European Space Agency agrees record budget to meet new challenges

Yahoo – AFP, November 28, 2019

European Space Agency members agreed a record five-year budget of 14.4 billion
euros to face up to growing challenges and ensure Europe has a fully active space
presence (AFP Photo/jody amiet)

Seville (Spain) (AFP) - European Space Agency (ESA) members agreed Thursday a record 14.4 billion euros budget, promising to maintain Europe's place at the top table as the United States and China press ahead and industry disruptors such as Elon Musk's Space X present new challenges.

The budget is split, with 12.5 billion euros ($14.1 billion) committed for three years and the full 14.4 billion euros over five, representing an increase of some four billion euros on the previous spending plan.

"Its a surprise, even more than I proposed... this is good," ESA head Jan Woerner told a nwes conference after ministers from the 22 member states met in Seville for two days.

Woerner said the funding pledges meant that ESA could run a full series of programmes plus additional scientific work, citing moves to increase earth observation as part of efforts, among other things, to monitor climate change.

"It is a giant step forward for Europe, fifty years after the moon landing," said Jean-Yves Le Gall, head of the French space agency.

"We have beaten all records in terms of financial contributions," Le Gall added.

Germany made the largest contribution to the budget, at some 3.3 billion euros, followed by France on 2.7 billion euros, Italy 2.3 billion euros and Britain with 1.7 billion euros.

The ESA is not a European Union body and so Britain's position as a member remains unchanged despite Brexit.

To reinforce that message, the UK Space Agency issued a statement recalling that Britain was one of ESA's founding members, and detailing its commitments to a series of programmes including earth observation, 5G telecoms and monitoring space debris.

Moon, Mars, science

Among the projects ESA highlighted were the first gravitational wave detector in space, LISA, and the black hole mission Athena, designed to "enable fundamental advances in our understanding of the basic physics of the Universe."

ESA reiterated its commitment to the International Space Station until 2030 and its participation in the Gateway project, the first space station planned to orbit the Moon.

"European astronauts will fly to the Moon for the first time," it said in a closing statement, and ESA will support a "ground-breaking Mars Sample Return mission in cooperation with NASA."

In telecommunications, ESA aims to help develop flexible satellite systems integrated with 5G networks, "as well as next-generation optical technology for a fibre-like 'network in the sky,', marking a transformation in the satellite communication industry."

Ministers also endorsed the transition to the next generation of launchers, the massive Ariane 6 and the smaller Vega-C, "and have given the green light to Space Rider, ESA’s new reusable spaceship."

Going into the meeting, ESA officials had said the agency was hoping to get increased funding to ensure Europe does not lag behind.

Europe has established itself as a major space player, with the Ariane 6 launcher the latest off the production line and the Galileo GPS system operational.

Critics say however that it has been slow to develop some key innovations -- notably reusable rockets pioneered by the likes of Musk.

This "New Space" evolution has seen Musk develop reusable launchers for dramatically smaller yet more powerful satellites, many designed to create and run the "connected world" of driverless cars and countless other aspects of everyday life on earth.

Dutch space technology ‘game changer’ for pollution detection

DutchNews, November 22, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

In a scientific first, Dutch and North-American scientists have detected a large source of methane pollution using space technology. 

The satellite-borne TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), which was developed in the Netherlands, was launched on 13 October 2017 and does world-wide sweeps of the planet in search of greenhouse emissions. 

The source of the harmful greenhouse gas turned out to be an oil and gas installation in Turkmenistan in Central Asia. After the leak was reported to the company subsequent satellite images confirmed that the leak had been dealt with. 

Physics professor Ilse Aben from the Dutch institute for space research SRON, which was involved in the research, told public broadcaster NOS the leak was discovered ‘more or less by accident’.  It was flagged up at the beginning of this year by Canadian and American colleagues and who were doing methane measurements related to volcanic activity. 

‘Their measurements are limited to smaller areas while Tropomi covers the whole planet. However, they can zoom in more and on detecting a number of methane sources they contacted us to see if we could spot them too. And we could,’ Aben told the broadcaster. 

Pieternel Levelt, head of satellite detection at project leader KNMI, called the event ‘a game changer’. ‘The fact that we can detect this sort of methane leaks all over the world is very important for the climate. The instrument is having a huge impact.’ 

Tropomi, and others like it, will in future be used not only for the detection of individual sources of methane but also to check whether countries and businesses are complying with international climate protection agreements. 

‘The European Union is currently working with the European Space Agency (ESA) on new satellites which are going to measure CO2 levels from space in a few years’ time,’ Levelt said. 

CO2 is largely responsible for the warming up of the planet but methane contributes about a third of harmful gases. The most common sources for methane are cattle breeding, the oil and gas industry and coal mines.

Europe-Russia mission departs on hunt for life on Mars

Yahoo – AFP, Kirill Kudryavtsev, 15 March 2016

A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying the ExoMars 2016 spacecraft blasts off from

 the launch pad at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome on March 14, 2016

(AFP Photo/Kirill Kudryavtsev)

Baikonur (Kazakhstan) (AFP) - A joint European-Russian mission aiming to search for traces of life on Mars left Earth's orbit Monday at the start of a seven-month unmanned journey to the Red Planet, space agency managers said.

The Proton rocket carrying the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) to examine Mars' atmosphere and a descent module that will conduct a test landing on its surface had earlier launched from the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe at 0931 GMT.

The spacecraft detached from its Briz-M rocket booster just after 2000 GMT before beginning its 496-million-kilometre (308-million-mile) voyage through the cosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

At 2129 GMT the probe and the lander, dubbed Schiaparelli, sent "signals confirming that the launch had gone well and that the space vehicle is in good condition" ESA said in a statement later Monday.

The TGO probe "is alive and talking," ESA said on Twitter.

The ExoMars 2016 mission, a collaboration between the ESA and its Russian equivalent Roscosmos, is the first part of a two-phase exploration aiming to answer questions about the existence of life on Earth's neighbour.

The TGO will examine methane around Mars while the lander, Schiaparelli, will detach and descend to the surface of the fourth planet from the Sun.

The landing of the module on Mars is designed as a trial run ahead of the planned second stage of the mission in 2018 that will see the first European rover land on the surface to drill for signs of life, although problems with financing mean it could be delayed.

Details of the ExoMars mission to be launched on March 14. (AFP Photo/Paz

Pizarro, Jonathan Jacobsen, Simon Malfatto, Laurence Saubadu)

'Nose in space'

One key goal of the TGO is to analyse methane, a gas which on Earth is created in large part by living microbes, and traces of which were observed by previous Mars missions.

"TGO will be like a big nose in space," said Jorge Vago, ExoMars project scientist.

Methane, ESA said, is normally destroyed by ultraviolet radiation within a few hundred years, which implied that in Mars' case "it must still be produced today".

TGO will analyse Mars' methane in more detail than any previous mission, said ESA, in order to try to determine its likely origin.

One component of TGO, a neutron detector called FREND, can help provide improved mapping of potential water resources on Mars, amid growing evidence the planet once had as much if not more water than Earth.

A better insight into water on Mars could aid scientists' understanding of how the Earth might cope in conditions of increased drought.

Schiaparelli, in turn, will spend several days measuring climatic conditions including seasonal dust storms on the Red Planet while serving as a test lander ahead of the rover's anticipated arrival.

The module takes its name from 19th century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli whose discovery of "canals" on Mars caused people to believe, for a while, that there was intelligent life on our neighbouring planet.

The ExoMars spacecraft was built and designed by Franco-Italian contractor Thales Alenia Space.

A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying the ExoMars 2016 spacecraft blasts off from 

the launch pad at the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome on March 14, 

2016 (AFP Photo/Kirill Kudryavtsev)

'Need more money'

As for the next phase of ExoMars, ESA director general Jan Woerner has mooted a possible two-year delay, saying in January: "We need some more money" due to cost increases.

The rover scheduled for 2018 has been designed to drill up to two metres (around seven feet) into the Red Planet in search of organic matter, a key indicator of life past or present.

ESA said the rover landing "remains a significant challenge" however.

Although TGO's main science mission is scheduled to last until December 2017, it has enough fuel to continue operations for years after, if all goes well.

Thomas Reiter, director of human spaceflight at ESA, said in televised remarks ahead of the launch he believed a manned mission to Mars would take place "maybe in 20 years or 30 years".

Russian-American duo Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly earlier this month returned from a year-long mission at the International Space Station seen as a vital precursor to such a mission.

The ExoMars mission will complement the work of NASA's "Curiosity" rover which has spent more than three years on the Red Planet as part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission.

Curiosity, a car-sized mobile laboratory, aims to gather soil and rock samples on Mars and analyse them "for organic compounds and environmental conditions that could have supported life now or in the past," according to NASA.

Space has been one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and the West that has not been damaged by ongoing geopolitical tensions stemming from the crises in Ukraine and Syria.

One big step for man as astronaut controls robot from ISS

Yahoo – AFP, Jo Biddle, September 8, 2015

The blue-and-white Interact Centaur fibreglass robot, which cost less than 200,000
euros ($224,000) to build, has a camera on its head which allows the controller to
directly see the task it is performing (AFP Photo/Jo Biddle)

Noordwijk (Netherlands) (AFP) - European experts have pulled off a major advance that might one day help build new worlds in space after an astronaut in the International Space Station remotely guided a robot on Earth by feel.

Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen performed the breath-taking experiment in which he placed a peg into a very tight hole on Monday under the careful control of the European Space Agency.

While orbiting some 400 kilometres (250 miles) above Earth, Mogensen took control of the Interact Centaur rover which has a pair of arms for delicate, high-precision work.

The blue-and-white fibreglass robot, which cost less than 200,000 euros ($224,000) to build, also has a camera on its head which allows the controller to directly see the task it is performing.

But sight is not the most important sense in this project. It is touch.

In real-time, thanks to super swift signals bouncing off a dedicated complex system of satellites working in synchronisation, the astronaut manoeuvered the robot into place.

He then very slowly lowered a metal pin held by the robot into a tight hole in a task board with less than a sixth of a millimetre of wriggle room.

Using a joystick

For the first time -- thanks to force-feedback technology -- when the pin was not aligned correctly Mogensen felt it hit the sides of the hole via the joystick he was operating on the space station.

Cheers erupted when after several long nail-biting minutes the rover -- which slightly resembles Disney's WALL.E cartoon character -- dropped the pin successfully into place.

Scientists and engineers believe applications of this kind of tactile technology are huge -- allowing humans to guide robots in delicate tasks by feeling their way.

The technology will allow people "to project a human-like presence into the robots, to do human-like tasks on the surface" of a planet, Andre Schiele, head of ESA's Telerobotics and Haptics Laboratory, told AFP.

With space engineers hoping at some point to fly people to Mars, "we have to bring them back" which means before they first step foot on the planet "you would have to build an entire launch-platform on the planet."

Robots like the Centaur -- also affectionately dubbed the "blue bug" by some of its designers -- could be put in place first to do the building.

"There's going to be a need for a set-up, some building before a human even sets foot on the planet and for that we could send down robots and control them from a space station," said industrial designer Emiel den Exter.

The 18-month project was a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA)and students from Delft University of Technology.

"Even something like lacing your shoe is something you rely entirely on your tactile senses" for, Schiele told journalists gathered at the ESA headquarters in the Dutch town of Noordwijk.

Earthly uses

On Earth this cutting-edge technology known as haptics could also be used "everywhere where you basically don't want to send humans," said Schiele.

"Feeling" robots would have been useful to cap the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, or help seal the reactors at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant after the 2011 meltdown.

Professor Frans van der Helm, from Delft University's mechanical engineering unit, said one scheme was looking at using such robots to work in a massive nuclear fusion project in France.

Inside the costly, multipartner International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) -- if it is built -- "the heat will be about one million degrees," Van der Helm told AFP.

"So everything starts to deform" making it hard for robots to complete a task which they have been programmed for, he said.

In this case, telepresence technology would allow a human to feel their way through and fix a problem.

For 27-year-old Turkish student Doga Emirdag, who helped design the Centaur's exo-skeleton as part of his masters degree, Monday's demonstration was a big day.

"The robot as it is wouldn't go into space. But the technology being developed will go to space," he said with a broad smile.

Related Article:

Intel invests €45m in Delft University quantum computer centre

Europe launches satellite to boost color vision of Earth

Europe's space program has launched one of its new generation of satellites aimed at giving scientists a better view of Earth. Sentinel-2A is equipped with new equipment that will allow it to pick out more colors.

Deutsche Welle, 23 June 2015

The European Space Agency confirmed early on Tuesday that Sentinel-2A, the latest in its array of satellite aimed at monitoring environmental change, was safely in orbit.

2nd #Copernicus environmental satellite #Sentinel2 A safely in orbit http://t.co/wDMxZRJbV3 pic.twitter.com/x8fc3M5HwV

— ESA (@esa) 23 juni 2015

The announcement came soon after the agency confirmed the satellite had successfully deployed its solar panels.

From an orbital spot 488 miles (786 kilometers) above Earth, the satellite will collect data to document environmental changes and help shape reaction to natural disasters.

The satellite was lifted into position by an unmanned Vega rocket that blasted off late on Monday from the Guiana Space Center at Kourou, French Guinana.

Sentinel-2A adds a high resolution capability to the EU's Copernicus monitoring system. It is the latest part of the 4.3-billion-euro ($4.85-billion) Sentinel program to upgrade Copernicus and will operate in tandem with another satellite, to be launched in 2016.

Sentinel-2A was developed with the
 intention of revisiting areas of interest
more frequently than before

It will provide high-resolution imaging of vegetation, soil and freshwater to a resolution of 10 meters (32.5 feet), looping the world every 100 minutes. Equipped with the capability to scrutinize vegetation, Sentinal-2A could assist in improving food security and forest monitoring.

"By frequently revisiting areas, it will allow a new generation of operational products, from land cover and change detection maps, disaster maps and leaf area index to chlorophyll content and other bio-geophysical variables," said Volker Liebig, ESA's Director of Earth Observation Programmes.

The latest satellite's predecessor, Sentinel-1A, was launched in April 2014 to scan the Earth's surface with cloud-penetrating radar.

As one of the EU's flagship space initiatives, Copernicus monitors the world's land surfaces, oceans and atmosphere for evidence of environmental change and damage.

The European Remote Sensing Satellite, launched in 1995, was the first spacecraft to contribute to Copernicus. Initially known as Global Monitoring for Environment and Security, the initiative was renamed in 2013 after the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who determined that the Earth orbited the Sun.

rc/msh (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

European space plane splashes down on schedule: ESA

Yahoo – AFP, February 11, 2015

Europe set for launch of space plane prototype

Paris (AFP) - Europe's prototype space plane splashed down in the Pacific on schedule Wednesday after a 100-minute flight to test key re-entry technologies, the European Space Agency (ESA) said.

"The mission has come to an end according to plan... it couldn't have been better," ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain said in a live webcast.

Mission officials cheered and hugged each other at the success.

Dubbed the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV), the craft marks the first step in Europe's strategy to join an elite club of nations able to launch spacecraft and return them safely to Earth.

It is an innovative wingless wedge shape, designed to cope with the stress of re-entry and glide to a pre-determined site.

The maiden mission saw the car-sized IXV launched from ESA's base in French Guiana and head eastwards on a sub-orbital path before splashing down about 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles) west of the Galapagos Island.

It was to be picked up by crane by a recovery ship.

"The mission is not yet over because now it's going to be necessary to analyse all of the data that was collected throughout the flight," said Dordain.

"The data analysis part of the work is to begin soon. It will be hard work, but it will move the frontiers of knowledge further back concerning aerodynamics, thermal issues, guidance and navigation."

Galileo GPS satellites launched into wrong orbit

Setback for European-run navigational network as space agency announces satellites missed their target positions

theguardian.com, Associated Press in Paris, Sunday 24 August 2014

A Soyuz rocket launches from French Guiana on its way to putting Europe’s fifth
and six Galileo satellites into the wrong orbit. Photograph: ESA/Arianespace/EPA

Two satellites meant to form part of a European-run GPS navigational network have been launched into the wrong orbit in a blow for the programme.

European space officials say they are investigating whether the inaccurate deployment will complicate their efforts to develop the Galileo system, which would rival the American-run GPS network.

The European Space Agency and launch company Arianespace said the satellites – meant to be the fifth and sixth in the network – ended up in off-target orbits after being launched on Friday from Kourou, French Guiana, aboard a Soyuz rocket.

Saturday’s agency statement did not explain whether their orbital paths could be corrected.

Arianespace said the satellites settled into a lower elliptical orbit instead of the circular one intended, and initial analysis suggested the mishap occurred during the flight phase and involved the Fregat upper stage of Soyuz.

“Our aim is of course to fully understand this anomaly,” said Stephane Israel, Arianespace chairman and chief executive. “While it is too early to determine the exact causes, we would like to offer our sincere excuses to ESA and the European commission for this orbital injection that did not meet expectations.”

Israel said Arianespace along with customer ESA and the commission would create an independent panel to investigate what caused the inaccurate deployment and to develop corrective actions so Soyuz launches could resume.

The European Union hopes to have its 30-satellite Galileo navigation network operating fully by 2020. The Prague-based programme oversaw the launch of its first two satellites in 2011, two more in 2012 and the two that went up on Friday.

Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of the French space agency CNES, said the investigation still needed to determine precisely how far off course the satellites were. He said ESA experts in Toulouse, France, and Darmstadt, Germany, were calculating whether small motors inside the satellites would be strong enough to push them into the correct orbit.

Le Gall said the investigation would take “several days to understand what has happened. And then we’ll see about the possible consequences on the launch calendar,” he said, referring to plans to launch more satellites in coming months.

He called the Galileo navigation network “a very complex programme, and even if we have some failures that’s unfortunately part of the life of operations.”

If the two satellites cannot be pushed to the correct altitude above the earth, he said, subsequent satellites would have to take up the slack.

The programme has faced other delays and operational hiccups. ESA officials said on Wednesday that they had to reduce the strength of another Galileo satellite’s signal because of unspecified problems.

The agency says it hopes Galileo will provide greater precision for satellite navigation systems than the GPS system already used worldwide to pinpoint locations and plot routes.