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PROBA images available on web
Paris (ESA) July 3 2002 ESA's first small satellite PROBA for in-orbit technology demonstration is now well under way and turning out great pictures of the Earth. "We are very happy with PROBA and the results from this small satellite. It has now been in orbit for eight months and platform, instruments and ground segment are performing well," says Frederic Teston, PROBA Project Manager at ESA. "We have now decided to make available on the Internet some of the pictures taken by PROBA during spacecraft commissioning." PROBA (Project for On Board Autonomy) was launched on 22 October last year and is ESA's first small autonomous spacecraft. It operates with limited intervention from the ground, autonomously performing on board everyday tasks as guidance, navigation, control, onboard scheduling and payload resource management. PROBA is part of the Agency's in-orbit Technology Demonstration Programme's overall effort to promote technological missions using small spacecraft. It was built by a consortium of small companies and institutes from seven European countries and Canada, led by the Belgian prime contractor Verhaert.
Strong processing for autonomy It carries the highest-performance computer system flown by ESA so far. This is a space version of a standard commercial processor intended to validate a possible computing core for future spacecraft. One Gigabit on-board memory is used for autonomous on-board data storage, until they are downloaded on a high-speed one-Megabit per second link to the ground station in Redu, Belgium.
Loaded with high-tech "Small satellites such as PROBA offer the opportunity for rapid flight-testing of technologies such as miniature digital cameras and distributed sensing devices, all of which are important for future ESA missions and European industrial competitiveness," says Frederic Teston.
PROBA images on line "With the onboard GPS system and the autonomous star sensor technology, PROBA is one of the best-performing small satellites in production," continues Teston. "Combining this with its advanced manoeuvring capability, will provide particularly interesting recording features of vegetation and aerosol. 40 Principal Investigators, are preparing to analyse these data, which should make it possible to distinguish between variations in leaf biochemistry and leaf/canopy structure." Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links PROBA web site Wanted: instruments for testing on next Proba mission EMITS PROBA mission [PDF file, 282KB] Verhaert PROBA-I website SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express All about the robots on Earth and beyond!
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