February 25, 2002. Copyright 2002. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

ENVISAT satellite set for take-off

LONDON, February 25, Graphic News: THE largest and most advanced Earth-observation satellite ever built, the Environmental Satellite, known as ENVISAT, is is set to embark on its voyage into space from the European Space AgencyÕs spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana.

Equipped with cutting-edge environmental monitoring instruments, the £1.4bn (US$2bn) spacecraft will monitor the Earth for signs of pollution and climate change.

When in orbit, it will circle the Earth once every 100 minutes and provide vital information about global warming, climate change and the depletion of the ozone layer, as well as changes in the oceans, ice caps, vegetation and our atmosphere.

The data should enable governments and policymakers to take more informed decisions when tackling global issues such as climate change.

The British science minister Lord Sainsbury said: ÒScepticism flourishes where there is uncertainty, as there has been over how much greenhouse gases influence climate change.Ó

The 10 instruments on board will measure sea-surface temperatures, wind speeds and wave heights, monitor the concentrations of 25 gases in the atmosphere, detect oil pollution in the oceans, monitor the disappearance of forests and detect tiny movements of the crust that could help to predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The instruments will be powered by a solar array one third as large as a tennis court.

The orbit is designed so that the satellite will pass over the same point on Earth at the same time of day, making day-to-day changes in vegetation or ice cover easier to detect because the sun will be at the same angle each time.

The ocean measurements could improve the prediction of the onset of El Nino, the climatic change in the Pacific that causes widespread disruption of the weather. It is thought these events could be predicted six months or even a year in advance.

Over its 10-year life ENVISAT is expected to gather a petabyte (1 followed by 15 zeros) of data, the equivalent of a million PCs. The information will be shared among 14 participating countries: the 13 members of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Canada.

The satellite, insured for £152.5m ($217.5m) in the event of failure, is scheduled to be launched by the giant Ariane 5 rocket at 01:07 GMT on Friday, March 1. This rocket has failed three times in its 10-launch history.

ÒThere have been extensive tests and weÕre confident that Ariane 5 is going to succeed,Ó said Dr Colin Hicks, director general of the British National Space Centre. ÒWe are as confident as one can ever be at launch.Ó
/ENDS
Source: European Space Agency