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Satellites |
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Defence
Due to confidentiality agreements, we can not post information about all projects.
Please call us if you are military affiliated.
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Here you will find a number of selected satellites in which we successfully contributed diverse technological tasks.
Coronas-Photon
| Mission type |
Solar science
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| Organization |
Russian Federal Space Agency
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| Launch date |
30 Januar 2009
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| Launched from |
LC-32, Plesetsk
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| Instruments |
Electromagnetic radiation and neutrons
High energy spectrometer "NATALYA-2M"; Registration of: Gamma-ray spectroscopy 0.3 - 2000 MeV; solar neutrons 20 - 300 MeV; Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI), Russia
Low energy gamma-ray telescope RT-2; Registration of: Hard X-ray spectroscopy 10 - 150 keV in phoswich mode; spectrometric mode 0.10 - 2 MeV; TATA Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai (Bombay), India
Hard X-ray polarimeter-spectrometer "PENGUIN-M"; Registration of: Hard X-ray polarization 20 - 150 keV; soft X-ray monitoring 2 - 10 keV; X-ray & gamma-ray spectroscopy 0.015 - 5 MeV; Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, St-Petersburg, Russia;
X-ray and gamma-ray spectrometer "KONUS-RF"; Solar flares and gamma-ray bursts hard X-ray & gamma-ray spectroscopy in the energy range of 10 keV - 12 MeV with high time resolution; Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, St-Petersburg, Russia
X-rays
Fast X-ray monitor BRM; Hard X-ray monitoring 20 - 600 keV in six channels with time resolution 2 - 3 ms; MEPhI, Russia
Multi-channel ultraviolet monitor PHOKA; Registration of: Full disk EUV radiation 1 - 130 nm in six spectral windows; occultation measurements of UV absorption in Earth atmosphere 150 - 500 km; MEPhI, Russia
Solar telescope/imaging spectrometer TESIS; Sun full-disk image in spectral channels: 134A: = 10, spatial res. .. 1"; 304A: = 10, spatial res. .. 1"; Field of view: Disk 35', Corona (2 - 5) RSun 8.418 - 8.423 A: = 2x10-4/cell, spatial res. = 2", Field of view: 45' (full disk); Lebedev Physical Institute (LPI), Moscow, Russia
Cosmic rays
Charged particle analyzer "ELECTRON-M-PESCA"; Flux and energy spectra registration: protons 1 - 20 MeV; electrons 0.2 - 2 MeV; nuclei (Z < 26) 2 - 50 MeV/nucleon; Scobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics at Moscow State University, Russia; University de Alcala de Henares, Madrid, Spain
Satellite telescope of electrons and protons STEP-F; Flux and energy spectra registration: protons 9.8 - 61.0 MeV; electrons 0.4 - 14.3 MeV; alpha-particles 37.0 - 246.0 MeV with particle direction measurement accuracy 8 - 10 arc degree; Kharkov National University, Ukraine
Scientific supply systems
Magnetometer SM-8M; Measurements of three components of constant magnetic field on satellite orbit in the range of -55 uT .. +55 uT; FGU NPP "Geologorazvedka", St-Petersburg, Russia; MEPhI, Russia
Scientific data acquisition and registration system SSRNI; Scientific data reception from 24 digital array sources by parallel interface up to 125 Kbit/s; online stored memory size - not less than 4 Gbit; transmitting speed in radio-link not less than 7.68 Mbit/s; Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia
Control and communications block BUS-FM; Power supply and instrument control with 200 single commands and programmed command information; Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia
X-band radio transmitter set 8.2 GHz; Scientific data transmission to the ground station in the frequency range of 8.2 GHz (X-band), output power 8 W; includes transmitters, feeders and antenna; Russian Institute of Space Device Engineering, Moscow, Russia
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| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing. SphinX.
CORONAS-Photon (Complex Orbital Observations Near-Earth of Activity of the Sun), is a Russian Solar research satellite. It is the third satellite in the Russian Coronas programme, and part of the international Living With a Star programme. It is currently scheduled to be launched on 20 December 2008, from Site 32 at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, aboard a Tsyklon-3 rocket, which will be making the final flight of the Tsyklon family of rockets.
CORONAS-Photon is a successor to the CORONAS-F and CORONAS-I satellites, launched in 1994 and 2001 respectively. It will be operated by the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and the Research Institute for Electromechanics. It was built using a bus constructed for Meteor-M weather satellites, and will operate in a 500 x 500km x 82.5 grades polar low Earth orbit. It is expected to be operated for three years.
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Envisat
| Instruments |
Several of the instruments are advanced versions of instruments that were flown on the earlier ERS-1 and ERS-2 missions and other satellites.
ASAR (Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar) operating in C band can detect changes in surface heights with sub-millimeter precision.
MERIS (MEdium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer) measures the reflectance of the Earth (surface and atmosphere) in the solar spectral range (390 to 1040 nm) and transmits 15 spectral bands back to the ground segment.
AATSR (Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer) can measure the temperature of the sea surface
RA-2 (Radar Altimeter 2) is a dual-frequency Nadir pointing Radar operating in the Ku band and S bands, it is used to define ocean topography, map/monitor sea ice and measure land heights.
MWR (Microwave Radiometer) for measuring water vapour in the atmosphere and estimate the tropospheric delay for the Altimeter
DORIS (Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite) for orbit determination to within 10 cm or less
GOMOS (Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars) looks to stars as they descend through the Earth's atmosphere and change color, which also tells a lot about the presence of gases such as O3 (ozone), and allows for the first time a space-based measurement of the vertical distribution of these trace gases.
MIPAS (Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding) is a spectrometer
SCIAMACHY (SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY) compares light coming from the sun to light reflected by the Earth, which provides information on the atmosphere through which the earth-reflected light has passed.
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| Task description |
Data Mining Study.
Envisat (Environmental Satellite) is an Earth-observing satellite built by the European Space Agency. It was launched on the 1st March 2002 aboard an Ariane 5 into a Sun synchronous polar orbit at a height of 790 km (±10 km). It orbits the Earth in about 101 minutes with a repeat cycle of 35 days. It is the largest European satellite to date (late 2006), with total mass 8211 kg.
Envisat carries an array of nine Earth-observation instruments that gather information about the earth (land, water, ice, and atmosphere) using a variety of measurement principles.
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Galileo Testbed
| Task description |
Galileo Testbed.
Currently the European satellite navigation system Galileo is under development, with a planned operational availability from end of 2013. Therefore the development of Galileo based applications and products becomes more and more important. With GATE, a ground based, realistic test bed will be developed, especially covering the needs of receiver manufacturers and application developers. GATE is funded by the German Aerospace Center DLR.
The experimental operation phase of GATE has been completed successfully. As from August 2008 it is possible for companies and research institutes to book GATE for various experiments. It is planned to operate GATE at least until the full operational capability of GALILEO.
Under leadership of IFEN GmbH, a consortium has been formed to develop and build the GATE test bed. This consortium is composed of enterprises (EADS Astrium GmbH, Kayser-Threde GmbH, VEGA IT GmbH, VCS AG, Telematica e.K.) and research institutes (DLR-GSOC, DLR-Institute for Communication and Navigation, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits and the Institute for Geodesy and Navigation of the University FAF Munich).
The GATE test bed cornerstones are 6 ground transmitters, emitting the Galileo signals towards the GATE test area. Inside this test area, which is located in the region of Berchtesgaden, test receivers can receive these signals and perform positioning.
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GOES-6
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (or GOES) program is a key element in United States' National Weather Service (NWS) operations.
GOES weather imagery and quantitative sounding data are a continuous and reliable stream of environmental information used to support weather forecasting, severe storm tracking, and meteorological research.
Evolutionary improvements in the geostationary satellite system since 1974 (the launch of the first Synchronous Meteorological Satellite, SMS-1) have been responsible for making the current GOES system the basic element for U.S. weather monitoring and forecasting.
Spacecraft and ground-based systems work together to accomplish the GOES mission.
GOES-1, launched on October 16, 1975, decommissioned
GOES-2, launched on June 16, 1977, decommissioned
GOES-3, launched on June 16, 1978, used as a communications relay for the South Pole research station.
GOES-4, launched on September 9, 1980, decommissioned
GOES-5, launched on May 22, 1981, deactivated on July 18, 1990
GOES-6, launched on April 28, 1983, decommissioned
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GOES-7
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
GOES-7, launched April 28, 1987, decommissioned
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GOES-8
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
GOES-8, launched on April 13, 1994, decommissioned
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GOES-9
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
GOES-9, launched on May 23, 1995, decommissioned on June 15, 2007
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GOES-10
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
GOES-10, launched on April 25, 1997, in operation.
GOES-10 is currently located at 60°W and provides coverage of South America.
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GOES-11
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
GOES-11, launched on May 3, 2000, in operation.
GOES-11 is designated GOES-West, currently located at 135°W over the Pacific Ocean.
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GOES-12
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
GOES-12, launched on July 23, 2001, in operation.
GOES-12 is designated GOES-East, currently located at 75°W over the Amazon River. It provides most of the U.S. weather information.
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GOES-13
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
GOES-13, launched on May 24, 2006, orbiting - in storage.
GOES-13 is in on-orbit storage at 105°W.
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GPS
| Task description |
HW research Tasks. UAV positioning.
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) developed by the United States Department of Defense. It is the only fully functional GNSS in the world. It uses a constellation of between 24 and 32 Medium Earth Orbit satellites that transmit precise microwave signals, that enable GPS receivers to determine their current location, the time, and their velocity (including direction). Its official name is NAVSTAR-GPS. Although NAVSTAR-GPS is not an acronym, a few backronyms have been created for it. The GPS satellite constellation is managed by the United States Air Force 50th Space Wing. GPS is often used by civilians as a navigation system.
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GSAT-2
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
GSAT-2 is an experimental communication satellite built by the Indian Space Research Organisation and launched on one of the first GSLVs. The satellite was positioned at 48 deg east longitude in the geo-stationary orbit.
GSAT-2 carried four C-band transponders, two Ku-bands transponders and a Mobile Satellite Service (MSS) payload operating in S-band forward link and C-band return link.
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Hinode
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
Hinode (Japanese: "Sunrise"), formerly known as Solar-B, is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Solar mission with United States and United Kingdom collaboration. It is the follow-up to the Yohkoh ("Solar-A") mission and it was launched on the final flight of the M-V rocket from Uchinoura Space Center, Japan on September 22, 2006 at 21:36 GMT (September 23, 06:36 JST). Initial orbit was perigee height 280 km, apogee height 686 km, inclination 98.3 degrees. Then the satellite maneuvered to the quasi-circular sun-synchronous orbit over the day/night terminator, which allows near-continuous observation of the Sun. On October 28, the probe's instruments captured their first images.
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MetOp-A
| Task description |
Cloud detection. AVHRR is currently flown on the satellites NOAA-15, -16, -17, 18,
and Metop-A.
MetOp is a series of polar orbiting meteorological satellites operated by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites. The satellites are all part af the EUMETSAT Polar System. It is intended to replace the soon to be retired TIROS network. The satellites, the first of which was launched on October 19, 2006, are equipped with the same equipment as the TIROS satellites, plus extra atmospheric measuring instruments.
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NOAA-15
| Task description |
Cloud detection. AVHRR is currently flown on the satellites NOAA-15, -16, -17, 18,
and Metop-A.
NOAA-15 is a weather forecasting satellite run by NOAA. It was launched on 15 May 1998, and is currently operational, in a sun-synchronous orbit, 807km above the Earth, orbiting every 101 minutes. It hosts the AMSU, AVHRR and High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) instruments.
APT transmission frequency is 137.50 MHz
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NOAA-16
| Task description |
Cloud detection.
NOAA-16 is a weather forecasting satellite run by NOAA. It was launched on 21 September 2000, and is currently operational, in a sun-synchronous orbit, 849km above the Earth, orbiting every 102 minutes. It hosts the AMSU, AVHRR and High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) instruments.
This satellite has no operational APT transmitter - it was decommissioned 15 Nov 2000.
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NOAA-17
| Task description |
Cloud detection.
NOAA-17 is a weather forecasting satellite run by NOAA. It was launched on 24 June 2002, and is currently operational, in a sun-synchronous orbit, 810km above the Earth, orbiting every 101 minutes. It hosts the AMSU, AVHRR and High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) instruments.
APT transmission frequency is 137.62 MHz
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NOAA-18
| Task description |
Cloud detection.
NOAA-18 is a weather forecasting satellite run by NOAA. It was launched on 20 May 2005, and is currently operational, in a sun-synchronous orbit, 854km above the Earth, orbiting every 102 minutes. It hosts the AMSU-A, MHS, AVHRR and High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) instruments. It is the first NOAA POES satellite to use MHS in place of AMSU-B.
APT transmission frequency is 137.10 MHz
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RHESSI
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI, or more rarely Explorer 81) is the sixth mission in the line of NASA Small Explorer missions (also known as SMEX). Launched on 5 February 2002, its primary mission is to explore the basic physics of particle acceleration and explosive energy release in solar flares.
HESSI was renamed to RHESSI on March 29, 2002 in honor of Reuven Ramaty, a pioneer in the area of high energy solar physics - RHESSI is the first space mission named after a NASA scientist. RHESSI was designed and is operated at the Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley California.
RHESSI is designed to image solar flares in energetic photons from soft X rays (~3 keV) to gamma rays (up to ~20 MeV) and to provide high resolution spectroscopy up to gamma-ray energies of ~20 MeV. Furthermore, it has the capability to perform spatially resolved spectroscopy with high spectral resolution.
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SOHO
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is a spacecraft that was launched on a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS launch vehicle on December 2, 1995 to study the Sun, and began normal operations in May 1996. It is a joint project of international cooperation between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. Originally planned as a two-year mission, SOHO currently continues to operate after over ten years in space. In addition to its scientific mission, it is currently the main source of near-real time solar data for space weather prediction. Along with the GGS Wind and Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), SOHO is one of three spacecraft currently in the vicinity of the Earth-Sun L1 point, a point of gravitational balance located approximately 0.99 astronomical unit (AU)s from the Sun and 0.01 AU from the Earth. In addition to its scientific contributions, SOHO is distinguished by being the first three-axis-stabilized spacecraft to use its reaction wheels as a kind of virtual gyroscope; the technique was adopted after an on-board emergency in 1998 that nearly resulted in the loss of the spacecraft.
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Solar Orbiter
| Task description |
STIX.
By approaching as close as 48 solar radii, the Solar Orbiter will view the solar atmosphere with unprecedented spatial resolution. Over extended periods the Solar Orbiter will deliver images and data of the polar regions and the side of the Sun not visible from Earth.
Solar Orbiter will coordinate its scientific mission with NASA's Solar Sentinels into the joint HELEX programme (Heliophysics Explorers) to maximise their combined science return.
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SWARM
| Task description |
The Flight software (Startup SW & Application SW) and GSE software (Test Equipment SW) for an Microaccelerometer Instrument MAC-04 for the Earth's Magnetic field and environment Explorer SWARM.
Delivery of the complete software package in all phases
Requirements and architecture design phase
Detailed design and implementation phase
Delivery and acceptance phase
The objective of the Swarm mission is to provide the best ever survey of the geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution, and gain new insights into improving our knowledge of the Earth's interior and climate.
The Swarm concept consists of a constellation of three satellites in three different polar orbits between 400 and 550 km altitude. High-precision and high-resolution measurements of the strength and direction of the magnetic field will be provided by each satellite. In combination, they will provide the necessary observations that are required to model various sources of the geomagnetic field. GPS receivers, an accelerometer and an electric field instrument will provide supplementary information for studying the interaction of the magnetic field with other physical quantities describing the Earth system - for example, Swarm could provide independent data on ocean circulation.
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TRACE
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal Explorer) is a NASA space telescope designed to investigate the connections between fine-scale magnetic fields and the associated plasma structures on the Sun by providing high resolution images and observation of the solar photosphere and transition region to the corona. A main focus of the TRACE instrument is the fine structure of coronal loops low in the solar atmosphere.
The satellite was built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Its telecope was constructed by a consortium lead by Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center. TRACE was launched in April 1998 on a Pegasus rocket, has a 30 cm aperture and 1024 x 1024 CCD detector giving an 8.5 arc minute field of view. The telescope is designed to take correlated images in a range of wavelengths from visible light, through the Lyman alpha line to far ultraviolet. The different wavelength passbands correspond to plasma emission temperatures from 4,000 to 4,000,000 K.
TRACE is a SMEX or Small Explorer mission.
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Yohkoh
| Task description |
Solar Physics data processing.
Yohkoh (Sunbeam in Japanese), also known as Solar-A, was a Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science Solar mission with United States and United Kingdom collaboration. It was launched into Earth orbit August 30, 1991 by a M-3S-5 rocket from Kagoshima Space Center.
The satellite was three-axis stabilized and in a near circular orbit. It carried four instruments - a Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT), a Hard X-ray Telescope (HXT), a Bragg Crystal Spectrometer (BCS), and a Wide Band Spectrometer (WBS). About 50 Mb were generated each day and this was stored onboard by a 10.5 Mb capacity recorder.
Because SXT utilized a charge-coupled device (CCD) as its readout device, perhaps being the first X-ray astronomical telescope to do so, its "data cube" of images was both extensive and convenient, and it revealed much interesting detail about the behavior of the solar corona. Previous solar soft X-ray observations, such as those of Skylab, had been restricted to film as a readout device. Many interesting new discoveries were also made; for glimpses of these see the Yohkoh Science Nuggets for example.
The mission ended after more than ten years of successful observation when it went into its "safehold" mode during an annular eclipse on December 14, 2001 after the spacecraft lost lock on the Sun. Operational mistakes and other flaws conspired in such a way that its solar panels could no longer charge the batteries, which drained irreversibly. Ironically, several other solar eclipses had successfully been observed.
On September 12, 2005 the spacecraft burned up during reentry over South Asia. The time of reentry, as provided by the U.S. Space Surveillance Network, was 6:16 pm Japan Standard Time (JST).
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