News archive

News archive

ESA's four Cluster spacecraft continue to provide groundbreaking new information about the interaction between our nearest star - the Sun - and planet Earth.
Published: 13 July 2001
On 16 July 2000, the first pair of Cluster satellites was launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. To mark the first anniversary of this unique mission to explore near-Earth space, the European Space Agency and the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council will participate in a special ceremony and press event at The Mansion House in Bristol.
Published: 11 July 2001
On 16 July 2000, the first pair of Cluster satellites was launched from Baikonour in Kazakhstan. To mark the first anniversary of this unique mission to explore near-Earth space, the European Space Agency and the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council will participate in aspecial ceremony and press event at The Mansion House in Bristol.
Published: 10 July 2001
A new phase in ESA-China scientific collaboration was officially given the green light today at ESA Headquarters in Paris with an historic agreement between ESA and the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) to develop a joint project known as 'Double Star'.
Published: 9 July 2001
An astronaut who exits a spacecraft without a spacesuit will die very quickly because there is no air to breathe. However, although space is often regarded as an airless vacuum, it is by no means empty. Spacecraft such as Cluster are built to detect and study the sparse 'soup' of electrified plasma - mostly electrons and protons - that populates near-Earth space.
Published: 25 June 2001
Some 100 scientists and engineers gathered last week at the European Space Technology Research Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands for the 36th ClusterScience Working Team (SWT) meeting. They were greeted with the news that the four Cluster spacecraft - Rumba, Salsa, Samba and Tango - are now dancing in a new formation around the Earth.
Published: 11 June 2001
Moving time has arrived for the four Cluster spacecraft. During the next few weeks, the satellites will carry out a series of manoeuvres that will increase their separation distances. Eventually, each spacecraft will havedrifted to a distance of 2000 km from its partners, compared to the current figure of 600 km.
Published: 21 May 2001
An exciting new East-West scientific collaboration recently took a further step towards acceptance when a group of European Space Agency delegates and space scientists travelled to Beijing to meet their Chinese counterparts.
Published: 19 April 2001
Studies of near-Earth space will never be the same again, following the successful commissioning of the European Space Agency's Cluster mission.
Published: 15 February 2001
In the summer of 1999, millions of people across Europe peered upwards at the sky in an effort to see one of Nature's wonders - a total eclipse of the Sun. On 25 January, European engineers and scientists witnessed an eclipse of a different kind - the passage of four Cluster spacecraft through the outer part of the Moon's shadow.
Published: 11 February 2001
Six months after four Cluster spacecraft congregated in Earth orbit, scientists are beginning to gather the first scientific results from ESA's unique mission to explore the magnetosphere - the magnetic shield that surrounds our planet.
Published: 6 February 2001
Cluster's unique mission formally got under way yesterday when the ESA Commissioning Review Board gave unanimous approval for the start of scientific operations.
Published: 1 February 2001
Space scientists are a hard-working, dedicated group, and fewhave worked harder than those involved in getting the four Clusterspacecraft up and running. With this in mind, two members of the Clusterground-based community recently displayed courage and dedicationbeyond the call of duty to support Cluster observations.
Published: 28 January 2001
Studies of near-Earth space will never be the same again. For the first time in the history of space exploration, identical instruments on four spacecraft have begun to return simultaneous measurements of a region of space known as the bow shock.
Published: 14 January 2001
Members of the Cluster science community and operations teams at ESOC (Darmstadt, Germany) and JSOC (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK) are looking forward to a well deserved Christmas break after successfully concluding the instrument interference campaign with the Cluster quartet.
Published: 21 December 2000
Some 70 representatives of the international Cluster scientific communitycame together last week for the 35th Cluster Science Working Team at theEuropean Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.
Published: 3 December 2000
The commissioning phase of the Cluster mission came a step nearer completion recently when the last three instruments (CIS, RAPID and PEACE) on the Rumba spacecraft were switched on. Once they complete commissioning in early December, engineers will subject the 11 instruments on each spacecraft to an interference campaign in order to check out whether they affect each other's measurements.
Published: 23 November 2000
Events have moved quickly over the past week as the Cluster mission has passed a series of significant landmarks.
Published: 16 November 2000
It's official. ESA's Cluster mission represents one of the most significant advances in space science over the past 12 months.
Published: 9 November 2000
Now half way through their complex commissioning campaign, the Clusterquartet are well on their way to becoming operational.
Published: 20 October 2000
29-Mar-2024 14:59 UT

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