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ESA's Herschel calls home using mobile phone technology

19 May 2009

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After launch, the Herschel infrared satellite will cruise to a point in space called the 2nd Lagrangian Point (or L2), some 1.5 million km from Earth in the opposite direction from the Sun. This location in space has two important advantages: firstly, Herschel’s instruments will not be disturbed by the strong far-infrared radiation coming from the Earth and the Moon. Secondly, since the Earth and the Sun are in the same general direction, it offers good visibility for performing astronomical observations. The mission is to be launched in Spring 2009 in tandem with ESA's Planck spacecraft, on board an Ariane-5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou (French Guyana).

Credits: ESA (animation by AOES Medialab)

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ESA's first 35-metre deep-space ground station is situated at New Norcia, 140 kilometres north of Perth in Australia. The 630 tonne antenna is being used to track Rosetta, Mars Express and Venus Express (during LEOP), as well as other missions in deep space. The ground station was officially opened on 5 March 2003 by the Premier of Western Australia, Hon Dr Geoff Gallop.

Credits: ESA

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ESA's Herschel makes mobile phone call to Earth

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On 16 May 2009, two days after launch, the GMSK-modulated High Data Rate downlink on ESA's Herschel spacecraft was successfully tested. For the first time in space, a High Data Rate modulation transmission from space used the GMSK modulation scheme. This modulation scheme has so far only been used on the ground by mobile telephone networks, but at a lower rate. The novelty of this modulation format is the spectral occupation bandwidth that allows a better spectrum sharing with other mission. The GMSK High Rate telemetry at 1.5 Mbit/s uses only about the same bandwidth as a Medium Bit Rate telemetry signal at 150 kbps. The plot shows the SPL and GMSK signals as received by ESA's 35m New Norcia Station. The satellite was transmitting with about 35 W RF power in X-Band via the Low Gain Antenna from a distance of about 280 000 km from Earth.

The successful operational use confirms the on-ground results obtained since 2001, when the GMSK implementation on the Herschel-Planck missions was announced at the ESA TT&C Workshop, and the compatibility between the on board transponders and ground segment nodes that have been developed and verified in the past years.

Credits: ESA

Herschel: ESA's giant infrared observatory

Planck: looking back at the dawn of time

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ESTRACK tracking stations L2, the second Lagrangian Point

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