ESA declares Envisat lost
Posted: Thu, May 10, 2012, 11:02 AM ET (1502 GMT)
The European Space Agency said Wednesday it was declaring the end of the mission for its Envisat earth sciences satellite, more than a month after contract was lost with the spacecraft. ESA lost contact with the ten-year-old spacecraft on April 8, and subsequent efforts to restore communications with the satellite have failed. ESA even obtained photos of the satellite from a French high-resolution imagery satellite, which showed no obvious signs of damage that could be causing the outage. While ESA has declared the spacecraft's mission over, engineers will spend the next two months on additional efforts to restore contact, acknowledging that the odds of success are low. Envisat launched in 2002 on a five-year mission, although ESA officials had hoped to keep the spacecraft operating until the launch of the first next-generation Sentinel spacecraft in 2013.
The European Space Agency said Wednesday it was declaring the end of the mission for its Envisat earth sciences satellite, more than a month after contract was lost with the spacecraft. ESA lost contact with the ten-year-old spacecraft on April 8, and subsequent efforts to restore communications with the satellite have failed. ESA even obtained photos of the satellite from a French high-resolution imagery satellite, which showed no obvious signs of damage that could be causing the outage. While ESA has declared the spacecraft's mission over, engineers will spend the next two months on additional efforts to restore contact, acknowledging that the odds of success are low. Envisat launched in 2002 on a five-year mission, although ESA officials had hoped to keep the spacecraft operating until the launch of the first next-generation Sentinel spacecraft in 2013.
Related Links:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
Apex becomes billion-dollar company with $200 million Series D round
Posted: Sun, Sep 14 4:09 AM ET (0809 GMT) |
|
news links
|
|
Wednesday, September 17
Falcon 9 launch of Starlink satellites scheduled for Wednesday morning
KEYT-TV Santa Barbara, CA — 1:34 am ET (0534 GMT) Colorado Springs springs into action amid loss of Space Command
Washington Times — 1:34 am ET (0534 GMT) SpaceX rocket-launching license survives NEPA challenge
POLITICO — 1:30 am ET (0530 GMT) SpaceX Eyes First Starship Version 3 Launch In ’25 Or ’26
Aviation Week — 1:29 am ET (0529 GMT) Judge dismisses suit challenging SpaceX's Starship approval
Houston Chronicle — 1:28 am ET (0528 GMT) |
