The first pair of satellites built by the newly-formed Astrium space company have reached their operational orbits, five days after their launch on 16 July from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the company reports at the Show.
Astrium is the creation of the merger of Matra Marconi Space and the space business of Daimler Chrysler Aerospace, DASA, with 75% shareholding from European Aeronautic Defence and Space and 25% from BAE Systems. The two Cluster project satellites built by Astrium for the European Space Agency and named Salsa and Samba after ballroom dances, reached their 16,869km by 121,098km orbits after five on-board engine burns in four days, including a "dog leg" manoeuvre to alter the orbital inclination. The engine firings were particularly challenging ones for the DASA 400N thrust, S400 engines, complemented by eight reaction control thrusters. Two more Cluster satellites, called Ramba and Tango will be launched on another Starsem Soyuz-Fregat booster.
The 1,200kg Astrium-built satellites, with 11 science instruments weighing 71kg and provided by France, Sweden, UK, USA, Austria and Germany, will make a study of the solar wind and how it interacts with the Earth's magnetosphere. The satellites will be between 100km and 20,000km apart as they make the most intensive survey yet of solar-earth interaction as part of international collaboration to investigate the physical connection between the Sun and the Earth. Flying in a tetrahedral formation, the four spacecraft will collect the most detailed data yet on small-scale changes in near-Earth space and the interaction of the charged particles of the solar wind and the Earth's atmosphere. The Cluster II series satellites replace the four craft which were lost in the maiden launch failure of the Ariane 5 from Kourou in June 1996.
Source: Flight Daily News
