|  | Artemis communicating with SPOT 4 (artist's impression) | |
ESA announces Ariane 5 launch date for Artemis
14 May 2001
ESA and Arianespace today (Friday, 11 May 2001) agreed on an early summer launch date for Artemis, the agency’s new advanced telecommunications satellite.
The multi-purpose satellite – the precursor to new and advanced satellite communication services – will be launched by an Ariane 5 from Europe's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 12 July 2001.
Artemis, which will share the Ariane 510 launcher with the BSAT-2b direct broadcasting satellite, is the most advanced telecommunication satellite developed by ESA.
It will demonstrate new technologies and play a significant part in developing Europe’s new worldwide satellite navigation system, new mobile communication services and inter-satellite data relay.
Since its shipment to Kourou in March, extensive tests have been carried out to ensure the satellite is in prime condition and on-going checks between the Fucino-based control centre in Italy and the ground network of operational world wide stations are underway.
A full rehearsal for the launch and early operational procedures has also been completed and the satellite is now being prepared for its eight week pre-launch campaign – an intensive programme of checks and validation of all satellite functions and ground systems.
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The Ariane 5 will place Artemis into geostationary orbit at 21.5 degrees East over central Africa.
During a ten year lifetime in space its orbital position will be maintained by ion propulsion thrusters, a new technology used for the first time on an ESA satellite.
A breakthrough in altitude stabilisation techniques, ion propulsion requires greatly reduced levels of propellant and its successful demonstration on Artemis could pave the way for more versatile and longer satellite missions in the future.
The Artemis mobile communication payload includes an L-Band Land Mobile (LLM) facility, with a wide 'Eurobeam', three spot beams and the capability of handling up to 662 voice channels at any one time.
This means the satellite will offer unprecedented new facilities for the development of vastly more sophisticated land and marine mobile communication systems.
In addition, the satellite has a unique data-relay payload called SILEX (Semiconductor laser Inter-satellite Link EXperiment) which will speed up communication between satellites and help to bring Earth observation images down to their appropriate terrestrial stations faster and more efficiently. First to benefit from this will be the French Earth observing satellite, Spot 4, and, after its launch later in 2001, ESA's giant Earth 'watchdog', Envisat.
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