10/09/2024
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Sentinel-2C has achieved its important first few days in home, which seen teams on the underside working throughout the clock to ensure the spacecraft is ready to begin its mission.
Launch day
The third Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite tv for pc television for computer launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana aboard the final word Vega rocket on 5 September at 03:50 CEST (4 September 22:50 native time).
The 1.1 tonne satellite tv for pc television for computer carries a high-resolution optical payload that may assure Europe’s Copernicus Earth assertion programme continues to assemble a number of of the best world colour imagery of our land and vegetation ever delivered from home.
After a worthwhile launch, Sentinel-2C separated from its Vega rocket at roughly 04:48 CEST. Spherical 14 minutes later, at 05:02 CEST, ESA’s ESOC mission operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany, acquired the all-important first alerts from the satellite tv for pc television for computer indicating that it had safely arrived in orbit.
We hear you, #Sentinel2 C!
Troll Station in Antarctica is receiving the satellite tv for pc television for computer’s signal and telemetry is arriving loud and clear at ESA mission administration in Germany. pic.twitter.com/4bq9UWOAqI
— ESA Operations (@esaoperations) September 5, 2024
A satellite tv for pc television for computer’s first days in orbit
The teams didn’t must attend prolonged for the first piece of fantastic info: by means of the satellite tv for pc television for computer’s first 12-minute communication window with KSAT’s Troll ground station in Antarctica, operators acquired affirmation that Sentinel-2C had effectively deployed its picture voltaic array.
As quickly because the crew had gained administration of the satellite tv for pc television for computer and confirmed that it had begun to generate power, they set to work switching on and assessing the efficiency of the satellite tv for pc television for computer’s totally different core applications. Within the meantime, ESA’s Flight Dynamics crew determined the exact orbit that the satellite tv for pc television for computer had been inserted into by its Vega launcher, and ESA’s Home Particles Office repeatedly scanned this orbit to ensure it was free of any hazard of collision with one different spacecraft or piece of particles.
“Complete, Sentinel-2C’s Launch and Early Orbit Part (LEOP) went very simply, and we had been ready to full your entire compulsory actions a bit before deliberate,” acknowledged Flight Operations Director Franco Marchese. “Ending a LEOP early reduces the possibility that these important actions are disrupted on account of we have now to carry out a collision avoidance manoeuvre to avoid an incoming piece of home particles.”
Marchese reported that the Sentinel-2C LEOP half formally ended on Friday night time, with the spacecraft and ground applications all working as anticipated.
“We have effectively carried out our first orbital manoeuvre using Sentinel-2C’s thrusters. The satellite tv for pc television for computer is in good kind and the commissioning half – all through which we’re going to make sure that its multispectral imager payload is ready for routine operations – started on Monday.”
Sentinel-2C will now spend the next three months being prepared to start out the routine acquisition of high-resolution pictures of Earth’s land surfaces, islands, inland and coastal waters from an altitude of spherical 790 km.
“Following a great launch by the final word Vega rocket, the Sentinel-2C LEOP was swiftly achieved by our teams working at ESOC,” acknowledged ESA’s Head of Mission Operations Simon Plum.
“Together with the teams at ESOC, I wish to thank all the teams involved in Sentinel-2C – along with these from enterprise, the teams at ESA’s ESTEC engineering centre and ESRIN Earth assertion centre, and the Vega teams at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou – for a job properly achieved and a clear start to this important mission.”
