ESA Science & Technology

ESA's Planck satellite at Copenhagen's Planetarium

The Tycho Brahe Planetarium in Copenhagen hosts from today a full-scale mock-up of ESA4s satellite Planck, as the main element of an exhibition officially opened today by the Danish Minister of Research, Birte Weiss.

Published: 12 May 2000

"Exciting high quality data" for cosmology, ESA scientist says

The 'Boomerang' (Balloon Observations Of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation ANd Geomagnetics) project, whose results appear in 'Nature' tomorrow [27 April 2000], will provide "exciting high quality data" for cosmology, says ESA astronomer Jan Tauber, project scientist of ESA's next mission to study the origin and evolution of the Universe, Planck.

Published: 26 April 2000

Planck's full-scale mock-up unveiled this week in Bologna

Planck, ESA's satellite to study the origins of the Universe, will makeits first 'public appearance' this week in Bologna (Italy): a full-scalemock-up of the satellite, due for launch in 2007, will be unveiled forthe first time at the 'Settimana della cultura scientifica' ('Scientific knowledge week') organised by the Institutes of the ItalianResearch Council (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche) of the BolognaResearch Area. Themock-up, a structure of wood and aluminium recently built for technicalpurposes, will now serve to explain how Planck will answer the mostfundamental questions about the Universe.

Published: 20 March 2000

ESA's Planck satellite shapes up

Planck, ESA's satellite to study the Universe as it was shortly after the Big Bang, is quickly taking shape. Its conceptual design has been settled and was presented to the Planck scientific community just before Christmas. A full size wooden mock-up of the satellite built according to this design has arrived at ESA's Scientific and Technical Research Centre (ESTEC) in The Netherlands and will be assembled in the course of January.

Published: 9 January 2000

INFO 04-1999a: Payload for Planck confirmed

The two instruments on board ESA's spacecraft Planck were definitivelyselected on 17February by ESA's Science Programme Committee. Planck is due to belaunched in 2007. The instruments consist of two arrays of highlysensitive detectors to study what can be called the 'echo' of the BigBang, a radiation that fills the whole Universe and was emitted when theUniverse was very young. They will be designed, built and operated bymore than 40 European institutes.

Published: 10 March 1999

FIRST/Planck study phase

Following the ESA's Science Programme (SPC) meeting of 28/29 May "the coupled FIRST/Planck missions will now enter a detailed study phase, encompassing the selected instruments, with the objective of refining a joint mission scenario within reach of a stringent target cost", states Brian Taylor, Head of the Astrophysics Division of the Space Science Department of ESA, in ESA's Astronews No. 35.

Published: 25 June 1998

Planck payload endorsed by SPC

At its 28/29 May meeting the ESA Science Programme Committee (SPC) endorsed the Planck payload proposed by the scientific community.

Published: 9 June 1998

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