13 July, 2006. The EADS SPACE built Venus Express spacecraft has been declared fully operational by July 4th and formally begun its scientific operational mission.
Since its successful in-orbit insertion on 11 April this year, Venus Express has performed several orbit manoeuvres and commissioning activities culminating with the successful MCRR (Mission Commissioning Results Review) pronounced by the European Space Agency Board by July 4th at ESOC.
- The orbit manoeuvres carried out between 11 April and 7 May enabled the spacecraft to reach its final polar orbit (between 250 km and 66000 km from the planet during a 24 hour period) from its initial injection polar orbit (between 400 km and 350000 km from the planet over a 9 day period).
- The commissioning activities initiated immediately after 7 May were completed by 4 June.
Venus Express began its one and a half Earth year-long mission to investigate the Venusian atmosphere in terms of structure, composition and dynamics on 5 June precisely as planned.
Venus Express will examine the prevailing conditions in the complex atmosphere and environment of Venus. Data from this mission will also help to improve our understanding of the long-term climatic evolution processes and the green-house effect on other planets, including Earth.
Venus Express is the first European spacecraft to visit the planet Venus. The probe was designed and built for the European Space Agency, in only 33 months, under the prime contractorship of EADS SPACE in Toulouse, France and launched on 9 November 2005 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
By re-using designs developed and experience gained as prime contractor on both the Mars Express and Rosetta probes, EADS SPACE has ensured that Venus Express meets its technical challenge within extremely tight cost and development schedule constraints.
EADS SPACE is Europe’s leading satellite system specialist. Its satellites activities cover complete civil and military telecommunications and Earth observation systems, science and navigation programmes, and all spacecraft avionics and equipment.
In 2005 EADS SPACE had a turnover of €2.7 billion and 11,000 employees in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain.
EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2005, EADS generated revenues of €34.2 billion and employed a workforce of more than 113,000.
Contacts for the Media:
EADS SPACE , Rémi ROLAND +33 (0) 1 42 24 27 34
EADS SPACE, Frédéric-Pierre ISOZ +33 (0) 1 42 24 28 77
EADS SPACE (UK), Jeremy CLOSE +44 (0) 1438 77 3872
EADS SPACE (GER), Mathias PIKELJ +49 (0) 7545 8 91 23
http://space.eads.net
