Artemis: Mission Impossible, Mission Accomplished

On 12 July 2001, the Artemis telecommunications satellite was left stranded in the wrong orbit following a malfunction of its launcher. This ESA video from 2001 tells the story of the successful recovery of the mission. A team of ESA and industry engineers conceived an imaginative rescue plan to use Artemis' ion propulsion system in an unconventional way to gradually push the spacecraft into its working orbit, 36000 km above the equator, finally reached on 31 January 2003. Artemis was able to go carry it its original misison, including a word first - a satellite laser linkup. The programme comprises a 7 minute A-Roll with split audio and is complemented by a B-Roll with clean international sound.