EDRS space network ready to go ahead

Paris (ESA) Nov 25, 2012

illustration only

The design of Europe's data relay satellite system - EDRS - has been completed and approved. This marks the moment when it moves ahead with a green light from its first customer, the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security initiative from the European Union (GMES).
EDRS will provide a telecommunications network that is fast, reliable and seamless, making real-time information from satellites available on demand. EDRS will be the first commercially operated data relay system to deliver services to the Earth observation community.
It is being built through a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between ESA and Astrium Services, using payloads carried by two satellites in geostationary orbit, hovering 36 000 km above the Equator, where their speed matches Earth's rotation.
Data transmitted from satellites in lower orbits to either of these EDRS payloads can then be relayed to the ground.

TerraSAR-X image of the month - the Santorini volcano expands

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Nov 25, 2012

British researchers have used images acquired by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fόr Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) TerraSAR-X satellite to create a map showing changes in the Santorini archipelago. The cause of the deformation is the Santorini volcano located beneath the archipelago. In some places, the Kameni Islands inside the flooded caldera have risen by eight to 14 centimetres. The breadth of the caldera as a whole has increased by about 14 centimetres since early 2011. In the analysis of the radar data, the red and yellow shading shows the areas where the ground has risen the most. The main island of Thira is unaffected by the deformation, thus appearing blue. image credit DLR

Glasses are rattling on the shelves and the ground is rumbling - since January 2011 the earth under the Santorini volcano has been stirring.
Most of the time, it is barely noticeable, but every now and then the inhabitants notice small tremors jolting the volcanic archipelago. Nearly circular, and seemingly carved from stone, the submerged caldera is located in the Aegean Sea.
"It was clear to the local people that something was happening with the volcano - but it wasn't until we saw, among other things, the images from the TerraSAR-X radar satellite that we realised that molten rock was pooling beneath the volcano," says British scientist Juliet Biggs from the University of Bristol.
Images acquired by the German Aerospace Center's (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) satellite show the entire archipelago not just rising, but also expanding.
It has been 3600 years since a powerful explosion formed the large caldera. Since then, a new vent has been gradually forming in the middle of this basin, where today the Kameni islands protrude from the water. The volcano last erupted in 1950 and then fell dormant again, so the scientists from Oxford and Bristol were all the more surprised when the inhabitants started reporting tremors.
"Tour guides, who often visit the volcano with tourists on a daily basis, told me there was an increase in the quantity of strong smelling gas being released by the summit," explains PhD student Michelle Parks. "The colour of the sea had changed as well."
Expanding magma chamber Funded by the UK National Environment Research Council, radar specialist Juliet Biggs, Parks and volcanologist David Pyle began to study the Santorini volcano closely.
Using GPS receivers, they determined precise locations with millimetric accuracy on a daily basis. The TerraSAR-X radar satellite also observed the archipelago from orbit, at an altitude of 514 kilometres, recording its uplift and expansion from one orbit to the next. The results showed that the Kameni islands had risen eight to 14 centimetres in many places.

Instrument Delivered for NASA's Upcoming Mars Mission

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Nov 18, 2012

A $670 million NASA mission to Mars led by the University of Colorado Boulder is on track for a November 2013 launch. Illustration courtesy NASA

A remote sensing instrument that will peer into the ultraviolet to offer clues to how Mars might have lost its atmosphere has arrived at Lockheed Martin for integration into NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft.
"The Remote Sensing package team built a system that meets all technical requirements and delivered it on schedule and on budget," said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
"I look forward to the instrument's next level of integration onto the spacecraft and ultimately the science it will provide."
The Remote Sensing package consists of an Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph (IUVS) and its control electronics box, the Remote Sensing Data Processing Unit (RSDPU).
The Remote Sensing package was conceived, designed and built by the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP) at Boulder, under contract to NASA Goddard.
The Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph collects the light and spreads it out into spectra and records the spectra using imaging detectors. IUVS is the eyes of the instrument.