys to a kangaroo's jump is its highly specialized achilles tendon.

"In the artificial kangaroo, we realised the function of the natural Achilles tendon by means of an elastic spring element made of rubber," Heinrich Frontzek, head of corporate communications at Festo, explained in a press release.

The robot features advanced technologies that propel a powerful jump while enabling balance and flexibility.

Frontzek and the research team at Festo hopes the robo-roo will lead to new and even more complex developments in robotic kinetics.

NASA Policy to Suspend Contact with Russia 'Unprecedented'

This image from a NASA space shuttle mission shows the International Space Station in orbit. 

The space station is the size of a football field and home to six astronauts. 

Image taken: Feb. 10, 2010.

Credit: NASA

NASA's order to employees to suspend most contact with Russian government representatives is the latest U.S-Russia political development in the ongoing crisis over Ukraine, but the new policy may not have many on-the-ground effects for people working at the American space agency, according to one space historian.

A NASA statement released Wednesday (April 2) directed U.S. space agency officials to suspend contact with Russian government representatives, but ongoing operations on the International Space Station are exempt from the new policy.

The statement was released hours after a leaked NASA memo stating the same policy. Other U.S. government agencies are also curtailing contact with Russian government officials, NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries told reporters.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, and NASA do engage in some other scientific collaboration, but most partnerships between the two organizations take place within the space station program.

Previously, all contact with the Russian space agency was directed through the European Space Agency (ESA) and that will be the likely 'fallback' scenario in this case.

ESA Neosat boosting Europe's telecommunications by satellite

ESA is forging ahead with the Neosat next-generation satcom platform, planning the first flights within five years. 

The goal is for European satellite builders to capture at least half of the world's satcom market in 2018-30 through innovation and efficiency, generating 25 billion pounds in sales.

The contract for Phase-B of Neosat was signed today by Magali Vaissiere, ESA's Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications, and Eric Beranger and Bertrand Maureau for prime contractors Airbus Defence and Space, and Thales Alenia Space, respectively.

Magali Vaissiere commented: "Neosat will foster the competitiveness of European satellite industry and strengthen Europe's position in the core satcom market for the next decade.

"This is a unique opportunity for Europe's suppliers, as 80% of European satellite platform equipment is procured from within ESA Member States. This will be worth 7 billion pounds to those suppliers."

Magali Vaissiere, ESA’s Director of Telecoms,
Eric Béranger (EADS) and Bertrand Maureau (Thales)

The contract signed today covers selection of the equipment suppliers for the Neosat product lines.

The two co-primes will run competitions between equipment suppliers for platform building blocks, based on an agreed single set of requirements.

The winners of these competitions will become part of the industrial consortium for developing the two platform lines, one led by aerospace super-corporation EADS (European Airbus Defense and Space), and the other by Thales Alenia Space.

The upcoming phase will include concurrent engineering activities to define the technical baseline of the new platforms and involve subcontractors in the UK, Sweden, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Technologies to be investigated for the future platforms include orbit raising by electric propulsion, new thermal control concepts and next-generation battery cells.

The Neosat prime contractors have activities in France and in the UK, both countries being major contributors to Neosat.

The contract for Phase-B is expected to last around 13 months. The subsequent Phase-C/D will start in 2015 for the development and manufacture of the first two prototype flight platforms, launch in 2018-19 and in-orbit demonstration under a public-private partnership to be established with satellite operators.

Neosat is part of ESA's Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems programme (ARTES), and aims at developing, qualifying and validating in orbit next-generation satellite platforms for the core satcom market.

A crucial objective for Neosat is to reduce the cost of a satellite in orbit by 30% compared with today's designs by the end of the decade.

Existing and new technologies will be used in innovative ways and to achieve economies of scale by creating a common supply chain for both satellite prime contractors.

Europe launches RoboEarth: 'Wikipedia for Robots'

A robotic arm, left, puts a package of Pringles on the serving tray of another robot to deliver it to an imaginary patient in a mock hospital room at the Technical University (TU) of Eindhoven, Netherlands, Wednesday Jan. 15, 2014. 

A group of five of Europe's top technical universities, together with technology conglomerate Royal Philips NV, are launching an open-source system dubbed "RoboEarth" Thursday. 

The heart of the mission is to accelerate the development of robots and robotic services via efficient communication with a network, or "cloud". 

AP Photo/Peter Dejong

Let the robot race begin. Expectations are high for RoboEarth, a new European-funded system to speed the development of human-serving robots.

Scientists from five major European technical universities have gathered in the Netherlands this week for its launch and to demonstrate possible applications.

The first: the deceptively simple task of delivering a glass of milk to a patient in a mock-up hospital room.

The system is sometimes billed as a kind of Wikipedia for robots, allowing them—or their programmers—to turn to it for information.

In a demonstration Wednesday at Eindhoven Technical University (TU), RoboEarth wirelessly instructed a scrappy waste bin-sized robot called "Avi" to scan a room's physical layout, including the location of the patient's bed and the placement of a carton of milk on a table nearby.

Then the system activated a second robot, the more humanoid "Amigo," which used the map provided by Avi to locate the milk, grasp it with a pincer hand and bring it to the side of the hospital bed.

That mission accomplished, he dropped it on the floor. Fortunately, it was a test run and no milk was spilled. Amigo hasn't been programmed for crying anyway.

The hospital exercise is just the beginning. Organizers say the tasks the robots are carrying out are of a technological sophistication comparable to those performed by high-end robots in automobile factories—they just look clumsier because robots that interact with humans are not performing repetitive tasks in the controlled, sanitized and predictable surroundings of a factory.

Amigo, a white robot the size of a person, uses information gathered by other robots to move towards a table to pick up a carton of milk and deliver it to an imaginary patient in a mock hospital room at the Technical University (TU) of Eindhoven, Netherlands, Wednesday Jan. 15, 2014. 

A group of five of Europe's top technical universities, together with technology conglomerate Royal Philips NV, are launching an open-source system dubbed "RoboEarth" Thursday. 

The heart of the mission is to accelerate the development of robots and robotic services via efficient communication with a network, or "cloud". 

AP Photo/Peter Dejong

Europe's ATV-4 ready to deliver essential cargo to Space Station

ESA’s fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle, Albert Einstein, is ready for launch on an Ariane 5 to the International Space Station on 5 June from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

Liftoff is set for 23:52 CEST (21:52 GMT), and three hours and four minutes later the vessel will separate from the launcher to begin ten days of health checks and orbital manoeuvres, bringing it to an automated docking with the Station on 15 June.

ATV Albert Einstein, named after the scientist most famous for developing the theory of relativity, will deliver essential supplies and reboost the Station’s altitude during its planned five-month stay in orbit.

With a launch mass of 20 235 kg, it is the heaviest spacecraft ever launched by Europe, and it is carrying the largest load of dry cargo yet to be ferried by any ATV.

The spacecraft is four vehicles in one, bringing equipment and supplies, replenishing the Station’s propellant tanks, keeping the orbital outpost aloft with its boosts, and providing a module for the astronauts to live in.

ESA Mars Express: 10 years on, Europe salutes its Martian scout

Mars Express. Credits: Alex Lutkus

It was built on a relative shoestring, was completed in just five years and was designed to survive for just 687 days.

Ten years later, after more than 12,000 swings around the Red Planet, Europe's Mars Express is still going strong.

Along with NASA's massively successful fleet of probes and landers, the orbital scout has helped pull aside the veil of secrecy surrounding our sister planet.

It has pointed to the presence of subterranean water and a wild volcanic past and shed light on the bizarrely-pocked martian moons.

"The mission has already provided countless breathtaking views of Mars in three dimensions," says the European Space Agency (ESA).

"It has traced the history of water across the globe, demonstrating that Mars once harboured environmental conditions that may have been suitable for life."

The orbiter's seven instruments have detected minerals that form only in the presence of water and seen underground formations of water ice. Scans of the surface suggest volcanism on Mars may have persisted until recent times.

And its chemical analysis of the martian atmosphere indicates the possible presence of methane—which on Earth is attributed to active volcanism and biological life.

The first European mission to explore another planet, Mars Express was launched from Baikonur cosmodrome by a Russian Soyuz rocket on June 2 2003, just when Earth and Mars were approaching their closest alignment in 17 years.

The mission ran into a humiliating setback that December with the crash of a small British-built lander, Beagle-2, whose loss remains unexplained to this day.

But the mission, designed to last for one martian year, has already been extended four times, and its latest closure date is for the end of 2014.

ESA ExoMars

Mars Express is proving to be so sturdy that its builder, EADS Astrium, believes it may even be around in January 2016 to welcome ESA ExoMars, an unmanned European-Russian mission that will explore the methane enigma.

"Nobody would have believed it back then," says the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which developed what is arguably the star instrument aboard Mars Express: a stereoscopic camera that has imaged more than two-thirds of the planet in colour and 3D to a resolution of 20 metres (65 feet) per pixel.

Memorable images include Mars' icy southern pole and Olympus Mons which towers 26,000 metres (84,500 feet) above the surrounding plains.

Conceived as a streamlined, low-cost project, Mars Express was a gamble for ESA.

It broke with conventional thinking that planetary exploration required individually-tailored probes that took a decade to make and inevitably cost a billion bucks apiece.

To save costs, ESA's contractors essentially resorted to mass production.

ESA Rosetta

The basic box-like design for Mars Express, and for a sister spacecraft called Venus Express—launched in 2005 and also doing fine—is the same platform as for Rosetta, a comet-chasing probe whose mission is due to climax next year.

So far, exploration of Mars has cost ESA 300 million euros ($390 million), which is minute for a mission that has returned such wonders, and not a single life has been placed at risk.

Last week came proof that a manned trip to Mars would be health-threatening unless today's chemical rockets are replaced by much faster transport.

Measurements made aboard the Mars Science Laboratory, an unmanned NASA rover and mobile lab that landed in August 2012 showed exposure to high levels of radiation during its 253-day trip.

These are particles spewed out by the Sun, or coming from beyond our Solar System, that can slice through DNA and boost the risk of cancer.

Cary Zeitlin

"In terms of accumulated dose, it's like getting a whole-body CT scan once every five or six days," said Cary Zeitlin of the Southwest Research Institute's (SwRI) Space Science and Engineering Division.

"Radiation exposure at the level we measured is right at the edge, or possibly over the edge of what is considered acceptable in terms of career exposure limits defined by NASA and other space agencies."

ESA ATV Albert Einstein: Fully fuelled at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana

ATV Albert Einstein is fuelled at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. 

Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATVs) carry two types of propellant to the International Space Station. 

Aside from its own propellants, the space ferry brings propellants for the Russian Station thrusters. 

They are loaded in four phases - and each component is highly toxic. 

All non-essential personnel are cleared from the room and operators wear sealed 'scape suits' at all times during fuelling. 

Image courtesy ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Video du CSG.

Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATVs) can deliver up to 7 tonnes of cargo to the International Space Station, including supplies and equipment, water, air, nitrogen, oxygen and fuel.

As the Space Station circles Earth, it slowly loses altitude so ATVs reboost the orbit to keep it aloft.

Part of ATV's cargo includes propellants for the Station's own thrusters to keep the orbital outpost at the right height even when no spacecraft are there to offer a helping hand.

Loading the fuel is a complex and hazardous process that takes place over many days during continuous sessions of up to 30 hours.

Should there be a leak, the operators are protected by 'scape suits' that deliver fresh air and are sealed off from the working environment, much like diving suits.

The operators must remain vigilant at all times, constantly checking progress and signs of leaks. To make matters more complicated, ATV own propellants are different to those used by the International Space Station itself, requiring different equipment each time.

Both fuels need separate oxidisers for combustion outside of Earth's atmosphere. The oxidisers are also loaded separately, meaning that four different liquids are being pumped into Albert Einstein's tanks in total.

Brazil's SGDC: Geostationary Defense and Strategic Communications Satellite

Boeing and Space Systems/Loral of the United States, Astrium Satellites and Thales Alenia Space of Europe and Mitsubishi Electric (Melco) of Japan all submitted separate bids for what Brazil calls SGDC - Geostationary Defense and Strategic Communications Satellite.

The SGDC satellite is expected to weigh no more than 6,000 kilograms at launch and to operate at 75 degrees west in a geostationary orbit. 

It will be operated by Brazil’s Telebras national telecommunications company, with the system managed by Visiona Tecnologica Espacial SA, a joint venture created to manage the project.

Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer’s Embraer Defense owns 51 percent of the Visiona joint venture, with Telebras holding the remaining 49 percent.

Brazilian authorities have assigned Embraer the task of becoming a major satellite prime contractor capable of handling future satellite projects in part as a result of a large technology-transfer package the Brazilian government has inserted into the SGDC bid request.

A second SGDC satellite is part of Brazil’s national space program, which is coordinated by the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB).

Several of the bidders are using the SGDC program to give Brazilian authorities a glimpse of what future technology-transfer agreements might look like, primarily for optical and radar Earth observation, and satellite-based weather forecasting.

If the contest for the telecommunications satellite is placed into a wider context of generalized cooperation with Brazil, the two European bidders may have an edge, they have the most experience in selling Earth observation satellites to nations demanding sizable technology transfers.

Japan’s Melco has also demonstrated its export prowess in both telecommunications and Earth observation satellites and could offer a viable alternative.

U.S. satellite industry officials have said the U.S. government has become more comfortable with the export of U.S. imaging sensors and satellites, and that government regulations are no longer a showstopper for a U.S. satellite builder.

The Latin America Aero and Defense aerospace show, held April 9-12 in Rio de Janeiro, was an occasion for several bidders to show their presence as Brazilian authorities sift through the SGDC bids.

AEB has said the SGDC satellite is budgeted at 716 million Brazilian reais ($362 million) including its launch, which will be the subject of a separate competition.

Satellite Star One C1

The Brazilian Ministry of Defense already leases X-band capacity on the commercial Star One C1 and C2 satellites operated by Brazil’s private-sector satellite operator.

Star One will cost around 23 million reais annually, according to the ministry.

The five X-band transponders to be placed on the first SGDC satellite will cover all of South America and the surrounding maritime routes.

Brazil’s Ministry of Communications leases seven Ku-band transponders on Star One satellites for about 43 million reais per year.

The ministry will use the Ka-band spot-beam capacity on the SGDC satellite to offer broadband to Brazilian villages that do not have broadband access.

ILS Forced to Lower Launch Prices in wake of Failures

International Launch Services (ILS) on March 18 said it has been forced to reduce prices in the wake of its December failure in order to accommodate customers paying higher insurance premiums to use ILS’s Proton heavy-lift rocket.

ILS said it hopes that its prices will recover as the Reston, Va.-based company proceeds with six planned launches between March and August and re-establishes its credibility among customers.

In a press briefing here during the Satellite 2013 conference, ILS President Philip R. Slack said the three failures of Russian Proton rockets in the past two years has caused insurers to bump up their rates for commercial Proton launches.

“A year ago we were within one-quarter or one-half a point of Ariane,” Slack said of ILS’s principal competitor, Arianespace of Europe.

“We would be a couple of points higher today. We obviously needed to respond to market pressure. We expect to be able to bring those rates back down with seven Proton launches in the next six months.”

The Russian Proton rocket is returning to flight with commercial Mexican satellite fleet operator Satmex’s Satmex 8 satellite.

The launch is scheduled for March 27 from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Following Satmex 8 is the scheduled mid-April launch of Canadian fleet operator Telesat’s Anik G1.

Proton will continue launching once a month through August.

Slack declined to disclose the order of the following launches.

Slack said the failure review board organized by ILS after the December failure, which met following a Russian government review, featured 15 ILS customers, three insurance underwriters and three industry experts.

Global insurance underwriters were briefed recently in Reston and London.

“Customer confidence is returning,” Slack said. “We need a string of launch successes, and we think when this happens Proton will win back the confidence of the market.”

The Proton vehicle has launched an average 10 times per year for the past several years. Slack said it should return to that rate this year.

The December failure — which put a Russian telecommunications satellite into a bad orbit, reducing the satellite’s service life --- forced ILS to a slow start this year.

Slack said that despite this, 2013 “should be a decent year for both launches and orders. We are hoping for five or six orders this year.”

Slack and John L. Palme, ILS’s vice president for programs and operations, said Proton prime contractor and ILS owner Khrunichev Space Center of Moscow, has embarked on a year-long quality-improvement program to bring the Breeze-M upper stage’s demonstrated reliability nearer to its theoretical reliability.

Several recent Proton failures have been laid to issues related to the Breeze-M stage.

Khrunichev has also begun development of a 5-meter-diameter fairing for Proton, a feature offered on competitor Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket, and by Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s (SpaceX) Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled to begin making commercial flights later this year.

The larger Proton fairing is scheduled to be ready for flight in the second half of 2016, Slack said.

Khrunichev is also finishing what it calls the Phase 4 performance enhancement of Proton, which will increase the maximum weight of a satellite it can carry to geostationary transfer orbit to 6,350 kilograms, a 200-kilogram increase.

Space Debris: New ESA European Radar Installation

A new radar designed to test methods for finding orbital debris that can be hazardous to space navigation has been installed near Santorcaz in Spain.

The radar will be used to develop future debris warning services, helping to improve safety for ESA's European satellite operators

ESA CheOps: European satellite's mission to study exoplanets

Artist's impression of Cheops. Credit: University of Bern

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced plans for a new mission to study exoplanets.

ESA hopes to launch the satellite in 2017. It comes as it was announced this week that a planet with a similar mass to Earth was detected in our nearest star system, Alpha Centauri.

The mission, called Cheops - CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite - will target nearby bright stars which are already known to have planets.

It's the first of a series of smaller missions developed as part of the space agency's Science Programme.

Cheops will monitor the brightness of our nearest stars to look for signs of transits, where planets cross in front of the star.

In turn, this will allow an accurate measurement of the radius of a transitting planet. Scientists then hope to calculate the density of these planets where the mass is already known. This will then help to provide information about the internal structure.

According to Professor Alvaro Giménez-Cañete, ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration "by concentrating on specific known exoplanet host stars, Cheops will enable scientists to conduct comparative studies of planets down to the mass of Earth with a precision that simply cannot be achieved from the ground."

The idea is to help scientists understand the formation of planets, up to the size of the planet Neptune. The mission also aims to identify planets with significant atmospheres.

Information from Cheops will then be used to provide targets for further detailed studies of exoplanet atmospheres by the future telescopes such as the James Webb Space Telescope, which is targeted to launch in 2018, and the European Extremely Large Telescope, which should be ready for use by 2022.

DLR Galileo: Two more satellites for the Galileo GPS system

The first two satellites for the European Galileo navigation system have been orbiting Earth since 21 October 2011. 

Now, two more are about to follow; on 12 October 2012 at 20:15 CEST, a Soyuz rocket will launch satellites three and four into their position in space. 

Four satellites will then be flying in their orbits at an altitude of 23,000 kilometres. 

For Walter Päffgen, Director of the DLR Space Applications Company (Gesellschaft für Raumfahrtanwendungen; GfR), this is a highpoint of the programme thus far: "With signals from four Galileo satellites, we can determine a location on Earth for the first time."

The satellites are controlled from the Galileo Control Centre at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) site in Oberpfaffenhofen.

To be well prepared for the next challenging phase of implementing the satellite navigation system, during the last few weeks his staff were put to the test with simulated failures during rehearsals for satellite operations.

"Everyone needs to be trained to respond quickly and safely in an emergency." Additional intensive training programmes were also part of the work of the crew in the control room.

The compatibility of the two satellites – named David and Sif after two children from the Czech Republic and Denmark – has also been tested at the Control Centre while they were on the ground.

ESA: Europe launches Metop-B the Second Weather Satellite

The Metop-B weather satellite was successfully launched into orbit last night from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan.

Metop-B is the second Metop satellite, and its aim is to follow in the footsteps of its predecessor by monitoring the climate and atmosphere. Metop-A has been inhabiting a polar orbit since 2006, but has now exceeded its design lifetime.

The Russian Soyuz-Fregat vehicle launched at 16:28 UTC on September 17, and the weather satellite took up its position in a polar orbit 69 minutes later.

The first few days will be used to test the systems on board the satellite before commissioning of the payload.

Metop-B was developed for the polar satellite system by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), an international collaboration that operates several meteorological satellites.

Control of the satellite will take place at ESA’s Operations Centre in Germany.