Artemis (satellite)

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This article is about the telecommunications satellite. For the ARTEMIS probes around the Moon, see THEMIS. For other uses, see Artemis (disambiguation).
Artemis
Artemismodrp.jpg
Model of Artemis Satellite in original size.
Operator European Space Agency
COSPAR ID 2001-029A
SATCAT № 26863
Start of mission
Launch date 12 July 2001, 21:58 (2001-07-12UTC21:58Z) UTC
Rocket Ariane 5G V142
Launch site Kourou ELA-3
Contractor Arianespace
Orbital parameters
Reference system Geocentric
Regime Geostationary

Artemis is a geostationary earth orbit satellite (GEOS) for telecommunications, built for ESA. The Artemis satellite operates at the 21.5E orbital position.[1]

The mission was planned for many years, with launch initially intended for 1995 and slipping; it was intended for launch on Ariane 5 but at one point there were suggestions that a Japanese H-II rocket might be used.[2]

Launched by an Ariane 5 rocket on 12 July 2001, it originally reached an orbit much lower than planned (590 km x 17487 km) due to a malfunction in the launch vehicle's upper stage.[3] It was remotely reconfigured to reach its intended station by means of a novel procedure.[4] First, over the course of about a week, most of its chemical fuel was used to put it in a 31,000 km circular orbit (by raising first the apogee then the perigee, going via a 590 km x 31000 km orbit). Then, its electric-ion motor — originally intended for station keeping and for firing a few minutes at a time — was instead kept running for most of 18 months, pushing the spacecraft into an outward spiral trajectory. It gained altitude at the rate of about 15 km per day, until it reached the intended geostationary orbit.[5]

On January 1, 2014 Avanti, a London-based company, took the ownership of the satellite.[6]

Payload

The Artemis satellite has several payloads [7]

  • SILEX (Semiconductor-laser Intersatellite Link Experiment) is a laser link, which has been used both to communicate with the SPOT-4 remote-sensing satellite and with a plane in flight.[8] It uses a 60 mW AlGaAs laser diode as the transmitter and a photodiode detector, with a 25 cm telescope aperture, and a data rate of 50Mbit/s; it weighs about 160 kg and uses 150 watts of power.[9] The telescope is in a fork mounting. The system is designed and built by Astrium.[citation needed]
  • SKDR (S/Ka band Data Relay), a system for relaying data from other satellites. This uses a 2.85-metre antenna.
  • LLM (L-band Land Mobile), a system designed for satellite communication with fairly small vehicle-based terminals in Europe. This uses a second 2.85-metre antenna, providing four beams; one covers Europe from western Spain to eastern Turkey and from the southern point of Tunisia to the north of Norway, whilst three spot beams cover respectively France and Spain; central Europe and Italy; Turkey and south-East Europe.
  • EGNOS navigation-signal transmitter [10]
  • An advanced ion propulsion system with 44 kg of xenon reaction mass[citation needed]

Operations

As of 2005, Artemis was used operationally for data relay from ESA's satellites in low Earth orbit; a SILEX link to SPOT-4 was typically established daily.[11] It was also used on an situational basis; for example, it was used in 2008 to relay information from the automated transfer vehicle Jules Verne while mission control at Houston was unavailable due to a hurricane.[12]

It is now[by whom?] considered a precursor for the EDRS programme.[citation needed]

References

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External links

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