The ENVISAT 1 spacecraft, flagship of ESA's Earth observation programme, has recently fallen silent raising fears that the 8 tonne satellite has suffered a critical anomaly. Personnel at ESA's operations centre at Darmstadt in Germany have been struggling over the last week or so to regain contact with the stricken spacecraft. The operations team are particularly concerned that there is no confirmation that the vehicle has entered 'safe mode', which maintains the system's power by autonomously aligning the solar array optimally to the Sun.
To discover whether the satellite has suffered significant damage, mainly from impact with space junk, ESA requested the French national space agency CNES to task its Pleiades system (see gallery) to image ENVISAT from orbit. The Pleiades system orbits around 70 km below the ENVISAT orbital altitude. The outcome of exercise is shown above (see gallery for enlaged version). This remarkable image, taken from a range of 100 km, shows the spacecraft to be intact, with no significant discernable damage.
The mystery continues ...
To discover whether the satellite has suffered significant damage, mainly from impact with space junk, ESA requested the French national space agency CNES to task its Pleiades system (see gallery) to image ENVISAT from orbit. The Pleiades system orbits around 70 km below the ENVISAT orbital altitude. The outcome of exercise is shown above (see gallery for enlaged version). This remarkable image, taken from a range of 100 km, shows the spacecraft to be intact, with no significant discernable damage.
The mystery continues ...
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