Recently in ESA Category

Vega, the European Space Agency's new light launcher, has now got its maiden flight date set, for 26 January 2012. ESA had been hoping to launch during 2011, but the critical parameter was to get Vega launched between the 20 October launch of Soyuz and the beginning of preparations at Kourou, French Guiana for the next Automated Transfer Vehicle launch, via Ariane 5, to the International Space Station.

European made components have arrived by sea at Kourou from Avio's factory in Colleferro, near Rome. The inaugural campaign will begin on November 7 with rollout of Vega's P80 first stage to the launch pad, followed during the subsequent weeks by stacking of the Zefiro 23 second stage and Zefiro 9 third stage - all of which are loaded with solid-propellant. A progress review will be held on December 7 to authorize a continuation of the final integration process - allowing the bi-propellant Attitude and Vernier Upper Module (AVUM) to be mated atop the launcher, and final operations to begin with the mission's multi-spacecraft payload.

carrying LARES (LAser RElativity Satellite) and nine cubesat educational payloads of varying sizes.

Vega will lift off from the Spaceport's ZLV launch site, which originally was used for the Ariane 1 and Ariane 3 vehicles.

The medium-lift Soyuz and light category Vega will complement ESA's heavylift Ariane 5s to provide a fully flexible range of launch options at Kourou. Vega, whose first stage is one of the world's biggest carbon fibre single-piece structures, is designed to launch satellites up to 1.5 tonnes into 700km polar orbits. As French Guiana is much closer to the equator than Soyuz's normal launch site at Baikonur, added boost from the Earth's spin will nearly double its maximum payload to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) to 3 tonnes. Ariane 5 can lift 10 tonnes to GTO, though ESA member governments are thought to be moving towards approval of a mid-life upgrade to increase payload capacity.

A longer-term project is also underway, to develop a a high-thrust cryogenic engine that could form the basis of ESA's next-generation launcher. It will not fly until about 2025, but is intended to provide a medium-lift capability in a modular design, with a re-ignitable upper stage and options for strap-on solid propellant boosters offering extra thrust.

This morning's scheduled historic first launch of a Soyuz rocket from the European Space Agency's French Guiana facility was delayed when "an anomaly detected during fueling of the Soyuz launcher's third stage" interruped the countdown.
According to launch operator Arianespace, the Soyuz (pictured being set up on the pad) and its two Galileo satellites, along with the launch facility, have been placed in a safe mode. A new launch date will be formally announced later today, but an earlier statement by the European Commission's wonderfully-named esPRESSo news service said that 24h would do the trick, with lift-off now expected for 1230 CEST/1030 GMT/0730 local time tomorrow, Friday 21 October.
The launch will be the first shot in a push to orbit enough Galileo navigation spacecraft for global coverage in 2014 - that's seven years behind the original plan, so a day more to loft the first couple units is neither her nor there.
Watch the launch online here.

The European Space Agency just released this video to show how its Galileo satellite navigation system works. I love the part about how a nanosecond error in the onboard clocks would translate to a 30m error on the ground - but if that error were a second, the position error would amount to 300,000km, enough to leave driver wondering whether they were approaching the house or cruising on the Moon.


The first two spacecraft are due for launch on 20 October, and then ESA will be making a fast-track push to provide near-global coverage in 2014 and, in 2019, a full constellation of 27 spacecraft and three orbiting spares.

Unlike the USA's GPS system, Galileo will be fully under civilian control. The idea is to ensure that Europe is self-sufficient in a technology that is becomming increasingly indispensible. Galileo will also do a better job than GPS at high latitudes, so Nordic Europeans should really notice the difference. Everybody else can be sure sure of continuous service - no worries about the US military degrading the signal in an emergency - and, combined with the ground-based signal enhancement system called EGNOS that went live earlier this year, can get position information accurate to less than 1m. EGNOS signals are free, too, and Brussels is encouraging companies to develop receivers and services to exploit them.

Budget wrangles will have delayed Galileo by seven years by the time coverage goes global in 2014, but it should be well worth the wait. Satnav services are already coming down in price, so the combination of an added layer of reliability and better geographic coverage should make them cheap and easy to use for any conceivable application.

Sounds like a great idea, it inspires the kids, showcases the amazing engineering achievement that is spaceflight and helps to drum up electoral support for projects that are good photo opportunities for the politicians and makes voters feel good about their country

Sadly the likelihood of a European or even UK version of NASA tv isn't looking very likely a few weeks after this blog's clarion call for such a thing

So here's the bad news, the European Space Agency doesn't have any sort of broadcast licence and doesn't plan to get one and is happy for the time being having an arrangement with the rolling news channel euronews

The British Broadcasting Company would not even do a dedicated science channel and it turns out that the UK's digital terrestrial broadcast system Freeview is "tightly controlled" and the frequency spectrum is already allocated. Or maybe the problem will be rather like that which stymed US firm Hulu's internet tv hopes for the UK?  

Whatever the obstacles are outreach was a word heard often with the launch of the UK Space Agency but what will that be? A few school competitions? Can we expect the odd poster care of trade body UKSpace to raise awareness about the UK space industry, meaning that it does have one?

So what's the good news? Well we're about to enter a pretty turbulent political period here in the UK thanks to the self inflicted almost total destruction of our financial industry. That's the good news?! Well yes, the UK's ruling elite now knows we need manufacturing as much if not more than finance and no one can ignore that

Spaceflight is high tech engineering so it is going to be an open door to push on and an UKSAtv channel is one way of preparing a new generation to take up that challenge  

Hello UKSpace, are you receiving me, over? 

credit: CNES / caption: one day this will not just be a CGI video screengrab

This month, the European Space Agency director general Jean Jacques Dordain told me, the launch complex gantry for the Samara Space Center Soyuz 2-1a rockets flying from French Guiana should be finished and a maiden flight date should be announced. However Russia's deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov was not so sure when speaking to RIA Novosti this week, saying "This year, I hope, a milestone rocket...event will take place" [emphasis added]

This blogger would have asked Dordain at the CroySat-2 launch event but the director general was not available for questions, despite the success of that Kosmotras Dnepr rocket flight. Perhaps the Soyuz 2-1a flight will take place in time for the global space summit Ivanov's president, Dmitry Medvedev, has called for? Rather than the usual G8 suspects of the US, European countries, Russia and Japan Medvedev also sees exploration collaboration between it and the G8 near-peers, China, India and Brazil. In this article on the Russian Federal Space Agency website Ivanov pledges increases in spending for the country's space programme. Are you listening Mr Obama? 


credit: Federal Space Agency / caption: the gantry is constructed in Russia prior to shipping

Today Hyperbola is calling on the UK space industry, advocacy groups and political parties to back the idea of television programming from the European Space Agency and NASA to be broadcast in the UK via all means available. Outreach was highlighted as an area of importance for the recently launched UK Space Agency (UKSA)

Through a partnership of ESA, UKSA and the British Broadcasting Corporation (which is required by law to educate) a channel consisting of ESA output, past and ongoing BBC science programmes and perhaps special co-productions from industry (Virgin Galactic?) and UKSA could be broadcast via the terrestrial and satellite Freeview (and later Freeview HD) services, the internet (perhaps from UKSA's website) and cable and satellite providers should be legally required to carry the channel - as Sir Richard Branson has his Virgin Media cable company he should be enthusiastic to support an ESA/UKSA/BBC "Space Exploration channel"

Speaking to Hyperbola at the launch of the UK Space Agency today European Space Agency director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain said that a decision would be made in April about when the first Samara Space Center Soyuz 2-1a rocket flight from Sinnamary in French Guiana will take place

The decision is expected in April Dordain says because the Soyuz launch pad gantry should be completed by then. Its design, construction and testing in Russia and then delivery to Sinnamary and subsequent reconstruction has been blamed for part of the history of delays that have beset the Soyuz in French Guiana programme 

This July had been touted as the maiden flight month after no date had been set in 2009 following delays from 2007 to 2008 and then to last year. The latest third quarter delay could mean slippage for the launch into the fourth quarter when ESA was hoping to be ready to launch the 2-1b version of the Soyuz rocket. This uses different fuel for its upper stage and is needed to launch the first Galileo satellites

 

Russia Today reports about the International Space Station's 23rd Expedition crew's prepare for April Soyuz TMA-18 launch to the outpost

Meanwhile European Space Agency director-general Jean-Jacques Dordain spoke at the 9 February NASA Project Management Challenge 2010 Event held in Galveston, Texas. Only a month later ESA has posted Dordain's speech to the web inwhich he outlines three scenarios for co-operation with an emphasis on transportation