European Space Agency (ESA): News

European last ATV-type cargo supply spacecraft sunk in Pacific

MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. Fragments of the European final cargo supply spaceship of the ATV series, Georges Lemaitre, that undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday have sunk in the Pacific, a spokesman for the European Space Agency told TASS on Sunday.

"The spaceship’s elements sunk in an unnavigable section of the Pacific," the spokesman said, adding that the ship had been docked to the ISS since August 2014.

The European unmanned cargo resupply spacecraft Georges Lemaitre is the final cargo supply spaceship of the ATV /Automated Transfer Vehicle/ series. The first one, the Jules Verne, was launched to the ISS in 2008. Along with Russia’s Progress spacecraft, ATV-type spaceships were capable of docking to the ISS in an automated mode. Other spacecraft are docked with the help of automated manipulator.

The European Space Agency has spent about 2.5 billion euro to fiancй the ATV spacecraft project, which gave jobs to 3,000 people and about 300 companies and research institutions, including Russian. Each spaceship cost some 450 million euro.

The European Space Agency however plans to use ATV project technologies in other projects. Thus, they will be used at NASA’s manned Orion spaceship due to be blasted off in 2017. Europeans will supply engine units, electric power, water and air supply systems.

It is not ruled out that the European Space Agency will use ATV technologies to build an automated space garbage collector.

From now on, Russian-made Progress cargo supply spacecraft and spaceships of U.S. private companies - SpaceX’s Dragon and Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus - will be used to deliver cargos to the International Space Station.

The next launch of a Progress ship to the International Space Station is scheduled for February 17 from the Baikonur space centre.

Preparation of Russia’s Soyuz rocket launch with Galileo satellites starts at Kourou

PARIS, 6 March. /TASS/. Preparations for the next launch of Russia’s Soyuz carrier rocket have begun in French Guiana. Arianespace, responsible for Kourou spaceport launches, told TASS on Thursday that the company has completed installation of the four strap-on boosters of the rocket’s first stage. They were attached to the central unit A, which is the second stage.

"The next step will be the mating of Soyuz’ Block I third stage to the launcher’s core, completing the basic build-up, and readying the vehicle for its rollout to the launch pad - where the payload will be mated," Arianespace said.

The launch of the Soyuz rocket from Kourou is scheduled for March 27.

Arianespace’s March 27 flight will be the 11th Soyuz flight from French Guiana since the launcher’s introduction at the Spaceport in October 2011.

The Russian carrier rocket will take into orbit two satellites of the European navigation system Galileo - an analogue of Russia’s GLONASS global navigation satellite system and the American GPS system. The Galileo project was developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) with the EU support. The work on the Galileo system was launched in 2000. In 2005 and 2008, two experimental satellites were launched. In 2011, Russia’s Soyuz-STB rocket during its first blastoff from the French Guiana spaceport orbited two first permanent satellites that laid the foundation for the future navigation system.

For the upcoming Soyuz mission, Arianespace will loft the third and fourth Galileo Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellites to further expand the constellation for Europe’s space-based navigation system. Flight VS11’s two satellites were built by OHB System, with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. supplying their navigation payloads, Arianespace said.

Galileo’s complete operational network and its ground infrastructure will be deployed during the program’s Full Operational Capability phase, which is managed and funded by the European Commission. The European Space Agency has been delegated as the design and procurement agent on the Commission’s behalf.

European Space Agency Tries to Make Contact With Sleeping Comet Probe



The Rosetta orbiter is attempting to get an answer from the Philae probe, which has been dormant since crash landing on a comet in November.

Astronomers at the European Space Agency are attempting to wake up the Philae space probe, which has been dormant since making an awkward landing in a shady area on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12 last year that caused its solar-powered batteries to fail.

According to Lander Project Manager Stephan Ulamec from the German Aerospace Center, "Philae currently receives about twice as much solar energy as it did in November last year," as the Comet's distance from the Sun has decreased. "It will probably still be too cold for the lander to wake up, but it is worth trying. The prospects will improve with each passing day."

The 100 kilogram Philae lander reached Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after being carried by the Rosetta orbiter on a 6.5 billion kilometer journey which took ten years, and the comet, Rosetta and Philae are currently around 320 million kilometers from the Sun. On August 13, the comet is expected to reach its perihelion, the point when it is closest to the sun – some 186 million km away.

The ESA announced that the radio receiver on Rosetta which communicates with Philea was switched on on Thursday, and that until March 20 the orbiter will be transmitting to the lander and listening for a response. In order to be able to respond, the lander needs to generate at least 5.5 watts using its solar panels, and have an interior temperature of at least –45ºC.

"Philae is designed so that, since November 2014, it has been using all the available solar energy to heat up," explained Koen Geurts from the Lander Control Center. The lander is most likely to be able to make contact during the the 11 flybys where the Rosetta's path puts it in a favorable position during Philae's daytime, when it is being supplied with power by its solar panels.

The Rosetta mission is analyzing Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko during its orbit of the sun in a bid to find out more about comets, the oldest and most primitive materials in the Solar System which date back to its origin 4.57 billion years ago. Scientists hope that by analyzing the bodies, more can become known about the origins and evolution of the Solar System itself.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/science/20150313/1019458167.html#ixzz3UIC2uscv

Future ESA Launchers

SIXTH GALILEO SATELLITE REACHES ORBIT

The sixth Galileo satellite of Europe’s navigation system has now entered its corrected target orbit, which will allow detailed testing to assess the performance of its navigation payload.

Launched with the fifth Galileo last August, its initial elongated orbit saw it travelling as high as 25 900 km above Earth and down to a low point of 13 713 km – confusing the Earth sensor used to point its navigation antennas at the ground.

A recovery plan was devised between ESA’s Galileo team, flight dynamics specialists at ESA’s ESOC operations centre and France’s CNES space agency, as well as satellite operator SpaceOpal and manufacturer OHB.

This involved gradually raising the lowest point of the satellites’ orbits more than 3500 km while also making them more circular.

The fifth Galileo entered its corrected orbit at the end of November 2014. Both its navigation and search and rescue payloads were switched on the following month to begin testing.

Now the sixth satellite has reached the same orbit, too.

This latest salvage operation began in mid-January and concluded six weeks later, with some 14 manoeuvres performed in total.

Its corrected position is effectively a mirror image of the fifth satellite’s, placing the pair on opposite sides of the planet.

The exposure of the two to the harmful Van Allen Belt radiation has been greatly reduced, helping to ensure future reliability.

Significantly, the corrected orbit means they will overfly the same location on the ground every 20 days. This compares with a standard Galileo repeat pattern of every 10 days, helping to synchronise their ground tracks with the rest of the constellation.

The test results from Galileo 5 proved positive, with the same test campaign for the sixth satellite due to begin shortly, overseen by ESA’s Redu centre in Belgium. A 20 m-diameter antenna will study the strength and shape of the navigation signals at high resolution.

“I am very proud of what our teams at ESA and industry have achieved,” says Marco Falcone, head of Galileo system office. “Our intention was to recover this mission from the very early days after the wrong orbit injection. This is what we are made for at ESA.”

The decision whether to use the two satellites for navigation and search-and-rescue purposes will be ultimately taken by the European Commission, as the system owner, based on the in-orbit test results and the system’s ability to provide navigation data from the improved orbits.

The next pair of satellites is due for launch on 27 March.

Rosetta Spacecraft Loses Contact With Philae Lander - Aerospace Center

The Philae research module, currently on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, might have changed its position and so lost communication with the Rosetta spacecraft, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) said Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The research module landed on the comet in November 2014 to collect and transfer data on its composition. After landing on the comet the Philae module went into "silent mode," due to low batteries, before reawakening in June.

The Lander Control Center at the DLR has been trying to reestablish communication with Philae since July 9, when the lander returned to "silent mode" after a successful data transmission session.

"We sent a command to turn on the Rosetta Lander Magnetometer and Plasma Monitor (ROMAP), but have not seen a response," DLR's Philae project leader Stephan Ulamec said.

He added that the communication between the lander and the space probe might be hampered if Philae's antennas are concealed from Rosetta, or their orientation relative to the control module has changed due to outgassing during the comet's approach to the sun.

According to the DLR, Philae is now receiving maximum solar energy for its batteries, disallowing a power problem as a possible reason for communication to suddenly cease.

DLR engineers believe a problem might have occurred due to radio receiver damage or a malfunction of a transmitter unit on the lander.

Ulamec said his team will send an instruction to Philae for "blind commanding" to switch the probe to operate with only one transmitter and receiver.

At the end of the week Rosetta will change its orbit due to the increasing activity in the comet's subsoil as it approaches the sun and warms up. This new stage of the mission will reduce the chances of reestablishing contact with the Philae module.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/science/20150721/1024853569.html#ixzz3gTNe3amf

ESA’s Control Center establishes contact with ExoMars-2016 spacecraft

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http://tass.ru/en/science/862344

ExoMars spacecraft sends back first images en route to Red Planet

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http://tass.ru/en/science/869858

Rosetta Space Probe Studying 67P Comet Starts Final Manoeuvre

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/science/20160930/1045854356/rosetta-space-probe.html

ExoMars landing module separates from orbiter while approaching Red Planet

The Russian-European mission ExoMars-2016 was launched on March 14

MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/. The Russian-European interplanetary station ExoMars has separated into the Schiaparelli landing demonstrator module and the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) as it approached the Red Planet, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Sunday.

The Russian-European mission ExoMars-2016 was launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan by a Proton-M carrier rocket on March 14.

The mission comprises the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and the Schiaparelli landing demonstrator module, which is to land on Mars on October 19. TGO is expected to reach the orbit of Mars on the same day but before that TGO is to make an orbit-raising manoeuver on October 17. The orbiter will slow down in the Mars atmosphere for about a year. It will study, in particular, small gas mixtures of the atmosphere and water ice on Martian soil.

Schiaparelli will operate on the Red Planet for several days until the energy capacity of its batteries is depleted.

The ExoMars 2nd stage envisages sending a Russian landing platform and a European rover to the Red Planet in 2020. The mission’s 2nd stage will focus on drilling and analyzing Martian soil: scientists believe that the traces of organic life could have been preserved at a depth of several meters.


More:
http://tass.com/science/906791

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The signal from a robotic probe of Mars went dark shortly before the vessel landed on the planet’s surface, with scientists scurrying to re-establish contact, the European Space Agency (ESA) said in a press release on Wednesday.

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/science/201610191046516992-schiaparelli-mars-rover-contact-lost/

It seems that lander has failed

BepiColombo mission for Mercury exploration launched from Courou

The mission will seek "to provide the best understanding to date of the Solar System's innermost planet," the European Space Agency said

MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. /TASS/. European heavy-lift rocket Ariane-5 has been launched successfully from the European Spaceport in Courou, French Guiana, at 01:45 UTC on Saturday. The rocket will deliver into space the spacecraft of the BepiColombo mission, a joint project of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for planet Mercury exploration. The launch was broadcast live on JAXA's official website.

"The mission comprises two science orbiters: ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). The ESA-built Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) will carry the orbiters to Mercury using a combination of solar electric propulsion and gravity assist flybys. Over seven years, the mission will make one flyby of Earth, two at Venus, and six at Mercury," the ESA said.

The mission will seek "to provide the best understanding to date of the Solar System's innermost planet," the ESA added. "It is the first Mercury mission to send two spacecraft to make complementary measurements of the planet's dynamic environment at the same time," the space agency said.


More:
http://tass.com/science/1026973

Ariane 5 rocket payload carrying James Webb telescope successfully separates after launch

According to the European Space Agency, the telescope will travel to its destination at the second Lagrange point for four weeks

https://tass.com/science/1380875