Maurizio Cheli
ESA and the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) have agreed to test communications at optical and S-band frequencies between an ESA satellite and a Japanese satellite.
Under a Memorandum of Understanding signed in December, ESA's Artemis satellite, which will be placed in geostationary orbit, will relay experimental data links to and from NASDA's Optical Interorbit Communications Engineering Test Satellite (OICETS), which will be placed in low-Earth orbit. The links will be made using a Semi-Conductor Laser Intersatellite Link Experiment (SILEX) optical communications terminal carried aboard Artemis and a similar terminal aboard OICETS. ESA and NASDA will then jointly evaluate the results of the experimental links.
This agreement constitutes the first major collaboration between ESA and Japan in the field of satellite telecommunications.
The Artemis satellite is currently scheduled to be launched in 1997. It is part of ESA's plan to set up an orbital data relay service to allow satellites to communicate with the ground more quickly and with higher data rates. OICETS is currently scheduled to be launched in 1998.
On 1 January 1995, Finland became a full Member State of ESA. This brings the number of full members to 14.
Finland, which had been an associate Member State since 1987, was already participating in ESA's Earth Observation and Telecommunications programmes as well as in the Science programme.
The accession of a new Member State enables ESA to 'strengthen its position at a time when space programmes are taking on a world dimension', stated ESA's Director General, Jean-Marie Luton, when the Agreement on Finland's Accession to the ESA Convention was signed.
ESA and the European Centre for Space Law (ECSL) recently organised the second workshop on intellectual property rights and space activities, this time with a worldwide perspective. About 90 participants attended the two-day workshop held in Paris in December.
The workshop allowed, for the first time, representatives of many different nations and industries to meet to discuss the legal and policy issues with regard to intellectual property rights and space activities. In addition, representatives of several organisations with an interest in intellectual property rights, such as the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Commission, also participated in the discussions. The purpose was to raise the importance of space activities with those organisations. The workshop proceedings are available from ESA's Publications Division.
As a result of the workshop, WIPO will raise the issues during its General Assembly next autumn in order to request approval to undertake further studies on the possibility of elaborating a more harmonised legal environment for space activities.
Two ESA astronauts, Claude Nicollier and Maurizio Cheli, have been selected by NASA to fly as mission specialists on board the Space Shuttle 'Columbia' on flight STS-75 in early 1996. During that mission, the Tethered Satellite System (TSS) will be deployed for the second time. It will also be the third flight of scientific investigations using the US Microgravity Payload (USMP) complement. The mission is scheduled to last 13 days.
Claude Nicollier, who is Swiss, is one of ESA's 'most travelled' astronauts. His most recent mission was in December 1993 on board STS-61, the Hubble Space Telescope First Servicing mission. During that mission, he fulfilled two roles: he was a mission specialist as well as the main operator of the remote arm that was used in the retrieval and repair of the satellite. He was also a mission specialist on STS-46 in July/August 1992, during which Eureca, ESA's retrievable science platform, was deployed and the first TSS test flight was conducted.
The other ESA astronaut, Maurizio Cheli, an Italian, will be undertaking his first mission. He was selected in 1992, along with five other young candidates, to expand the corps of ESA astronauts. He has been working in Houston since mid-1992 and qualified as a mission specialist in 1993.
During the mission, a satellite measuring 1.6 metres in diameter will be deployed on the end of a 20-km conductive tether to study the electrodynamic effects of moving such a tether through the Earth's magnetic field. The system will host 12 different scientific experiments. ESA will contribute sensors and control electronics for the Italian Research on Electrodynamics Tether Effects (RETE) instrument. Techniques for managing the tethered spacecraft at great distances will also be tested.
The project is a joint effort between NASA and the Italian space agency ASI.
During the first TSS mission in 1992, the satellite could not be fully deployed because of a malfunction in the deployer mechanism. Four of the crew members on that mission will also be on the upcoming mission. The crew will include a TSS payload specialist, Umberto Guidoni from ASI.
The mission will also allow scientists to perform microgravity and fundamental science investigations using experiments housed in the Shuttle's payload bay. The USMP is designed to provide the foundation for scientific investigations similar to those planned for on-board the International Space Station.
Maurizio Cheli
Following the failure of Ariane flight 70 last December, launches are now expected to resume in March. Flight 71, carrying two satellites, Eutelsat's HotBird 1 and Embratel's Brasilsat B2, is planned to be launched on 14 March.
Flight 70, which took place on the night of 1/2 December 1994, ended in failure. The American telecommunications satellite PanAmSat-3, built by Hughes Space & Telecommunications for PanAmSat LP, was not placed into orbit. The launcher performed nominally through the first and second stages. The third-stage engine ignited normally but did not function at full thrust and therefore could not meet the conditions required to place the satellite into orbit. The stage and satellite disintegrated upon re-entering the atmosphere and fell into the ocean off the west coast of Africa.
Arianespace, along with ESA and CNES, immediately set up a technical inquiry board to investigate the cause of the failure. Arianespace/CNES and the industrial partners concerned, namely SEP and Aerospatiale, also conducted their own analyses. The inquiry board found that 'a lack of oxygen into the third-stage gas generator' was the most probable reason for the malfunction. The exact cause could not be identified.
The inquiry board proposed 21 remedial actions to the management of Ariane. All actions were accepted and are now being implemented as Arianespace prepares for the March 14 launch date.
To understand the adaptation processes to microgravity conditions that astronauts must undergo, ESA and the French space agency CNES have recently completed an experiment that required subjects to remain in bed for a long duration while the changes in their physiological systems were studied. The reduction in physical activity leads to changes in bones and muscles similar to those experienced by astronauts in microgravity. In addition, lying in a head-down position causes body fluids to shift towards the head and thorax in the same way as is observed in microgravity. The results will enable scientists to better define counter-measures to be developed to minimise the physiological impact of the absence of gravity for long periods and to improve readaptation upon return to Earth.
Eight young and healthy male volunteers participated in the project. They were selected based on stringent medical and psychological tests. For the first two weeks of the experiment, the subjects underwent an ambulatory phase to stabilise their physical and emotional state and allow basic data to be gathered. Although they were mobile, they were confined to the hospital ward, their diet was controlled, they could not partake in strenuous physical exercise nor receive visitors.
They were then confined to their beds for the subsequent six weeks. They lay in a position with their head at a -6 degrees angle to the horizontal. At that angle, the organic fluids flow to the head and thorax in a manner similar to that observed in astronauts under microgravity. Seven of the eight subjects completed the bedrest period; one had to stop after four weeks because of pain in his vertebrae, which disappeared after he became mobile again.
After the bedrest period, the subjects had a two-week ambulatory recovery period during which their return to 'normal' was monitored.
The MEDES Institute of Space Medicine and Physiology carried out the experiment at the Purpan Hospital in Toulouse, France, with full medical back-up provided by the Toulouse health authority. To ensure that the subjects' health was never at risk, the subjects were kept under close medical and psychological monitoring throughout the experiment. They will also be monitored periodically over the next few months to ensure that no longer-term problems develop.
This was one experiment in a series of experiments that ESA has undertaken to study the human psychological and physical responses to life in space. Previous experiments have included the isolation of a crew of four in a pressure chamber and laboratory in a deep-diving facility for 60 days, and the Human Behaviour Study (Hubes) in which a crew lived and worked in a module similar to the Mir complex for 135 days to simulate the EuroMir-95 mission.
A subject measures his energy expenditure while at rest, before the six weeks of bed-rest begin
This multi-temporal image shows the situation between 30 January (green) and 5 February 1995 (red), in comparison with a 'normal' situation last autumn (image from 21 September 1994, displayed in blue). The considerably swollen rivers are well delineated in magenta, while the 'normal' river courses can be identified as dark-blue lines.
The bright-red patches in the flood areas show what had re-emerged from the water on 5 February, whilst some bright-green patches elsewhere in the image indicate where flooding occurred between 30 January and 5 February.
Parts of the urban areas appear in yellow due to a change in radar illumination direction, the ascending orbit on 5 February looking east-northeast having been combined with two descending passes looking west-southwest. This effect is enhanced by the higher soil humidity on the winter dates.
The data was acquired at the ESA/ERS-1 Receiving Station in Fucino, Italy, and processed by the ESRIN and EURIMAGE/Earth Watch Teams.
J. Lichtenegger & G. Calabresi
ERS Data Utilisation Section, ESA/ESRIN, Frascati, Italy
ESA Bulletin Nr. 81.