News

Rosetta: Cosmic billiards: ESA

Since there is currently no launch vehicle on Earth powerful enough to set Europe’s Rosetta space probe into a ballistic trajectory direct to its target comet, the probe needs to perform a kind of ‘cosmic ricochet’ in order to reach the high flight velocity required. This involves flying past the Earth a total of three times and once past Mars in what is known as ‘swing-by manoeuvres’, each time picking up a little of the planets’ orbital motion itself in order to increase its own speed.

More about Rosetta and Astrium

European research satellite SMOS in orbit: © ESA

The European research satellite SMOS, which will measure the Earth's soil moisture and ocean salinity, was launched by a Rockot vehicle from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in Russia on 2 November.

Astrium designed and built the mission’s single-instrument payload, the innovative MIRAS radiometer.

More about SMOS and Astrium

Ariane 5 Flight 192 – mission successful: © ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Activité Optique Vidéo CSG

29 October 2009: The sixth Ariane 5 mission of 2009 has successfully launched two telecommunications satellites, NSS 12 for the European operator SES and THOR 6 for the Norwegian operator TELENOR Satellite Broadcasting.

Astrium is single prime contractor for the Ariane 5 system, responsible for delivery to Arianespace of a fully integrated and tested launch vehicle.

Astrium, European pioneer in high-resolution geostationary observation: Artist's impression of the COMS multi-mission satellite

Astrium has successfully completed testing on the Communications, Oceanography and Meteorology Satellite (COMS) in South Korea.

COMS is the first high-resolution, multi-mission geostationary observation satellite developed and manufactured by a European company.

COMS is space qualified – Read more …

JWST, the Hubble successor: © ESA

Launched in 1990, the celebrated Hubble telescope, equipped with Astrium’s faint object camera (FOC), has provided stunning images of the cosmos.

Astrium is now developing the ‘super-eye’ NIRSpec spectrograph for the Hubble successor James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scheduled for launch in 2014.

NIRSpec, for which Astrium is the prime contractor on behalf of ESA, will be capable of registering up to a hundred objects, such as galaxies and stars. JWST will therefore be able to simultaneously observe large parts of space at unprecedented depths.

Read more …

Astrium to supply Earth observation system for Kazakhstan: In the presence of the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Nursultan Nazarbaev, President of Kazakhstan, Astrium and KGS, the national company responsible for the development of Kazakhstan’s space programme, signed a contract for two Earth observation satellites and the foundation documents for the construction of an Assembly, Integration and Test Facility in Astana.

Photo: (Left to right) Louis Gallois, CEO of EADS, François Auque, CEO of Astrium, Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, Nursultan Nazarbaev, President of Kazakhstan, and Gabdoulatif Murzakulov, CEO of KGS.

Press release

Astrium-built space freezer MELFI installed onboard the ISS: The second Astrium-built space freezer MELFI (Minus Eighty Degree Laboratory Freezer) is successfully installed onboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Astrium has developed and built three MELFI units for ESA. In July 2006, the first unit, MELFI-1, was flown to the ISS on the STS-121 mission. MELFI-3 is planned to reach the ISS with one of the last shuttle flights in mid-2010.

Earthwatch: The Satellite Revolution: Astrium, Europe’s leading space company, is sponsoring the new permanent exhibition dedicated to space and its Earthly benefits at the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie in Paris – ‘Earthwatch: The Satellite Revolution’.

‘Earthwatch: The Satellite Revolution’ will give you a new perspective on space and our home planet!

For more information, visit: www.cite-sciences.fr

Press releases: Astrium signs a partnership agreement to develop an Earth observation satellite system in Vietnam Nov 13, 2009; Rosetta comet chaser picks up speed Nov 10, 2009; SMOS – The latest satellite to monitor climate change is placed in orbit Nov 02, 2009; More…