The largest European spacecraft pass through this unique Netherlands site on their way to space. The ESTEC Test Centre offers a multitude of testing facilities enclosed within cleanroom conditions under a single roof, able to simulate all the rigours of an actual flight into orbit, including vibration and acoustic effects, temperature extremes and, of course, exposure to hard vacuum.  
 

MetOp-B PLM inside LSS

MetOp-B’s Payload Module was placed inside the Large Space Simulator on 12 June. The simulator is the largest vacuum chamber in Europe: its cylindrical chamber can accommodate a double-decker bus standing upright.

MetOp is Europe’s biggest and most complex Earth observation satellite since Envisat. For convenience of testing, MetOp-B has been divided into two. The Payload Module, housing MetOp’s suite of meteorology sensors, is being put through its paces at ESTEC while its Service Module is being evaluated separately at Intespace in Toulouse, France.
 
 

	AMS-02 in LSS

Once preparations are complete at the start of July, the module will be subjected to thermal-vacuum testing in the chamber during a continuous 17-day period.

The performance of the sensors mounted on the module will be checked thanks to a number of cold ‘blackbodies’ located very close to them and controlled at temperatures varying between –243°C and –183°C.
 
 

Airbus section

Back in March, the chamber housed a different guest: the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02), a unique particle physics experiment looking for evidence of antimatter and dark matter. It is intended to be the Space Shuttle’s last-ever cargo to the International Space Station.

And demonstrating how the ESTEC Test Centre is also able to serve wider European industry, Airbus recently completed a complex set of vibration tests on a fuselage section using ESTEC’s largest vibration facility, called Hydra.
 
 

	BepiColombo components

From September onwards, various elements of the BepiColombo Mercury spacecraft will be evaluated.

“We will produce for them what must be the highest artificial Sun intensity a full satellite has ever been subjected to,” explained Mr Piret. The illumination will be equivalent to the strength of 10 Suns at Earth's location.

“If all the modules survive the first challenge of the Sun simulation, they will have to be piled up on the shaker to demonstrate that they will survive the vibrations of launch.”