CryoSat-2 launch marks 10 years of VEGA involvement
25 March 2010 – VEGA, a Finmeccanica company, is supporting the
final preparations for the launch of the European Space Agency’s
(ESA) CryoSat-2 mission, which is scheduled to take place on 8
April 2010 from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The launch will mark ten
years of VEGA’s involvement with this programme.
CryoSat-2 is ESA’s most sophisticated Earth Observation
altimeter-based satellite to date, and is a part of ESA’s Living
Planet Programme. CryoSat-2 will monitor precise changes in the
thickness of marine ice floating in the polar oceans and variations
in the thickness of the vast ice sheets that overlie Greenland and
Antarctica.
Since 2000, VEGA staff have been at the heart of the CryoSat
programme, working from the European Space Operation Centre (ESOC)
and European Space Technology and Research Centre (ESTEC). This has
included developing the CryoSat-2 simulator to test the pre and
post launch activities, and supporting the mission preparation at
ESOC in Darmstadt, Germany. As part of the Flight Control Team,
VEGA staff have also carried out intensive training for the launch
and early orbit phase – the critical first steps in the mission's
life – in order to be familiar with the planned nominal operations,
and be able to cope with unexpected faults, errors and system
failures that might jeopardise the satellite’s safety.
A VEGA team at ESTEC in Holland has supported the procurement
and on-ground verification of the platform’s primary payload
instrument SIRAL-2 (Synthetic Interferometric Radar Altimeter).
SIRAL-2 has adopted several significant improvements over its
predecessor, which was lost during the launch of CryoSat-1 in
October 2005. Additionally, VEGA will be providing the management
for CryoSat's commissioning phase covering the six months following
launch. This will involve checking and verifying the satellite’s
functionality, performances, payload, and all ground-based
facilities, prior to control being handed over to ESA’s Centre for
Earth Observation (ESRIN), in Italy, for the nominal three-year
operations phase.
VEGA has also supported ESRIN in the management, development and
integration of the Monitoring Facility and the Quality Control (QC)
for CryoSat-2 facility, both of which form part of the CryoSat-2
Payload Data Ground Segment.
During the Commissioning Phase and the routine post-launch
Operational Phase, VEGA will support ESA's Sensor Performance,
Products and Algorithms office, undertaking QC activities to ensure
CryoSat-2 data is provided in the format and to the standards
required by end users. These activities fall under the Instrument
Data quality Evaluation and Analysis Service (IDEAS), which, since
August 2008, has managed the operational QC for all ESA’s
Space-borne Earth Observation instruments. The IDEAS team at VEGA
has already started developing QC procedures for CryoSat-2, in
addition to configuring existing tools and developing new ones, in
order to meet requirements for this new mission.
John Auburn, VEGA’s Aerospace Business Director, said: “VEGA is
delighted to have been involved in so many aspects of this vital
mission during the past decade. The Living Planet Programme plays
an important role in understanding the ongoing effects of climate
change, and we are looking forward to playing an active part in
supporting the continuing CryoSat mission.
“As one of Europe’s leading Space companies, VEGA has over 30
years’ experience working on Earth Observation missions and helping
understand the effects of mankind on our planet. We hope that data
from CryoSat-2 will go a significant way to gaining a better
understanding of the role ice plays in the Earth’s system.”
Further information
For further
information, please contact Karen Rogers on karen.rogers@vega.co.uk.