N° 38–1997: TEAMSAT working well
31 October 1997
Teamsat has been successfully launched on the second Ariane 5 qualification flight. ESA's operations centre (ESOC) has established communication and the first data show that the satellite is working well.
The first high-quality data from the cameras of the VTS (Visual Telemetry System) experiment have been received and show clear images of the Speltra structure with the Earth in the background. Images are being received from the AVS (Autonomous Vision System) camera. Communication with the subsatellite YES, including GPS, has also been established.
About twenty young engineers from many European countries are staffing the Experiment Control Centre that has been set up at ESTEC, ESA's technical centre, using some twenty PCs with software that they themselves developed for the most part.
The young engineers are extremely pleased that after many months of intensive work they are reaping such rewards, sharing in the success of Teamsat with the experienced staff at ESA/ESTEC.
The team will continue mission operations for about five days, depending on how long the onboard batteries last.
The first results will be presented, following validation by ESA, on the Teamsat website: http://www.estec.esa.nl/teamsat