Cruise and flyby operations of BepiColombo – first results and planned activities 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Benkhoff
Keyword(s):  
Gamma Ray ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Gamma Ray Bursts ◽  
Polar Orbit ◽  
Joint Project ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Science Operations ◽  
First Results ◽  
French Guyana

<p>BepiColombo was launched on 20 October 2018 from the European spaceport Kourou in French Guyana and is now on route to Mercury to unveil Mercury’s secrets. BepiColombo with its state of the art and very comprehensive payload will perform measurements to increase our knowledge on the fundamental questions about Mercury’s evolution, composition, interior, magnetosphere, and exosphere. BepiColombo is a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and consists of two orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio). </p> <p>On its way BepiColombo will travel 18 times around the Sun until the spacecraft will be put into an polar orbit around Mercury. During its long way through the inner solar system, BepiColombo will perform nine flybys (one at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury). However, since the spacecraft is in a stacked configuration during the flybys only some of the instruments on both spacecraft will perform scientific observations. In addition there are plenty of opportunities for further science operations (testing Einstein’s theory during solar conjunctions, listening to gamma ray bursts, or investigation of the solar environment).</p> <p>A status of the mission and instruments, science operations plans during cruise, and first results of measurements taken in the first three years since launch will be given.</p>

BepiColombo – Status and first Results from Activities during Cruise and the Earth flyby

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Benkhoff ◽  
Joe Zender ◽  
Go Murakami
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Terrestrial Planet ◽  
First Year ◽  
Joint Project ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
First Results ◽  
French Guyana ◽  
The Individual

<p>Mercury is a mysterious planet in many ways very different from what scientist were expecting. BepiColombo was launched on 20 October 2018 the BepiColombo from the European spaceport in French Guyana and is now on route to Mercury to unveil Mercury’s secrets. BepiColombo with its state of the art and very comprehensive payload will perform measurements to increase our knowledge on the fundamental questions about Mercury’s evolution, composition, interior, magnetosphere, and exosphere. BepiColombo is a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and consists of two orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio). </p><p>The BepiColombo spacecraft is during its 7-year long journey to the innermost terrestrial planet in a so-called ‘stacked’ configuration: The Mio and the MPO are connected to each other, and stacked on-top of the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM). Only in late 2025, the ‘stack’ configuration is abandoned and the individual elements spacecraft are brought in to their final Mercury orbit: 480x1500km for MPO, and 590x11640km for Mio. The foreseen orbits of the MPO and Mio will allow close encounters of the two spacecraft throughout the mission. The mission has been named in honor of Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo (1920–1984), who was a brilliant Italian mathematician, who made many significant contributions to planetary research and celestial mechanics.</p><p>On its way BepiColombo has several opportunities for scientific observations - during the cruise into the inner solar system and during nine flybys (one at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury). However, since the spacecraft is in a stacked configuration during the flybys only some of the   instruments on both spacecraft will perform scientific observations. In early April of 2020 BepiColombo will flyby Earth and later in October the first Venus flyby will follow.</p><p>A status of the mission and instruments and first results of measurements taken during the Earth flyby and the first year in cruise will be given.</p>

BepiColombo – Status and first Results from Activities during Cruise

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Benkhoff ◽  
Go Murakami ◽  
Joe Zender
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Terrestrial Planet ◽  
Joint Project ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
First Results ◽  
French Guyana ◽  
The Individual

<p>BepiColombo was launched on 20 October 2018 the BepiColombo from the European spaceport in French Guyana and is now on route to Mercury to unveil Mercury’s secrets. BepiColombo with its state of the art and very comprehensive payload will perform measurements to increase our knowledge on the fundamental questions about Mercury’s evolution, composition, interior, magnetosphere, and exosphere. BepiColombo is a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and consists of two orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio). </p> <p>The BepiColombo spacecraft is during its 7-year long journey to the innermost terrestrial planet in a so-called ‘stacked’ configuration: The Mio and the MPO are connected to each other, and stacked on-top of the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM). Only in late 2025, the ‘stack’ configuration is abandoned and the individual elements spacecraft are brought in to their final Mercury orbit: 480x1500km for MPO, and 590x11640km for Mio. The foreseen orbits of the MPO and Mio will allow close encounters of the two spacecraft throughout the mission. The mission has been named in honor of Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo (1920–1984), who was a brilliant Italian mathematician, who made many significant contributions to planetary research and celestial mechanics.</p> <p>On its way BepiColombo has several opportunities for scientific observations - during the cruise into the inner solar system and during nine flybys (one at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury). However, since the spacecraft is in a stacked configuration during the flybys only some of the   instruments on both spacecraft will perform scientific observations. In April 2020 BepiColombo has passed Earth. The next planetary flyby will be on 15<sup>th</sup> October 2020 at Venus.</p> <p>A status of the mission and instruments and a summary of first results from measurements taken during the Earth flyby and during the first two years in cruise will be given.</p> <p> </p>

The ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission: status and first results

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Benkhoff ◽  
Joe Zender ◽  
Go Murakami ◽  
Elsa Montagnon
Keyword(s):  
Electric Propulsion ◽  
Gamma Ray ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Terrestrial Planet ◽  
Neutron Spectrometer ◽  
Laser Altimeter ◽  
Joint Project ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Radio Science ◽  
First Results

<p>BepiColombo was launched on 20 October 2018 from the European spaceport Kourou in French Guyana and is now on route to Mercury to unveil Mercury’s secrets. BepiColombo a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) consists of two orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (Mio). It will perform measurements to increase our knowledge on the fundamental questions about Mercury’s evolution, composition, interior, magnetosphere, and exosphere.  </p><p>During its 7-year long journey to the innermost terrestrial planet Mio and MPO are connected to each on-top of the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM). The MTM contains a solar electric propulsion engine and will bring the two spacecraft to Mercury. In late 2025, this ‘stack’ configuration is abandoned, the MTM will be jettisoned and the individual elements spacecraft are brought in to their final Mercury orbit: 480x1500km for MPO, and 590x11640km for Mio.  </p><p>On its way BepiColombo with its state of the art and very comprehensive payload has several opportunities for scientific observations - during the cruise into the inner solar system and during its nine planetary flybys (one at Earth, two at Venus and six at Mercury). However, since the spacecraft is in a stacked configuration not all of the instruments can be operated during the cruise phase.</p><p>Some of the instruments have been already operated regularly or partially during the flybys in their “scientific” observation mode: e.g. the magnetometer (MPO-MAG), the accelerometer (ISA), the environmental sensor (BERM), the gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer (MGNS), the solar intensity x-ray and particle spectrometer (SIXS), the radio science experiment (MORE), using the X-band and the Ka-band, the thermal infrared spectrometer (MERTIS), the UV spectrometer (PHEBUS) and some sensors of the SERENA suite. Also, instruments or some parts of the instruments of the Japanese Mio spacecraft like the dust monitor (MDM), the plasma wave instrument (PWI), the particle and plasma experiments of MPPE and the magnetometer (MGF) were already successfully operated in their science modes. BepiColombo also took regular “selfie” images with their three monitoring cameras on the MTM. These cameras were also able to take a sequence of outreach images during the flybys at Earth and Venus in 2020. Other instruments such as cameras and NIR spectrometer (SIMBIO-SYS), the laser altimeter (BELA), the x-ray spectrometer (MIXS), and parts of the electron, neutron, and iron sensors of SERENA on MPO and MSASI and some dedicated sensors of PWI and MPPE are operational, but can only be used in their scientific modes after the Mercury in-orbit commissioning in early 2026 because their field of view is blocked by the underlying Transfer Module.</p><p>Despite the reduced instrument availability, scientific and engineering operations has been scheduled during the cruise phase, especially during the swing-bys. A status of the mission and instruments and a summary of first results from measurements taken during the first three years en route to Mercury will be given.</p>

scholarly journals THE ZADKO OBSERVATORY

2021 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 35-39
Author(s):  
J. A. Moore ◽  
B. Gendre ◽  
D. M. Coward ◽  
H. Crisp ◽  
A. Klotz
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Gamma Ray ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Global Awareness ◽  
The Public ◽  
Technical Management ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Nearby Stars ◽  
Near Earth Asteroids ◽  
Single Instrument

The 1.0 metre f/4 fast-slew Zadko Telescope was installed in June 2008 approximately seventy kilometres north of Perth at Yeal, in the Shire of Gingin, Western Australia. Since the Zadko Telescope has been in operation it has proven its worth by detecting numerous Gamma Ray Burst afterglows, two of these being the most distant 'optical transients' imaged by an Australian telescope. Other projects include a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to image potentially hazardous near Earth asteroids (2019), monitoring space weather on nearby stars (2019), and photometry of a transit of Saturn's moon Titan (2018). Another active Zadko Telescope project is tracking Geostationary satellites and attempting to use photometry to classify various space debris (defunct satellites). The Zadko Telescope's importance as a potential tool for education, training, and public outreach cannot be underestimated, as the global awareness of the importance of astronomy (and space science) as a context for teaching science continues to increase. An example of this was the national media coverage of its contribution to the discovery of colliding neutron stars in 2017, capturing the imagination of the public. In this proceeding, I will focus on the practical aspects of managing a robotic Observatory, focusing on the sustainability of the Observatory and the technical management involved in hosting different commercial projects. I will review the evolution of the Observatory, from its early, single instrument, state to its current multi-telescope and multi-instrument capabilities. I will finish by outlining the future of the Observatory and the site.

BepiColombo – Mercury Swing-Bys

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Zender ◽  
Johannes Benkhoff ◽  
Go Murakami ◽  
Elsa Montagnon
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Space Exploration ◽  
Terrestrial Planet ◽  
Field Of View ◽  
Space Craft ◽  
Joint Project ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Euro Pean ◽  
French Guyana

<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p> <p>The BepiColombo spacecraft was launched on 20 October 2018 from the European spaceport in French Guyana and is currently on its way to Mercury. On its way, the spacecraft will swing-by Mercury six times in its stacked configuration, before releasing the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) and the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) in their corresponding orbits around the target planet.</p> <p><strong>Introduction</strong></p> <p>Mercury is in many ways a very different planet from what we were expecting. On 20 October 2018 the BepiColombo spacecraft [1] started its 7 year journey to the innermost terrestrial planet to investigate on the fundamental questions about its evolution, composition, interior, magnetosphere, and exosphere.</p> <p>BepiColombo is a joint project between the Euro- pean Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aero- space Exploration Agency (JAXA). The Mission con- sists of two orbiters, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO). From their dedicated orbits the two space- craft will be studying the planet and its environment.</p> <p>The mission has been named in honor of Giuseppe (Bepi) Colombo (1920–1984), who was a brilliant Italian mathematician, who made many significant contributions to planetary research and celestial mechanics.</p> <p>During the cruise phase, the spacecraft flies in a stacked configuration: the MMO and MPO are mounted ontop of the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM). As a consequence, most remote sensing instruments onboard the MPO are mounted towards the MTM and have a fully obstructed field-of-view. The MMO instrumentation is shielded by a protection shield (MOSIF) and several instruments still await the deployment on measurement booms.</p> <p>Despite the reduced instrument availability, scientific and engineering operations will be scheduled during the cruise phase, especially during the swing-bys.</p> <p><strong>Mercury Swing-bys</strong></p> <p>Following the Earth and two Venus swing-bys, six Mercury swing-bys are foreseen from October 2021 until 9 January 2025. The poster will discuss the flyby geometries and potential operation opportunities, in comparison with the three MESSENGER Mercury swing-bys from 2008 and 2009 [2][3].</p> <p><strong>References: </strong>[1] Benkhoff, J., et al. (2010) <em>Planet. Space Sci. </em>58, 2-20. [2] Baker, D.N. et al. (2011) Planet. Space Sci 59, 2066-2074. [3] McNutt, R.L. et al. (2010), Acta Astronautica V67, Iss 7-8, p 681-687</p>

Synergetic use of L- and C-band SAR data in Earth Sciences – The JAXA-ESA mutual cooperation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Kubanek ◽  
Malcolm Davidson ◽  
Maurice Borgeaud ◽  
Shin-ichi Sobue ◽  
Takeo Tadono
Keyword(s):  
Snow Water Equivalent ◽  
Surface Deformation ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Synthetic Aperture ◽  
Mutual Cooperation ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
First Results ◽  
International Projects ◽  
Snow Water

<p>Within the “Cooperation for the Use of Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellites in Earth Science and Applications”, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) agreed to mutually share C-band data from ESA’s Sentinel-1 mission and L-band data from JAXA’s ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 mission over selected test sites. Applications include wetland monitoring, hurricanes, sea ice, snow water equivalent and surface deformation.</p><p>The aim of the collaboration is to develop a better understanding of the benefits of combining L- and C-band data over various areas and for the different thematic applications. The findings of the different European, Japanese and international projects will help to develop future SAR satellite missions, such as JAXA’s ALOS-4, and ESA’s Copernicus mission ROSE-L and Sentinel-1 Next Generation.</p><p>This presentation will give an overview of the ongoing ESA-JAXA cooperation and will show highlights and first results of the different test sites and applications.</p>

scholarly journals First Results from the German Cal/Val Activities for Aeolus

2020 ◽  
Vol 237 ◽  
pp. 01008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Baars ◽  
Alexander Geiß ◽  
Ulla Wandinger ◽  
Alina Herzog ◽  
Ronny Engelmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Direct Detection ◽  
Weather Prediction ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
High Spectral Resolution ◽  
Dual Channel ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
First Results ◽  
Global Coverage ◽  
Wind Lidar ◽  
Doppler Wind Lidar

On 22nd August 2018, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the first direct detection Doppler wind lidar into space. Operating at 355 nm and acquiring signals with a dual channel receiver, it allows wind observations in clear air and particle-laden regions of the atmosphere. Furthermore, particle optical properties can be obtained using the High Spectral Resolution Technique Lidar (HSRL) technique. Measuring with 87 km horizontal and 0.25-2 km vertical resolution between ground and up to 30 km in the stratosphere, the global coverage of Aeolus observations shall fill gaps in the global observing system and thus help improving numerical weather prediction. Within this contribution, first results from the German initiative for experimental Aeolus validation are presented and discussed. Ground-based wind and aerosol measurements from tropospheric radar wind profilers, Doppler wind lidars, radiosondes, aerosol lidars and cloud radars are utilized for that purpose.

Atmospheric Correction Inter-comparison eXercise: the second implementation 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgia Doxani ◽  
Eric F. Vermote ◽  
Sergii Skakun ◽  
Ferran Gascon ◽  
Jean-Claude Roger
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
Atmospheric Correction ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Earth Observation ◽  
Surface Reflectance ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Earth Observation Satellites ◽  
Comparison Exercise ◽  
International Initiative

<p>The atmospheric correction inter-comparison exercise (ACIX) is an international initiative to benchmark various state-of-the-art atmospheric correction (AC) processors. The first inter-comparison exercise initiated in 2016 with the collaboration of European Space Agency (ESA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the frame of the CEOS WGCV (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites, Working Group on Calibration & Validation). The evolution of the participating processors and the increasing interest of AC community to repeat and improve such experiment stimulated the continuation of ACIX and its second implementation (ACIX-II). In particular, 12 AC developer teams from Europe and USA participated in ACIX-II over land sites. In this presentation the benchmarking protocol, i.e. test sites, input data, inter-comparison metrics, etc. will be briefly described and some representative results of ACIX-II will be presented. The inter-comparison outputs varied depending on the sensors, products and sites, demonstrating the strengths and weaknesses of the corresponding processors. In continuation of ACIX-I achievements, the outcomes of the second one are expected to provide an enhanced standardised approach to inter-compare AC processing products, i.e. Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT), Water Vapour (WV) and Surface Reflectance (SR), and quantitively assessed their quality when in situ measurements are available.</p>

Validation of Aeolus aerosol and wind products with sophisticated ground-based instruments in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Baars ◽  
Alina Herzog ◽  
Ronny Engelmann ◽  
Johannes Bühl ◽  
Martin Radenz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Weather Forecasting ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Chem Phys ◽  
High Spectral Resolution ◽  
Backscatter Coefficient ◽  
Range Resolution ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
First Results

<p>The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched the Earth Explorer Mission Aeolus on 22 August 2018. Within the German initiative EVAA (Experimental Validation and Assimilation of Aeolus observations), Cal/Val activities for Aeolus started immediately after the instrument was turned on in space. The aim is to validate the wind and aerosol products of Aeolus and to quantify the benefits of these new measurements for weather forecasting and aerosol and cloud research. <br>For this purpose, ground-based aerosol and wind lidar observations have been performed at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Leipzig, Germany, and at Punta Arenas (53.13 S, 70.88 W), Chile, in the frame of the DACAPO-PESO campaign (dacapo.tropos.de). Radiosondes have been launched during the Aeolus overpasses each Friday at Leipzig in addition since mid of May 2019. In Punta Arenas, we also used Doppler cloud radar observations with respect to the validation of Mie and Rayleigh winds of Aeolus.  </p><p>Aerosol-only observations with multiwavelength-Raman polarization lidar were made at the PollyNET (Baars 2016) stations in Haifa (Israel), Dushanbe (Tajikistan), Tel Aviv (Israel), and in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - the latter two are hosted by PollyNET partner institutions (Baars, 2016). These locations are close to the desert with frequent dense, lofted aerosol layers and are thus of particular interest for Aeolus Cal/Val. Considering the long averaging length of Aeolus (87 km) and the distance to the lidars (max. 100 km), a good agreement with respect to the co-polar backscatter coefficient is found between Aeolus and the ground-based lidars at these locations.</p><p>We will present results from the above-mentioned Cal/Val activities with respect to, both, wind and aerosol products of Aeolus. It will be shown, that one of the mission goals, namely the demonstration that wind observations from space by active remote sensing are possible, have been already achieved. Furthermore, it will be demonstrated that the spaceborne HSRL (high spectral resolution lidar) technique applied for Aeolus can provide independent backscatter and extinction measurements of aerosols – a spaceborne novelty as well. Since September 2019, also an aerosol-optimized range resolution, the so-called Mediterranean range-bin setting (MARS), is operational for Aeolus in the Eastern Mediterranean. First results show a significantly improved aerosol retrieval for this adapted instrumental setting and will be presented as well.</p><p> </p><p>Reference:</p><p>Baars, H., et al. (2016), An overview of the first decade of PollyNET: An emerging network of automated Raman-polarization lidars for continuous aerosol profiling, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16(8), 5111-5137, doi:10.5194/acp-16-5111-2016.</p>

scholarly journals The e-ASTROGAM space mission: a major step forward for supernova physics

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (S331) ◽  
pp. 351-356
Author(s):  
Vincent Tatischeff ◽  
Roland Diehl ◽  
Alessandro De Angelis
Keyword(s):  
Gamma Ray ◽  
European Space Agency ◽  
Space Mission ◽  
Medium Size ◽  
Major Step ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Broad Energy Range ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
Energy Gamma ◽  
Broad Energy

Abstracte-ASTROGAM is a gamma-ray observatory operating in a broad energy range, 0.15 MeV – 3 GeV, recently proposed as the M5 Medium-size mission of the European Space Agency. It has the potential to revolutionize the astronomy of medium-energy gamma-rays by increasing the number of known sources in this domain by more than an order of magnitude and providing gamma-ray polarization information for many of these sources. In these proceedings, we discuss the expected capacity of the mission to study the physics of supernovae, both thermonuclear and core-collapse, as well as the origin of cosmic rays in SN shocks.

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