****************************************************************************** DORISMail 02-Jan-2002 18:41:31 Message No 0155 ****************************************************************************** Author: Pascal Willis Subject: [ENVISAT:Cal-Val] ENVISAT LAUNCH: 1 March 2002 Status: U X-Authentication-Warning: estery.jw.estec.esa.nl: majordom set sender to owner-envisat-cal-val@estery.jw.estec.esa.nl using -f X-Lotus-FromDomain: ESA From: Paul.Snoeij@esa.int To: envisat-cal-val@jw.estec.esa.nl, cal-val-rehearsal@jw.estec.esa.nl Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 15:05:20 +0100 Subject: No 0155 : [ENVISAT:Cal-Val] ENVISAT LAUNCH: 1 March 2002 Sender: owner-envisat-cal-val@jw.estec.esa.nl Reply-To: Paul.Snoeij@esa.int [Message posted by Paul.Snoeij@esa.int to the envisat-cal-val mailing list] Multiple copies of this message can not always be avoided. ================================================== ENVISAT LAUNCH: 1 March 2002 A two weeks satellite maintenance campaign was organised mid October to execute a periodic maintenance on the moving parts of the Service Module, the Payload Module and the Instruments. These activities demonstrated that the satellite is perfectly healthy. On the launcher failure investigations, following the problem encountered with the AESTUS engine on the upper stage (EPS) during the last Ariane L510 flight 12 July 2002, significant progress has been achieved in the understanding of the AESTUS engine ignition sequence: More than one hundred tests have been performed on two test engines at the Lampoldshausen test facility, Germany The tests results as well as the detailed modelling of the engine ignition sequence have permitted to identify the most likely causes of the L510 launch failure. A way forward has been defined to guarantee a safe AESTUS engine ignition and operation on the next ARIANE 5 flights: it includes additional verifications on the ground, in the integration and preparation of the engine, some modifications of the ignition sequence to be validated during firing tests at Lampoldshausen, as well as some additional precautions in the launch preparation at the Guyana Space Centre. The Ariane Failure Inquiry Board, set right after the flight 142 failure, has been recently reconvened. This Board endorsed, on 13 December 2001, the work-plan leading to resumption of the Ariane 5 flights early 2002. The next Ariane 5 launch, L511, is set to launch and deliver ENVISAT directly on its sun-synchronous orbit. The foreseen corrective procedural and operational measures will be verified by tests to be conducted on two qualification engines as well as on the L511 engine. The L511 EPS engine has been selected and will arrive in Lampoldshausen 3rd January 2002 for firing tests of the new ignition sequence and for overall validation of the engine. The launch of ENVISAT has been set to 1st March 2002 at 1:07:59 UT. Based on the above, The ENVISAT phase 2 launch campaign will resume early January 2002. We will keep you informed of the progress of the Envisat launch preparations and are looking forward to a successful launch. Paul Snoeij ENVISAT Product Validation European Space Agency ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, P.O. Box 299, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands tel.: +31 71 565 4087 fax.: +31 71 565 3191 e-mail: Paul.Snoeij@esa.int http://envisat.esa.int/