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Pioneering ERS environment satellite retires (Forwarded)



 
 
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Old July 22nd 11, 02:30 AM posted to sci.space.news
Andrew Yee[_1_]
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Default Pioneering ERS environment satellite retires (Forwarded)

ESA News
www.esa.int

5 July 2011

Pioneering ERS environment satellite retires

After 16 years spent gathering a wealth of data that has revolutionised our
understanding of Earth, ESA's veteran ERS-2 satellite is being retired. This
pioneering mission has not only advanced science, but also forged the
technologies we now rely on for monitoring our planet.

ERS-2 was launched in 1995, following its sister, the first European Remote
Sensing satellite, which was launched four years earlier.

Carrying suites of sophisticated instruments to study the complexities of
the atmosphere, land, oceans and polar ice, these two missions were the most
advanced of their time, putting Europe firmly at the forefront of Earth
observation.

The twin satellites were identical, apart from ERS-2's additional instrument
to monitor ozone in the atmosphere. Both exceeded their design lifetime by
far, together delivering a 20-year stream of continuous data.

In 2000, ERS-1 unexpectedly stopped working and now it is time to bid
farewell to ERS-2 before it succumbs to a similar fate.

To avoid ERS-2 ending up as a piece of space debris, ESA will take the
satellite out of service by bringing it down to a lower orbit while there is
still sufficient fuel to make the careful manoeuvres.

The decision to retire ERS-2 was not taken lightly, but after orbiting Earth
almost 85000 times -- travelling 3.8 billion km -- the risk that the
satellite could lose power at any time is clearly high.

The deorbiting procedure will be carried out over a number of weeks by
spacecraft operators and flight dynamics experts at ESA's European Space
Operations Centre in Germany.

Starting on 6 July, a series of thruster burns will gradually lower the
satellite's orbit from its current altitude of 800 km to about 550 km, where
the risk of collision is minimal. Eventually, ERS-2 will enter Earth's
atmosphere and burn up.

Its destruction will occur within 25 years, in accordance with European Code
of Conduct on Space Debris Mitigation.

ERS-2 has been delivering data right to the end. In one of its last
operations, the satellite was placed in an orbit that allowed it to capture
radar images every three days of some of Earth's most rapidly changing
features.

Over their lifetimes, the missions have achieved many outstanding results.
With thousands of research projects and published scientific papers based on
ERS data, it is difficult to list them all.

Carrying the first spaceborne civil radar, the missions offered a new
perspective of Earth.

In particular, by exploiting the process of synthetic aperture radar
interferometry we have been able to monitor how the ground moves during
events like the earthquake that recently devastated Japan. A similar
technique is also used to generate digital elevation models.

Moreover, these data build up a long-term archive so that changes over time
can be carefully monitored.

The radiometer has provided precise maps of global sea-surface temperature,
leading to novel observations of the 1997 El Nino, and the radar altimeter
provided new information on sea level, a major concern linked to climate
change.

In addition, the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) on ERS-2 provided
insight into the depletion of stratospheric ozone over Antarctica.

GOME was one of the longest serving ozone monitors in the world, with its
success leading to a string of similar satellite sensors.

The continual improvement of data processing since ERS-2 was first placed in
orbit has meant that a wealth of other information on atmospheric gases such
as nitrogen dioxide could also be gleaned from GOME.

While the observations from ERS have been used in a multitude of application
areas, they also form a valuable contribution to a long-term data archive to
understand how Earth works as a system and the impact climate change is
having.

It is difficult to overstate the value that the ERS missions have brought to
science, but just as important has been the technological excellence the
instruments have demonstrated.

These various technologies live on in successor missions such as ESA's
Envisat, the Earth Explorers and the Sentinels for Europe's Global
Monitoring for Environment and Security programme, as well as in many other
national satellite missions.

In essence, ERS provided the scientific and technical heritage for Europe to
continue monitoring our planet from space.

[NOTE: Images and weblinks supporting this release are available at
http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMJ0O6TLPG_index_1.html ]

 




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