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PARIS, Oct. 24, 2006/Satnews Daily/ ― The
European Space Agency (ESA) has handed control of the MetOp-A satellite
over to the European Meteorological Satellite Organization (Eumetsat)
after the successful completion of the launch and early orbit phase.
MetOp-A was launched on October 19, 2006 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan, using a Soyuz ST rocket with a Fregat upper stage.
ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany,
handled the launch and early orbit phase (LEOP) activities, which
started with the first acquisition of MetOp-A after the separation from
the Fregat upper stage, continued with the solar array release and
deployment, the first attitude acquisition, the transition to geocentric
and later to yaw steering pointing modes . These activities, including
all the antennae deployments, satellite reconfigurations for routine
operations and the performance of the first orbit control maneuvers,
were performed as planned and were highly successful.
To prepare for the transfer of operations, ESA said several orbits were
used to confirm the operational readiness of the Eumetsat Polar System
(EPS) infrastructure, with the back-up support of ESOC’s operations team
and facilities. After these verifications, the formal transfer of MetOp-A
operations to Eumetsat started with orbit 42. The ESOC team continues to
be available to support MetOp-A basic operations for the coming two
weeks should Eumetsat experience heavy ground segment problems.
The first activities conducted by the Eumetsat
operations team will be related to the MetOp-A payload switch-on and to
the in-orbit verification of the satellite. These satellite-level tests
were defined and will be coordinated by a joint ESA- Eumetsat team, with
the support of the partner organizations CNES and NOAA for the relevant
instruments. These MetOp-A in-orbit verification activities will last
about 10 to 12 weeks, the duration being variable for each payload
instrument, due to specific needs such as out gassing or raw data
validation.
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