The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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In the summer of 2001, ESA's next-generation telecommunications satellite, Artemis (Advanced Relay and Technology Satellite) will be launched on Ariane 5.
The ESA TV Service has produced a series of three pre-event Exchanged Programmes with background footage on this satellite.
The second programme provides information on what makes Artemis an advanced telecommunications satellite. Artemis will the first satellite of its kind to combine 3 different payloads: Mobile communications Satellite Navigation Direct satellite to satellite communications This programme focuses on how, by using these different payloads, Artemis will play a major role in natural disaster management and also as an in orbit data relay system between the International Space Station and Europe.
SCRIPT
In Europe, a new generation of satellites has been built, satellites that can do more than others before them. Artemis - in Greek mythology the daughter of Zeus, the supreme ruler on Olympus - is destined to carry out one of the European Space Agency ESA's most important missions, when it will be used to test a range of different types of new systems. There is a mobile telephony payload on board which will enable people to make calls even when and where mobile networks on Earth are not working. Also, Artemis will relay data from other satellites to the ground when these have no radio contact with a ground station. Such data-relays make it possible to receive data at all times. Previously, communication with satellites in low Earth orbit was slowed down by the fact that ground stations have line of sight and radio contact with them for brief periods only, after which they have to wait for the satellite to reappear on the horizon.
Sound bite Lo Galbo
Putting three different payloads together in