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| PR 44-1999: Cluster II Nears Countdown |
| On Wednesday 24 November, the four satellites of the Cluster II mission will be on display - for the last time together in Europe - at the IABG Space Test Centre in Ottobrunn, near Munich, Germany. Media representatives are also invited to attend a press conference with specialists from the European Space Agency, Dornier Satellite Systems - the prime contractor for the spacecraft - and scientists involved in the mission. |
| Date: 10 Nov 1999 |
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| New Soyuz upper stage passes ESA design review |
| Following completion of its ground qualification test programme in August, the new Fregat upper stage for the Russian Soyuz launch vehicle last week passed an ESA Design Review. |
| Date: 09 Nov 1999 |
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| Cluster II team visits the Baikonour catacombs |
| For the last four decades, thousands of rockets have taken off from the
launch pads at
Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but few Westerners have had the
opportunity
to see the facilities at close quarters. During a recent visit to the once
secret
cosmodrome, members of the Cluster II project management team and
representatives
of industry were given a VIP tour of the Soyuz launch complex. (*) Next
summer, this
site will be a scene of frenetic activity as the four Cluster II satellites
are carried into
orbit in dual Soyuz launches. |
| Date: 27 Oct 1999 |
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| Cluster II collaboration with Chinese discussed |
| The Cluster II mission to explore near-Earth space has attracted a great
deal of
interest from scientists in all parts of the world, not least the Chinese.
Apart from
direct participation in the exciting ESA mission, Chinese researchers are
hoping to fly
their own 'mini-Cluster' mission, known as Double Star.
Last month a team from ESA, which included Project Manager John Ellwood,
Project
Scientist Philippe Escoubet and three scientific principal investigators,
spent nine days
in Beijing discussing possible collaboration in Double Star with their
Chinese
counterparts from the Centre for Space Science and Applied Research.
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| Date: 07 Oct 1999 |
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| Cluster II meets the media during London workshop |
| On 22 September, members of the Cluster II team took time off from a
three-day
workshop at Imperial College, London, to meet the press. During the
briefing, which
was jointly organised by ESA and the UKs Particle Physics and Astronomy
Research
Council (PPARC), members of the media were given an overview of the unique
mission to map the Earths magnetosphere in three dimensions, and informed
of the
projects current status. |
| Date: 24 Sep 1999 |
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| Boom Time for Cluster II Spacecraft. |
| We are all familiar with normal gravity which holds us to the ground and
pulls us back
to Earth when we try to jump or fly. However, as images of space missions
show,
people and objects become 'weightless' once they enter orbit. Over the
years,
spacecraft engineers have been obliged to develop various ways of copying
such
unusual conditions. |
| Date: 06 Aug 1999 |
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| First Cluster spacecraft is the ultimate 'Clean Machine' |
| What happens to a spacecraft when it has been assembled and tested, and its launch date is still almost a year away? For Cluster II engineers and technicians, pushing the spacecraft into a dusty cupboard and forgetting about it is not an option.
The satellite has to be continually monitored and looked after with tender, loving care. |
| Date: 02 Aug 1999 |
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| Cluster II scientists review new data system |
| Well over 200 scientists around the world are looking forward to receiving
the vast flow of data that will start streaming back next year from ESA's
four Cluster II spacecraft. Apart from the ESA member states, they include
Co-Investigators from the United States, Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary,
India, Israel and Japan.
Since 44 instruments on the four Cluster II spacecraft will return about
330 Gigabytes (330,000,000,000 bytes) of data over two years - equivalent
to 165 million pages of printed text - the efficient worldwide distribution
of this vast amount of information is of major concern to the science
community. |
| Date: 29 Jun 1999 |
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| Cluster II spacecraft loses its magnetism |
| A steady stream of scientists and engineers coming and going. A strange
wooden building hidden behind a high wire fence deep in the Bavarian
forests. Unusual humming sounds coming from inside the structure. A
suitable case for an X-Files investigation by Mulder and Scully? Far from it. |
| Date: 14 Jun 1999 |
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| Cluster FM7 gets a long-distance call |
| How can anyone be sure that communications between the four satellites and the Earth will not break down once the Cluster II spacecraft are placed in orbit? The obvious answer is to test the system and see whether it
works. |
| Date: 28 May 1999 |
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| Cluster II Science Working Team reports |
| Some 60 scientists and engineers from most of the ESA member countries and
the United States gathered at ESTEC in The Netherlands, 18-19 May, for the latest meeting of the Cluster II Science Working Team (SWT). With a little over one year to go before the dual launches of the four Cluster II spacecraft, the message coming across loud and clear was "Two Down, Two To Go". |
| Date: 20 May 1999 |
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| Cluster II spacecraft shake, bake and roll |
| The road towards final acceptance for a Cluster II spacecraft can be rather
rough. Having completed its assembly at the Friedrichshafen plant of
Dornier Satellitensysteme, the first Cluster II flight model (FM6) is now
undergoing a rigorous series of systems and environmental tests at IABG (Industrie Anlagen Betriebsgezellschafte) near Munich. For the next few months, the drum-shaped spacecraft will
undergo all sorts of indignities - vibrations, temperature changes, rapid
rotation and magnetic monitoring. |
| Date: 28 Apr 1999 |
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| Cluster II team tours the Baikonur launch site |
| Members of the Cluster II project team had front row seats for the launch
of a Soyuz rocket during a recent visit to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan. The team of visitors included Cluster II project manager John
Ellwood, project controller Looc Bourillet, Gerard Melchior from ESA's
Launchers Department, doctor Albert Koopman and Tatyana Suslova
representing ESA's Moscow Office. The aim of the visit was to check out the
local facilities and logistics in preparation for the Cluster II launch
campaign during March - July 2000. |
| Date: 19 Apr 1999 |
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| Spanish antenna upgraded for Cluster II |
| Over the past few months, a major relocation exercise has been taking place in preparation for the Cluster II launches next year. The result is the creation of a new structure on the site of an elderly 15 metre dish antenna (VIL-1) at the European Space Agency's Villafranca del Castillo Satellite Tracking Station (VILSPA) in Spain.
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| Date: 19 Mar 1999 |
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| Cluster II on the road to Munich |
| Shooting of the first scene in the Cluster II 'road movie' started on 3 March
with the departure
of the FM (flight model) 6 spacecraft on its 350 km journey from
Friedrichshafen to
Munich. FM6 was the first of four identical Cluster II spacecraft to be
despatched from
the Dornier Satellitensysteme assembly building in Friedrichshafen to the
IABG test
facility in Ottobrunn, near Munich. |
| Date: 04 Mar 1999 |
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| Three Clusters visible as FM7 mating begins |
| The fleet of Cluster II spacecraft is growing daily inside the giant clean
room at the
Dornier Satellitensysteme plant in Friedrichshafen, Germany. Three of the
four spacecraft
are now visible in various stages of construction |
| Date: 16 Feb 1999 |
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| Cluster Launch Details Released |
| New photographs and details of the dual launches involving the four Cluster spacecraft have now been posted on the Cluster web site. The new pages include information on launch preparations, the launch site, the spacecraft orbits and the Soyuz launcher with its newly developed Fregat upper stage which will boost the Cluster spacecraft into their preliminary parking orbit. |
| Date: 03 Feb 1999 |
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| Cluster II Mission Validation Review successfully completed |
| Cluster II has successfully passed the Mission Validation Review which was
held at ESTEC in The Netherlands on 8 December 1998. No major problems or 'show stoppers' were identified. |
| Date: 13 Jan 1999 |
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| From Russia with Fregat |
| Preparations for the dual Soyuz launch of the four Cluster II
spacecraft have advanced during the past few weeks. During a recent
visit to Moscow, a high level team of ESA officials, led by ESA's Head of Scientific Projects,
John Credland, received an update from their Russian partners on how
the launch vehicle was progressing.
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| Date: 17 Dec 1998 |
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| Cluster II science working team reports excellent progress |
| Some 60 scientists and engineers pose for a rare photo opportunity beside
quarter scale models of the four Cluster II spacecraft. The happy group
came together during the latest meeting of the Cluster II Science Working Team
(SWT) at
the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. Those
present included representatives from the United States and China as well
as most ESA member states. |
| Date: 24 Nov 1998 |
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