s bulletin 110 — may 2002

In Brief

Vittori, taxis and tourists

A mission to the International SpaceStation (ISS) returned to Earth on 5 Mayafter successfully delivering a new‘lifeboat’ to the Station. The members ofthe Marco Polo flight were ESA’s Italianastronaut Roberto Vittori, Russian missionCommander Yuri Gidzenko, and SouthAfrican ‘space tourist’ Mark Shuttleworth.The Marco Polo crew safely descended toEarth in a Soyuz capsule, ending a 10-daymission with a textbook landing on theplains of Kazakhstan at 10h55 local time(04:55 GMT).

Vittori, a former Italian Air Force test pilot,described his maiden voyage into spaceas “the most exciting and challengingexperience of my life”. After UmbertoGuidoni and Claudie Haigneré, he is thethird European astronaut to visit the SpaceStation in a year. During his eight-day stayhe worked alongside the resident crew onthe ISS – Expedition Four commander Yuri Onufrienko and flight engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz – overseeingfour European scientific experiments.

The experiments examined the forcesinvolved in moving around in microgravityand the effects on humans of cosmicparticles during long missions, assessednewly developed clothing, and tested anon-intrusive blood pressure monitoringdevice.

Marco Polo – following the equallysuccessful Andromède mission lastOctober with ESA’s French astronautClaudie Haigneré – was the latest in aseries of European manned missions tothe Space Station.

Belgian ESA astronaut Frank De Winnehas already started training for a similar‘taxi’ mission in October and Sweden’sfirst astronaut Christer Fuglesang will beon the Space Shuttle for an importantassembly flight next spring. s

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The perfect lift-off of the Marco Polo flight fromBaikonur, Kazakhstan on Thursday 25 April2002, at 12:26 local time (06:26 GMT).

Roberto Vittori returns to Earth after spendingeight days on the ISS.

Ariane-4 safe deliveries

Since the beginning of the year, six Arianerockets have been successfully launchedfrom Europe’s spaceport in FrenchGuiana, marking a record-breakingnumber of 112 launches for the mostsuccessful Ariane launcher ever built. The latest passenger was the FrenchCNES SPOT-5 satellite, others includedDutch and Japanese telecommunicationssatellites and a pair of mini-satellites foramateur radio. Flight 152, the next launchfrom Kourou, is scheduled to take placeon 5 June. s

Go, Galileo!

Galileo is definitely going to happen. TheEuropean Union Transport Ministers gavethe final go-ahead at a meeting inBrussels on 26 March.

Developed by ESA in collaboration withthe European Union and co-funded by thetwo organisations on a 50-50 basis,Galileo is a complete civil system,designed to be operational from 2008 toprovide the world in general andEuropeans in particular with an accurate,secure and certified satellite positioning

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system. It is the first project to beconducted jointly by ESA and theEuropean Union.

The go-ahead for Galileo is particularlyimportant for European industry, which willnow be able to develop the advancedtechnologies required not only for thepurposes of the satellite network and itsground support system, but also for thenumerous applications associated with it.

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TESEO: helping tosafeguard theenvironment

Maybe “Treaty Enforcement Services usingEarth Observation” (TESEO) is not one ofthe catchiest titles but the work it does ismore interesting – and useful – than itsounds. A new website now helps tospread the word about the project(http://earth.esa.int/teseo).

Earth observation satellites can play auseful role in ensuring that internationalconventions and treaties are respectedand put into effect. To follow through this

idea, in 2001 ESA set up TESEO, which isalso part of its contribution to Europe’sGlobal Monitoring for Environment andSecurity (GMES) initiative.

The four areas of environmental protectionwith which TESEO is presently concernedare marine pollution (MARPOL 73/78 andregional conventions related to marinepollution), wetlands (Ramsar Convention),forest monitoring (Kyoto Protocol to theUN Framework Convention on ClimaticChange), and desertification (UNConvention to Combat Desertification).

Although ESA’s Earth observation satellitesare not there to police the skies, TESEO

can help to implement treaty objectives.Together with the local, national andinternational organisations involved intreaty enforcement, TESEO project teamswill assess and evaluate ways in whichexisting and future Earth Observationtechnology can help to implementinternational agreements, particularly those of interest to Europe. An addedbenefit is that this will also increaseawareness of how Earth observationsatellites can help in environmentalmonitoring. s

Ariane 4 flight 149 Artist’s impression of Galileo

s bulletin 110 — may 2002

Envisat’s spectacularview of the EarthA major new health check on the Earthgot under way on 1 March 2002 with thelaunch of ESA’s Envisat, the largest andmost sophisticated Earth-observationsatellite ever built. From its vantage pointin Sun-synchronous orbit, Envisat istirelessly sweeping the Earth’s landsurfaces, oceans and atmosphere, using a suite of ten highly sophisticatedscientific instruments.

The first images from Envisat’s Medium-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS)and Advanced Synthetic-Aperture Radar(ASAR) instruments are of exceptionallyhigh quality. The first data available fromthe satellite were acquired via the Kirunastation in Sweden and processed at theESA/ESRIN establishment and theprocessing and archiving centresthroughout Europe.

West African Coast

This MERIS image shows the complexriver system of Casamance, with its heavydischarge into the sea. Series of suchimages are needed to monitor thetransport of the sediment, which originatesfrom inland soil erosion. The overall scenecovers the transition between savannah inthe north and tropical vegetation in thesouth. MERIS can also monitor theintensification of land use, which leads toincreased erosion and soil loss.

Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas

Central in this image is Cuba, the largestand most westerly of the Caribbeanislands. Cuba’s 3735-km coastline hascoral islands, and white sandy beaches tothe north.

South of Cuba lies Jamaica. The highestpoint on the island is Blue Mountain Peak(2256 m). Jamaica has a high degree ofbiodiversity, with some three thousand

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West African Coast

Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas

West African CoastMERIS, 22 March 2002

Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas

species of plants, about a quarter ofwhich are unique to the island.

To the north, but unfortunately lyingbeneath the clouds, the Bahamascomprise an archipelago of about 700islands extending from Florida to Cuba’seastern tip. The beautiful turquoise colourof the waters around these islands is dueto the shallowness of the water, and thepresence of coral reefs, which are the onlyactive ones in the Atlantic Ocean.

Europe

In this image one can distinguish severalEuropean countries as seen from spaceby MERIS: Andorra, Austria, Belgium,England, France, Italy, Spain,Switzerland… Two mountain rangescovered with snow are clearly visible: thePyrenees and the Alps, with their highestpoints at 3404 m (Aneto peak) and 4807 m (Mont Blanc), respectively. Theimage also shows all of the major Frenchcities and their surroundings: Paris, Lyon,Marseilles, Bordeaux and Toulouse. TheRhone, the Seine and the Garonne riversare pouring large quantities of sediment,visible as green plumes, into theMediterranean Sea and the AtlanticOcean.

Amazon Estuary

Flowing more than 6400 km across Brazil,the Amazon River originates in thePeruvian Andes. It is second in length onlyto the Nile among the World’s rivers. TheAmazon discharges huge amounts ofsediment, carried away from the vastlands that it crosses, depositing anestimated daily average of 3 million tons of sediment near its mouth. Theoutpouring of water and sediment is sovast that the salt content and colour of the Atlantic Ocean are altered overdistances of several hundred kilometresfrom the estuary. s

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Europe

Amazon Estuary

EuropeMERIS, 24 March 2002

Amazon Estuary MERIS, 25 March 2002

s bulletin 110 — may 2002

ESA and CNESsign contract onCSG

ESA and CNES signed a contractat the Guiana Space Centre(CSG) in Kourou, French Guiana,on 2 May that assures funding tocover the fixed costs of the‘CNES/CSG facilities’. The totalamount of these fixed costs overthe five years from 2002 to 2006is put at 617.4 million Euros.

This contract, signed by MrJean-Jacques Dordain, ESA’s Director ofLaunchers, and Mr Gérard Brachet,CNES’s Director General, follows on fromthe decision on Guiana Space Centre(CSG) funding taken by the ESA Councilmeeting at Ministerial Level in Edinburgh,under which the Agency will cover two-thirds of the fixed costs, amounting to411.6 million Euros. The other third isbeing met by CNES out of its budget fornational activities, bringing the overallFrench contribution to 56% of the total.

Under the contract, the term ‘CNES/CSGfacilities’ means the CNES facilities at the

CSG and those belonging to ESA madeavailable to CNES for the purposes ofcarrying out the contract (the downrangestations and the payload preparationcomplexes operated by CNES). Thecontract does not however cover theAriane launch sites in French Guianamade available by ESA to Arianespace. Itis Arianepsace that is responsible formeeting the variable costs, which dependon the number of launches carried out.

Gérard Brachet took pride in the fact that“Europe has, in the CSG, one of the bestequipped and most efficient launch bases

in the world. The service tousers is universally recognisedas outstanding. The costs ofoperational upkeep are wellbelow those of the Americanbases funded by theDepartment of Defense and,with productivity gains already

identified, they will be reduced by over15% between now and 2006”.

“The process of Europeanising the CSGset in train under the previous contracts isgoing to be continued through cooperationbetween the ESA and CNES teams”, saidJean-Jacques Dordain after the signingceremony, “especially in the field ofindustrial policy, the target being to ensurethat every ESA Member State has asatisfactory industrial return by the end ofthe period 2002-2006.” s

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XMM-Newton provessupernovae can causegamma-ray bursts

New results from the XMM-Newton spacetelescope confirm the theory that thedeath of very massive stars in supernovaexplosions can cause gamma-ray bursts.Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerfulexplosions ever detected in the Universe.They are also one of the greatestmysteries of modern astronomy, since sofar no clear evidence has existed to provewhat causes them.

By analysing the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst that occurred last December inX-ray light, scientists have produced thefirst ever evidence of the presence ofchemical elements which are theunmistakable remnants of a supernovaexplosion that had occurred just a fewdays before. “We can now confidently saythat the death of a massive star, asupernova, was the cause of a gamma-ray burst. However we still don’t knowhow and why these bursts, the mostenergetic phenomena in the Universe, are

exactly triggered,” says ESA astronomerNorbert Schartel, a co-author of theoriginal paper, published in Nature in April.

The observations revealed two importantfacts: first, the material in the source wasmoving quickly towards Earth, at 10% ofthe speed of light; and second, thechemical analysis of this material showedthat it had to be the remnant of asupernova explosion.

XMM-Newton detected large amounts ofmagnesium, silicon, sulphur, argon andcalcium, but very little iron. This is the kindof material a massive star would produceshortly before exploding as a supernova.Nuclear reactions in the stars’ cores fuselight chemical elements into heavier ones,a process that generates the energyneeded by the stars to shine; differentelements are synthesised at each stage ofthe stars’ evolution. The supernovaexplosion would have ejected this materialinto the surrounding environment,producing the sphere subsequentlyilluminated by the gamma-ray burstafterglow seen by XMM-Newton.

ESA’s International Gamma-RayAstrophysics Laboratory, Integral, to be launched in October 2002, will be themost sensitive gamma-ray observatoryever built. It will be able to detect radiationfrom the most distant violent events andhopefully answer some more of the manyremaining questions in the ‘case of thegamma-ray bursts’. s

A gamma-ray burst

Jean-Jacques Dordain (seated left),ESA’s Director of Launchers, andGérard Brachet, CNES’s DirectorGeneral, signing the contract atGuiana Space Centre.

Hubble’s new cameraunveils a new view ofthe Universe

Jubilant astronomers unveiledhumankind’s most spectacular views ofthe Universe as captured by theNASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’snew Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS)on 30 April. They also reported thatHubble is operating superbly since theMarch servicing mission and are lookingforward to more pictures from the newlyrevived NICMOS camera.

The camera’s tenfold increase in efficiencywill open up much anticipated new‘discovery space’ for Hubble. “ACS willallow us to push back the frontier of theearly Universe. We will be able to enter the‘twilight zone’ period when galaxies werejust beginning to form out of the blacknessfollowing the cooling of the Universe fromthe Big Bang,” says Johns HopkinsUniversity astronomer Holland Ford, thelead scientist in the ACS’s seven-yeardevelopment.

Among the suite of four ‘suitable forframing’ ACS science demonstration

pictures is a stunning view of a collidinggalaxy, dubbed the ‘Tadpole’, located 420million light-years away. Unlike textbookimages of stately galaxies, the ‘Tadpole’,with a long tidal tail of stars, looks like arunaway pinwheel firework. It captures theessence of our dynamic, restless andviolent Universe.

But what came as an unexpected bonusis the enormous number of galaxiesbehind the Tadpole galaxy – as many as6000, twice the number in the legendaryHubble Deep Field (HDF) in 1995.Amazingly, the ACS picture was taken inone-twelfth the time it took for the originalHDF, and in blue light it shows even fainterobjects than the HDF. Like the HDF, thegalaxies stretch back to nearly thebeginning of time and contain myriadshapes that are snapshots of galaxiesthroughout the Universe’s 13 billion-yearevolution.

The ACS images are so sharp thatastronomers can identify ‘building blocks’of galaxies, colliding galaxies, an exquisite‘Whitman’s Sampler’ of galaxies, andextremely distant galaxies in the field. TheACS image of the Tadpole illustrates thedramatic gains over the Wide Field

Planetary Camera 2 that were expectedfrom doubling the area and resolution, andthe five times improvement in sensitivity.

The other pictures include a stunningcollision between two spiral galaxies –dubbed ‘the Mice’ – that presage whatmay happen to our own Milky Way severalbillion years in the future when it collideswith the neighbouring galaxy in theconstellation Andromeda. Looking closerto home, ACS also imaged the ConeNebula, a craggy-looking mountaintop ofcold gas and dust that is a cousin toHubble’s iconic ‘pillars of creation’ in theEagle Nebula, photographed in 1995.

Mounted aboard the world’s premieroptical-ultraviolet telescope, the ACS is a camera of superlatives. It is expected to go beyond the sensitivity of the largestground-based telescope to eventually seethe very faintest objects ever. Its cameradelivers a panoramic crispnesscomparable to that of a wide-screen IMAX movie, a staggering 16 millionpicture elements (megapixels) persnapshot (typical consumer cameras are 2 to 4 megapixels). s

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This picture of the galaxy UGC10214 was taken by the

Advanced Camera for Surveys(ACS), which was installed

aboard the NASA/ESA HubbleSpace Telescope in March

during Servicing Mission 3B.Dubbed the ‘Tadpole’, this spiral

galaxy is unlike the textbookimages of stately galaxies.

Its distorted shape was causedby a small interloper, a very blue,

compact, galaxy visible in theupper left corner of the more

massive Tadpole. The Tadpoleresides about 420 million

light-years away in theconstellation Draco.

Credits: NASA/ESA-ACSScience Team

s bulletin 110 — may 2002

ESA to test the smartesttechnique for detectingextrasolar planets fromthe ground

ESA and the European SouthernObservatory (ESO) are going to build anew instrument to test nulling interfero-metry from the ground before ESA appliesit in space. Nulling interferometry combinesthe signals from a number of differenttelescopes in such a way that the light fromthe central star is cancelled out, leavingthe much fainter planet easier to see.

ESA and ESO will build the new instrumentcalled GENIE (Ground-based EuropeanNulling Interferometer Experiment) usingESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), acollection of four 8-metre telescopes inChile. It will be the biggest investigation ofnulling interferometry to date.

Using GENIE to perfect this technique willprovide invaluable information forengineers about how to build the ‘hub’spacecraft of the Darwin flotilla. Scheduledfor launch in the middle of the nextdecade, Darwin is a collection of six spacetelescopes and two other spacecraft,which will together search for Earth-likeplanets around nearby stars. The hub willcombine the light from the telescopes.

GENIE will see failed stars, known asbrown dwarfs and, if the instrument

performs to expectations, may also seesome of the already-discovered giantplanets. So far, these worlds have never

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Artist’s impression of the Darwin spacetelescopes.

Aerial view of Paranal Observing Platform withVLTI light paths

Focus on teachers

The Physics on Stage 2 festival was heldat ESTEC from 2 to 6 April 2002. It was agreat success, with over 400 teachers andeducational experts from 23 countriestaking part in the intensive programme ofpresentations, workshops, performancesand lively fair sessions. They all had acommon goal: to solve the current crisis in physics education by making physicsmore attractive for schoolchildren and to address general European-widecurriculum issues. The participantsshowcased a large number of exciting andinspiring physics teaching projects, andmade many constructive recommendations,which will allow ESA and its EIROFORUM

Wubbo Ockels, Chairman of Physics on Stage 2, gave the opening speech.

J. Huart

been seen, only inferred to exist by theeffect they have on their parent stars.

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partners to better target future educationalprojects. The experiments and projectspresented ranged from measuring thespeed of light with the help of gratedcheese and a microwave oven, a walk-inpinhole camera and a transportableplanetarium in a tent, to textbookdevelopment and teacher training.

The Education Office welcomed severalVIP guests to the festival, including DutchMinister for Education Loek Hermans,Spanish senators Josep Varela and CarlosBonet, and the Austrian Minister forEducation, Science and Culture, ChristianDorninger. Philippe Busquin, EuropeanCommissioner for Research, arrived onthe last day to listen to all of therecommendations from the workshopsand to present recognition awards forteaching excellence, inspiration andmotivation of young people, at thefestival’s Farewell Dinner. Another guest ofhonour at the dinner was Gerard t’Hooft,winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize forPhysics.

“I got a lot out of it and felt fortunate to beinvolved. In fact, as the week progressedand I became more and more aware ofthe high quality of the conference, Irealised that I was indeed lucky to betalking with some of the leading physicseducators from the various ESAcountries”, says Jim Tisel, a participantfrom the Netherlands.

The Physics on Stage network continuesto be active, with national events and

activities taking place inmany of the 23 membercountries. A third festival isalready planned for nextyear as part of the EuropeanWeek for Science andTechnology 2003. s

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Miguel Cabrerizo fromSpain won the first prizefor his entertaining rangeof experiments called‘Recreational PhysicsXXL’.

The Bulgarian performance ‘A Restaurant at theEnd of the Universe’

s bulletin 110 — may 2002

Space Walking atILA2002The ILA 2002 international aerospaceexhibition took place between Monday 6and Sunday 12 May at Berlin SchoenefeldAirport in Berlin, Germany. “With contractsand cooperation agreements running intobillons of Euros, 1,067 exhibitors from 40 countries, 90,000 trade visitors fromGermany and abroad, and 215,150visitors in total, the InternationalAerospace Exhibition ILA2002 reconfirmedits status as a major Europeanmarketplace for the entire aerospaceindustry”, says the official ILA pressrelease.

1600 square metres of European spaceactivities ranging from space science,Earth observation, telecommunications,satellite navigation, launchers and theInternational Space Station to industrialmatters and technology programmes wereon show in Hall 2, the ‘Space Hall’ withESA, DLR (the German Space Agency)and the German space industry asexhibitors.

Main attractions were the German-developed Phoenix model and ESA’s

models of the ISS and the ATV. A daily livevideo link in 3D to the Columbus moduleunder construction at Astrium in Bremenalso drew many visitors.

The ILA was opened by GermanChancellor Gerhard Schröder, and manyprominent guests including Mrs EdelgardBulmahn, Minister for Education andResearch and Chair of the ESA MinisterialCouncil and ESA’s Director General.Directors and Astronauts talked to the

German Minister for Research and Education,Mrs Edelgard Bulmahn, poses ‘on Mars’ withESA astronaut Gerhard Thiele and children froma German TV programme.

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JOB OPPORTUNITIES IN SPACESerco is the largest technical services contractor to ESA. We have been supporting the Agency’s programmes for over 30years and regularly have job opportunities based at ESTEC (Netherlands), ESRIN (Italy), ESOC (Germany), ESA/HQ (France)and Kourou Spaceport (French Guiana).

Typical activities within the space field encompass:

• AIV Engineering • PC Support • IBM MVS System Ops and• Component Testing and • Unix System Administration Programming• Failure Analysis • Software Development • Web Development• Antenna Engineering • Database Development and • Project Management• Earth Observation Management • Product/Quality Assurance• Ground Segment Engineering • Technical Authoring

If you would like to be considered for future job opportunities with Serco please send your full curriculum vitae to:

Jane Marcham, Serco Europe Ltd.5th Floor, Kempton Point68 Staines Road West, Sunbury-on-ThamesMiddlesex TW16 7AX, U.K.Tel.: +44 1932 733 000

Serco is an Equal Opportunities Employer

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large number of international journalistspresent, who showed great interest in thedevelopment of the Galileo programmeand the International Space Station. s