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The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organisation of 22 member states dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, ESA has a worldwide staff of about 2,200 in 2018 and an annual budget of about €6.68 billion in 2020.
Galileo is a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) that went live in 2016, created by the European Union through the European Space Agency (ESA), operated by the European GNSS Agency (GSA), headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, with two ground operations centres in Fucino, Italy, and Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. The €10 billion project is named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. One of the aims of Galileo is to provide an independent high-precision positioning system so European nations do not have to rely on the US GPS, or the Russian GLONASS systems, which could be disabled or degraded by their operators at any time. The use of basic (lower-precision) Galileo services is free and open to everyone. The higher-precision capabilities are available for paying commercial users. Galileo is intended to provide horizontal and vertical position measurements within 1-metre precision, and better positioning services at higher latitudes than other positioning systems. Galileo is also to provide a new global search and rescue (SAR) function as part of the MEOSAR system.
The Guiana Space Centre also called Europe's Spaceport is a French and European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Operational since 1968, it is particularly suitable as a location for a spaceport. It fulfills the two major geographical requirements of such a site:
The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) is a worldwide network of U.S. spacecraft communication facilities, located in the United States (California), Spain (Madrid), and Australia (Canberra), that supports NASA's interplanetary spacecraft missions. It also performs radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the Solar System and the universe, and supports selected Earth-orbiting missions. DSN is part of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
The National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) is the French government space agency. Its headquarters are located in central Paris and it is under the supervision of the French Ministries of Defence and Research.
New Norcia Station is an ESTRACK Earth station in Australia for communication with spacecraft after launch, in low earth orbit, in geostationary orbit and in deep space. It is located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of the town of New Norcia, Western Australia. It was the first ESA deep space ground station, followed by Cebreros Station and Malargüe Station.
The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany operates a number of ground-based space-tracking stations for the European Space Agency (ESA) known as the European Space Tracking (ESTRACK) network. The stations support various ESA spacecraft and facilitate communications between ground operators and scientific probes such as XMM-Newton, Mars Express, BepiColombo, Gaia. Similar networks are run by the USA, China, Russia, Japan, and India.
The Medicina Radio Observatory is an astronomical observatory located 30 km from Bologna, Italy. It is operated by the Institute for Radio Astronomy of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) of the government of Italy.
Soyuz-2 is a modernised version of the Russian Soyuz rocket. In its basic form, it is a three-stage launch vehicle for placing payloads into low Earth orbit. Compared to the previous versions of the Soyuz, the first-stage boosters and two core stages feature uprated engines with improved injection systems. Digital flight control and telemetry systems allow the rocket to be launched from a fixed launch platform, whereas the launch platforms for earlier Soyuz rockets had to be rotated as the rocket could not perform a roll to change its heading in flight.
Sentinel-1 is the first of the Copernicus Programme satellite constellation conducted by the European Space Agency. This mission is composed of a constellation of two satellites, Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B, which share the same orbital plane. They carry a C-band synthetic-aperture radar instrument which provides a collection of data in all-weather, day or night. This instrument has a spatial resolution of down to 5 m and a swath of up to 400 km. The constellation is on a sun synchronous, near-polar (98.18°) orbit. The orbit has a 12-day repeat cycle and completes 175 orbits per cycle.
The Ensemble de Lancement Soyouz (ELS) is a launch complex at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou/Sinnamary, French Guiana. It is used by Soyuz-ST rockets: modified versions of the Soyuz-2 optimised for launch from Kourou under Soyuz at the Guiana Space Centre programme.
The Albert Einstein ATV, or Automated Transfer Vehicle 004 (ATV-004), was a European uncrewed cargo resupply spacecraft, named after the German-born physicist Albert Einstein. It was built to supply the International Space Station (ISS) with propellant, water, air, and dry cargo, and also to reboost the station's altitude with its thrusters. It was the fourth and penultimate ATV to be built, following the Edoardo Amaldi, which was launched in March 2012. Albert Einstein's components were constructed in Turin, Italy, and Bremen, Germany, and underwent final assembly and testing in Bremen in 2012. The spacecraft left Bremen for Kourou on 31 August 2012 to begin launch preparations.
Svalbard Satellite Station or SvalSat is a satellite ground station located on Platåberget near Longyearbyen in Svalbard, Norway. Opened in 1997, it is operated by Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT), a joint venture between Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and the Norwegian Space Centre (NSC). SvalSat and KSAT's Troll Satellite Station (TrollSat) in Antarctica are the only ground stations that can see a low altitude polar orbiting satellite on every revolution as the earth rotates. As of December 2019 the facility consists of almost 100 multi-mission and customer-dedicated antennas which operate in the C, L, S, X and K bands. The station provides ground services to more satellites than any other facility in the world.
Troll Satellite Station, commonly abbreviated TrollSat, is a satellite ground station located at Troll in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. The earth station is owned by Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT), a joint venture between the Kongsberg Group and the Norwegian Space Center. The radomes are located on top of Jutulsessen, a nunatak area next to the research station at Troll. The research station is operated by the Norwegian Polar Institute, which also maintains the earth station. TrollSat started operations on 1 March 2007 and was officially opened on 20 January 2008.
Villafranca Station was an ESTRACK satellite ground station in Spain, 30 kilometres (19 mi) north from the city of Madrid in a Villanueva de la Cañada, within the area of European Space Astronomy Centre.
Santa Maria Island Station is an ESTRACK satellite ground station in Azores, 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) from the town of Vila do Porto on the island of Santa Maria.
Soyuz at the Guiana Space Centre is an ongoing European Space Agency (ESA) programme for operating Soyuz-ST launch vehicles from Centre Spatial Guyanais (CSG), providing medium-size launch capability for Arianespace to accompany the light Vega and heavy-lift Ariane 5. The Soyuz vehicle is supplied by the Roscosmos with TsSKB-Progress and NPO Lavochkin, while additional components are supplied by Airbus, Thales Group and RUAG.
Intelsat 706 is a geostationary communication satellite that was built by Space Systems/Loral (SSL). It is located in the orbital position of 157 degrees east longitude and it is currently in an inclined orbit. The same is owned by Intelsat. The satellite was based on the LS-1300 platform and its estimated useful life was 15 years.
Ariane flight VA240 was an Ariane 5 space launch that occurred from the Guiana Space Centre on 12 December 2017 at 18:36:07 UTC. It was the 11th and last Arianespace launch in 2017.
Ariane flight VA244 is an Ariane 5 space launch of four Galileo satellites that occurred from the Guiana Space Centre on 25 July 2018 at 11:25:01 UTC. It was the 99th launch of Ariane 5, the 3rd in 2018, and the final flight of Ariane 5 ES variant.
References
- ↑ "Kourou Station". ESA. Archived from the original on 4 August 2014. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
- ↑ "Inauguration of site of Galileo station at Kourou". ESA. 20 November 2009. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
