15 April 2005
Alenia Spazio goes into orbit with ENEIDE

The ENEIDE mission to the International Space Station was launched from
Baikonur, Kazakhstan, today.
In this new mission, Italy and Alenia Spazio are once again playing a major
role in the International Space Station, not only because the Italian ESA
astronaut Roberto Vittori is on board Soyuz, but also because the mission
involves numerous scientific experiments realised by the Italian space
industry and research centres.

In particular, Alenia Spazio, a Finmeccanica company, has contributed
towards the development of the experiment that gives the name at the
mission: ENEIDE - Esperimento di Navigazione per Evento Italiano
Dimostrativo per Egnos (Egnos Italian Navigation Demonstration Experiment).
The main objective of ENEIDE is to assess, for the first time aboard a
manned space vehicle, the reliability under extreme conditions of the
navigation signal provided by the GPS-Egnos satellite system.

All this has been made possible thanks to the use of technology developed by
the Laben Division of Alenia Spazio and qualified within the European Space
Agency's Egnos programme.
The value of the experiment is the fact that ENEIDE will anticipate what
will be the operational characteristics of the European Galileo/Egnos system
for space, aeronautical and terrestrial navigation with very high safety
standard.

The experiment is based on the use of a multi-standard receiver (GPS +
Glonass + Egnos), built by Alenia Spazio and of an antenna installed on the
Soyuz vehicle.
Approximately 4 hours after launch, the astronaut will begin the experiment.
The on board receiver system will provide position and velocity of the
vehicle in real time together with data integrity. By a lap-top Vittori will
monitor the status of the experiment and the displayed data during approach
to the Station.
After the Russian capsule docks at the Space Station, the experiment will
continue in orbit during the 10 days of the mission.

The signals received by the GPS-Egnos system will be processed to calculate
the position and speed of Soyuz within one metre.
At the same time, the data will be stored to be processed after the re-entry
of the space vehicle.

The ENEIDE experiment may be considered as a precursor for other similar
experiments, which may be carried out as soon as the signal from the Galileo
satellite is available.
In the meantime, the construction of the new European satellite navigation
system is proceeding and the first experimental satellite of the
constellation, the Galileo System Test
Bed (GSTB), will be launched by a Soyuz vehicle at the end of 2005. The
launch of the first 4 satellites and the in orbit validation phase will be
completed by the first semester of 2008.

Alenia Spazio is participating in the Galileo programme with the
responsibility for system engineering concerning all aspects of validation
and certification of the overall system, the production of on board and on
ground equipments and the integration of 30 satellites in its Integration
Centre in Rome.
As regards industrial activities, in addition to the range of products,
Alenia Spazio is also involved with Finmeccanica, through a consortium led
by Telespazio, in the design and realisation of the Galileo Test Range (GTR)
to develop equipment and services concerning the group of satellites within
Regione Lazio.



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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info