ESA - ESA Spacecraft Operations - Envisat operations

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Envisat operations

The mission

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Envisat is a truly advanced Earth Observation satellite with a unique combination of sensors to vastly improve the range and accuracy of scientific measurements of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface and ice. Its total range of capabilities far exceeds those of any previous or planned Earth Observation satellite.

Credits: ESA - Denman productions

The Flight Control Team

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Frank Diekmann is Spacecraft Operations Manager (SOM) for Envisat at ESA's Space Operations Centre (ESOC), in Darmstadt, Germany.

Credits: ESA-J.Mai/juergenmai.com

Mission operations overview

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Envisat, inside the Ariane 5 launcher on its launch pad on ELA-3 (Complex Area n°3 at CSG, European spaceport facilities in French Guiana), 28 February 2002 at 10:00 am Kourou time.

Credits: ESA/CNES/ARIANESPACE-S.Corvaja

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Artist's impression of Envisat.

Credits: ESA

The ground station
Kiruna, Svalbard

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The Kiruna S- and X-band station supports Envisat and ERS-2, and is scheduled to support CryoSat-2 in 2009. For ESTRACK, Kiruna hosts one 15m and one 13m antenna. Both operate in S-band for uplink and downlink and X-band for downlink. The station is located at Salmijärvi, 38 km east of Kiruna, in northern Sweden. The station is equipped for tracking, telemetry and command operations as well as for reception, recording, processing and dissemination of data from the sensor instruments onboard ERS-2 and Envisat.

The station is connected to the ESTRACK Control Centre (ECC) at ESOC via dedicated voice and data circuits. The station is remotely monitored and controlled from the ECC under nominal operating conditions. A mini control centre is located at the station to provide backup.

Credits: ESA-S.Corvaja

Artemis

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