BepiColombo (MPO+MMO) - Ariane 5 ECA (VA245) - Kourou ELA-3 - 20.10.2018 - 04:45:35 ДМВ

Автор Карлсон, 27.02.2007 21:42:10

« назад - далее »

0 Пользователи и 1 гость просматривают эту тему.


tnt22

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/07/10/bepicolombo-mercury-mission-tested-for-journey-into-pizza-oven/
ЦитироватьBepiColombo Mercury mission tested for journey into 'pizza oven'
July 10, 2017 Stephen Clark


A view of the BepiColombo spacecraft stacked in launch configuration at the European Space Agency's ESTEC test center in the Netherlands. The sunshield cover for Japan's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter is pictured at lower right. Credit: Airbus Defense and Space

Three spacecraft built in Europe and Japan have completed their final joint tests to ensure they are ready for departure to Mercury on an Ariane 5 rocket late next year on the nearly $1.9 billion BepiColombo mission to survey the solar system's innermost planet.

Officials displayed the BepiColombo spacecraft to the media last week in the Netherlands, where engineers are putting the probe to the test in the extreme thermal, acoustic and vibration environments it will encounter in flight.

Readying the mission to survive the searing temperatures at Mercury proved to be one of the biggest challenges in BepiColombo's two-decade development.
Спойлер
"We have to survive 10 times the solar radiation we are experiencing at Earth, plus surface temperatures of up to 450 degrees Celsius (842 degrees Fahrenheit)," said Ulrich Reininghaus, ESA's BepiColombo project manager, in a press briefing last week.

The European Space Agency-led project will dispatch two scientific orbiters to Mercury with instruments to map the planet's landscapes and topography, peer into darkened craters that may contain water ice and a mysterious frozen organic sludge, and probe the scorched world's interior structure by measuring its magnetic field.

"I think our two spacecraft we send to Mercury will, first of all, do a very comprehensive and thorough investigation of the planet and its environment," said Johannes Benkhoff, BepiColombo project scientist at ESA. "It will help to unveil the mysteries of Mercury and hopefully provide clues to better understand the formation history of the planet and of our solar system."

A propulsion module will go along on the 7.2-year trip to Mercury to steer the robotic science probes through the solar system with the aid of four ion engines.

Scheduled for launch in October 2018, the tandem mission developed by ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is the most ambitious expedition to Mercury yet mounted, and the first time the blazing hot planet will be visited by a spacecraft not owned by NASA.


Artist's illustration of the combined BepiColombo spacecraft at Mercury. Credit: Airbus Defense and Space

Two previous NASA missions — Mariner 10 and MESSENGER — previously explored Mercury. Mariner 10 zipped by Mercury three times in the 1974 and 1975, photographing less than half of the planet before MESSENGER made its own flybys and eventually entered orbit in March 2011 for a four-year global science campaign.

"BepiColombo will follow on MESSENGER's results and get even more details (about Mercury)," Benkhoff said. "We will be able to answer many, many of the questions that were raised by the MESSENGER mission."

Those questions include the nature of water ice deposits hidden deep inside permanently-shadowed craters near Mercury's poles, and the source of the planet's unexpected magnetic field.

BepiColombo's European-built Mercury Planetary Orbiter carries 11 instruments, a suite comprising a high-resolution mapping camera, a laser altimeter, an accelerometer, and a set of spectrometers on a downward-facing science deck that will remain pointed toward the planet throughout each orbit.

The Japanese-made Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter's five science sensors will study the plasma environment around Mercury, attempt to image the planet's sodium-rich tenuous atmosphere, and measure Mercury's magnetic field.

The Mercury Transfer Module will shepherd the two science orbiters on the 5.5-billion-mile (8.9-billion-kilometer) voyage from Earth to Mercury. The engine section hosts no science instruments, but its two electricity-generating solar panels — each stretching nearly 40 feet (12 meters) long — will produce power for four rear-mounted xenon-fueled electric thrusters.

The ion engines, which can fire two at a time, will provide more than half the impulse BepiColombo needs for the one-way trip. The spacecraft will also use nine gravity boosts from flybys with Earth, Venus and Mercury to line up for orbital insertion at the innermost planet.


The base of ESA's Mercury Transfer Module with its four T6 ion thrusters fully fitted for its journey to Mercury, along with the rest of the BepiColombo spacecraft. Credit: ESA–U. Reininghaus

Named for Giuseppe 'Bepi' Colombo, the Italian mathematician and engineer who helped design Mariner 10's Mercury flyby trajectory, the mission is due to arrive at its destination in December 2025.

The flight plan calls for the spacecraft to jettison the transfer module and fire rocket engines to slip into orbit around the planet. Japan's magnetospheric orbiter, cocooned in a protective sunshield during the mission's interplanetary transit, will be released in an egg-shaped elliptical orbit stretching up to 7,232 miles (11,640 kilometers) above Mercury.

Then the sunshield will be ejected as the European orbiter spirals closer to Mercury, eventually ending up in a tighter orbit ranging between about 300 miles (480 kilometers) and 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) from the planet.

The dual spacecraft will spend at least a year observing Mercury.

ESA and JAXA officials said last week the mission is on track for liftoff at the opening of an eight-week launch window Oct. 5, 2018.

BepiColombo's launch window opens the same month the James Webb Space Telescope — a U.S.-European-Canadian observatory that will succeed Hubble — is set for blastoff on a different Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana.

Arianespace officials will meet with managers from both projects in September to determine which high-profile science mission will go first.

Engineers last month simulated the vibration and noise BepiColombo will experience during its rocket ride from Earth, capping a series of tests on the combined spacecraft in its launch configuration, which towers around 20 feet (6 meters) tall.


The Mercury Planetary Orbiter (inner orbit) and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (outer orbit), in their elliptical polar orbits around Mercury. The Mercury Planetary Orbiter will operate in a 2.3-hour orbit from an altitude of 298 miles x 932 miles (480 x 1500 kilometers) above the planet's surface. The Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter will take 9.3 hours to orbit the planet in its 366 x 7,232-mile (590 x 11640-kilometer) orbit. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab
 
The ground team will disassemble the spacecraft in the coming months, conduct additional electrical checks, then place BepiColombo's transfer module in a space environment simulator modified to mimic the extreme temperatures at Mercury. The propulsion section's thermal test follows up similar exposure verifications already completed on the European and Japanese orbiters.

ESA originally intended to launch the BepiColombo in 2009 when the mission was formally selected by the agency's science committee in 2000.

Crafting a spacecraft capable of withstanding the hot temperatures at Mercury turned out to be tough, officials said.

Engineers had to design new solar cells, develop heat-resistant pointing mechanisms for BepiColombo's antennas and solar panels, and install mirrors to reflect sunlight and infrared heat.

Much of the technology had to be invented just for BepiColombo.

"The challenge was to develop a solar cell assembly that was capable of withstanding high temperatures and ultraviolet radiation at the same time," said Markus Schelkle, BepiColombo program manager at Airbus Defense and Space in Germany, the mission's prime contractor. "This was (something) we learned, and due to that, we had a really hard, long way to find a solution."

BepiColombo also carries ceramic thermal coatings and titanium parts covered in silver and gold to ensure its communications antenna can function in the furnace-like temperatures at Mercury.

"We had several delays," Reininghaus said. Work on the solar cells and high-temperature mechanisms "cost us much more time than we expected," he said.

"The database on materials we had, even for qualified products, was good up to 125 degrees Celsius (257 degrees Fahrenheit)," Reininghaus said.

That was not good enough for BepiColombo.

"We're flying into a pizza oven," Reininghaus said. "This is why we had to test materials at very high temperature regimes, sometimes with very unwanted results."
[свернуть]


triage

#123
Японский 59 стр http://fanfun.jaxa.jp/jaxatv/files/mmo_20170706.pdf (так же там и JUICE)
К пресс конференции https://youtu.be/D7HYEn7edu8
https://youtu.be/D7HYEn7edu8

tnt22

Цитировать Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 1 ч. назад

It's the Kourou version of Thunderdome: two missions enter, but only one can leave on an Ariane 5 next October:
http://spacenews.com/spaceport-schedule-conflict-could-delay-jwst-launch/
http://spacenews.com/spaceport-schedule-conflict-could-delay-jwst-launch/
ЦитироватьSpaceport schedule conflict could delay JWST launch
by Jeff Foust — August 1, 2017


The integrated telescope and instrument section of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope was moved into a vacuum chamber at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston for testing as part of preparations for a launch scheduled for October 2018. Credit: NASA

WASHINGTON — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is facing a schedule conflict for its Ariane 5 launch with a European planetary science mission that could, in one scenario, delay the telescope's launch by several months.

Current plans call for the launch of JWST on an Ariane 5 from the spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, in October 2018. The European Space Agency is providing the launch of JWST as its contribution for the mission, in exchange for a share of observing time on the telescope.

However, ESA is also planning an October 2018 launch of BepiColombo, its first mission to Mercury, in cooperation with the Japanese space agency JAXA. That mission will also use an Ariane 5 launching from Kourou.
Спойлер
At a meeting of the NASA Advisory Council's science committee July 24, Alan Boss, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution and a member of the Astrophysics Advisory Committee, warned that BepiColombo could take precedence over JWST for that October 2018 launch slot.

"BepiColombo has rights to launch before James Webb does," he said in a summary of a meeting of that advisory committee earlier in the month.

Boss didn't elaborate on the reasons for that precedence, but BepiColombo, unlike JWST, has a narrow launch window in order to reach Mercury. ESA officials said earlier in July that the mission's current launch window opens Oct. 5 and runs through Nov. 28. JWST does not have similar launch window restrictions.

While the Ariane 5 is capable of flying at a relatively high cadence — three Ariane 5 rockets launched in May and June of this year — the extensive payload processing requirements of both BepiColombo and JWST appear to rule out launching both missions around the same time.

"It's unclear if BepiColombo will be out of the way" before JWST arrives at Kourou for launch preparations, Boss said. He believed JWST needed three to six months of "full access" to facilities at Kourou to prepare for launch. "You really want to have BepiColombo long gone before you move in and start taking over."

If BepiColombo sticks to its current schedule, that could mean delaying JWST by several months. "There's some concern that that October 2018 launch may actually slip into the spring of 2019," he said.

That schedule conflict is due in part to delays in the development of BepiColombo. The mission's launch has slipped several times in the last decade. In 2007, when ESA approved moving the mission into its development phase, it was expected to launch on a Soyuz rocket in 2013.

In 2011, ESA announced the mission would instead launch on a more powerful Ariane 5 in July 2014. The launch slipped in 2012 to August 2015, then later to July 2016, January 2017 and April 2018. Last November, ESA announced that the launch was now scheduled for October 2018 because of a problem with a power processing unit on the spacecraft.

Boss noted BepiColombo's delays in his presentation, suggesting that the mission could face additional delays. ESA officials, though, said at an event in early July that the spacecraft was on scheduled to ship to French Guiana in early 2018 to being final launch preparations.

"We are looking forward to completing the final tests this year, and shipping to Kourou on schedule," Ulrich Reininghaus, project manager for BepiColombo at ESA, said in a July 6 statement about the completion of the latest series of tests of the spacecraft. That statement added that the launch schedule for the mission would be confirmed later this year.

JWST has also suffered significant delays in its development, although it has maintained an October 2018 launch date since a re-plan of the mission several years ago. The telescope is currently in an Apollo-era thermal vacuum chamber at NASA's Johnson Space Center for testing, and will be shipped later this year to a Northrop Grumman facility in Southern California to be integrated to its spacecraft bus and sunshield.

JWST currently has about three and a half months of schedule reserve, an amount that has been gradually decreasing to account for development issues. That current level of schedule reserve is nearly a month below what the project's plan called for having at this stage in development, but still above recommended levels for projects set by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Additional problems, however, could lead to delays in JWST regardless of any launch site conflicts.
"There's some concern that they might be running out of funded schedule reserve," Boss said, particularly as the project goes into critical final assembly and testing activities. "There's some concern, but the JWST folks are confident they will overcome the remaining hurdles and get it done on time."
[свернуть]

tnt22

ЦитироватьBepiColombo prepares for Mercury

European Space Agency, ESA

Опубликовано: 1 сент. 2017 г.

ESA's first mission to Mercury, BepiColombo, is now set for final thermal tests before launching to the hottest planet in our Solar System in October 2018. Europe said farewell to the spacecraft in July when it was at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in its launch configuration. BepiColombo is a joint mission to Mercury between the ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and consists of two science orbiters: ESA's Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSIFXqbZWRQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSIFXqbZWRQ (3:14)

tnt22


PIN

Приехал экземпляр для отработки операций
https://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_events/albums/72157691181112342
На следующее десятилетие должен быть использован в случаях, когда программного имитатора (который давно поставлен и используется ежедневно) недостаточно.

поц

#128
ЦитироватьBepiColombo‏Подлинная учетная запись @BepiColombo 3 ч.3 часа назад

We're pleased to share that we passed an important review yesterday that confirms we can start shipping to the spaceport in Kourou later next month and begin preparations for launch!


tnt22

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/BepiColombo/BepiColombo_gets_green_light_for_launch_site
Цитировать


BepiColombo approaching Mercury

BEPICOLOMBO GETS GREEN LIGHT FOR LAUNCH SITE

9 March 2018
Europe's first mission to Mercury will soon be ready for shipping to the spaceport to begin final preparations for launch.

The mission passed a major review yesterday, meaning that the three BepiColombo spacecraft, along with ground equipment and mission experts, are confirmed to start the move from ESA's centre in the Netherlands to Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana at the end of next month. The launch window is open from 5 October until 29 November.
Спойлер
"It's been a long and occasionally bumpy road to this point, and there is still plenty to do until we are ready for launch," says Ulrich Reininghaus, ESA's BepiColombo project manager, "but we are extremely pleased to finally move our preparations to the launch site, and are grateful to everyone who has made this possible.

"In parallel we are continuing with some long-duration firing tests on a replica transfer module thruster, under space-like conditions, to be best prepared for our journey to Mercury."

Once at Kourou, an intensive six months of essential preparation are needed, including more review checkpoints.

Work includes dressing the spacecraft in protective insulation to prepare for the harsh space environment and extreme temperatures they will experience operating close to the Sun, attaching and testing the solar wings and their deployment mechanisms, installing the sunshield, fuelling, and connecting the three spacecraft together.

The final weeks will see the spacecraft stack inside the Ariane 5 rocket fairing, and preparing the launch vehicle itself, ready to blast the mission on a seven-year journey around the inner Solar System to investigate Mercury's mysteries.


BepiColombo journey timeline

A transfer module will carry two science orbiters to the innermost planet, using a combination of solar power, electric propulsion and nine gravity-assist flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury to set it on course.

The two orbiters will make complementary measurements of the innermost planet and its environment from different orbits, from its deep interior to its interaction with the solar wind, to provide the best understanding of Mercury to date, and how the innermost planet of a solar system forms and evolves close to its parent star.

BepiColombo is a joint endeavour between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA. ESA is providing the Mercury Transfer Module, the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the sunshield and interface structure, and JAXA is providing the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter.
[свернуть]

поц

#130
ЦитироватьBepiColombo‏Подлинная учетная запись @BepiColombo 9 мар.

Once at #Mercury, we're going to investigate the planet from inside to out with our two science orbiters: the #ESA Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the #JAXA Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter.


tnt22

ЦитироватьBepiColombo‏Подлинная учетная запись @BepiColombo 3 ч. назад

Check out our beautiful spacecraft! A set of ~40 new artist impressions released today & highlighted via @esascience #ImageOfTheWeek visualise aspects of launch, cruise, separation and arrival at #Mercury Details: http://ow.ly/E06730iT2lm 
https://video.twimg.com/tweet_video/DYE0uGaW0AATbvX.mp4
(video 0:19)

triage

источник не проверенный, но
Цитироватьhttps://twitter.com/Planetguy_Bln/status/975871070711484416
23:06 - 19 мар. 2018 г.
And @BepiColombo got the October launch slot on Ariane 5 because James Webb was not ready for that launch window #LPSC2018 #NASAnight

поц

#133
ЦитироватьBepiColombo‏Подлинная учетная запись @BepiColombo 49 мин.49 минут назад


Have you entered the @JAXA_en competition to give a name to the #BepiColombo Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter? You are also invited to send a message/picture/audio/video to Mercury! Enter until 9 April: http://isas-info.jp/mmo/en/ 


поц

ЦитироватьBepiColombo is a joint mission between ESA (the European Space Agency) and JAXA, led by ESA, to explore Mercury.
The mission consists of two planetary orbiters: JAXA's MMO (Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter) and ESA's MPO (Mercury Planetary Orbiter).
Launch is scheduled for October 2018, making BepiColombo JAXA's longest ever mission after a development period of 15 years.
The two orbiters will arrive at Mercury in December 2025, after a seven year cruise with nine planetary flybys; the highest number ever undertaken for a planetary probe!

What is the BepiColombo Project?

поц

#135
ЦитироватьESA Technology‏ @ESA_Tech 7 ч.7 часов назад


Key to testing spacecraft for space are vacuum chambers - #ESTEC has the Large Space Simulator, Europe's largest thermal vacuum chamber, seen here testing @BepiColombo for Mercury with sunlight 11 times more intense than Earth's

BepiColombo in ESTEC's LSS

triage

#136
Выбор названия и отправка сообщения на Меркурий на борту аппарата
Цитировать http://isas-info.jp/mmo/en/
Name the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) and send your message to Mercury onboard MMO!
Цитировать...
Мы также ищем людей во всем мире, которые увлечены путешествием BepiColombo, чтобы исследовать Mercury для предоставления сообщений, иллюстраций, аудио, видео и других средств массовой информации. Выбор из них будет записан и загружен на Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO, прежде чем он начнет путешествие к самой внутренней планете нашей Солнечной системы.
...
для тех кто хотел, но забыл :) (выше уже сообщали)

tnt22



tnt22

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2018/04/BepiColombo_plasma_simulation
ЦитироватьBEPICOLOMBO PLASMA SIMULATION


DOWNLOAD HI-RES JPG (2.38 MB)

DETAILS 

Title BepiColombo plasma simulation
Released 23/04/2018 8:00 am
Copyright ESA/Félicien Filleul
Description

When the Mercury Transfer Module of the BepiColombo mission fires its electric propulsion thrusters an ion beam is extracted. This is created through the ionization of xenon propellant, generating the charged particles that can be accelerated further using an electric field.
Спойлер
Together with gravity assist flybys at Earth, Venus and Mercury, the thrust fr om the ion beam provides the means to travel to the innermost planet.

After escaping the pull of Earth's gravity with the Ariane 5 launcher, the spacecraft is on an orbit around the Sun. The transfer module then has to use its thrusters to brake against the mighty pull of the Sun's gravity. It also has to tune the shape of its orbit in order to make a series of nine gravity assist flybys at the planets before finally delivering the mission's two science spacecraft into Mercury orbit.

This image is an excerpt from a supercomputer simulation that models the flow of plasma around the spacecraft just after the high energy ion beam is switched on. An outline of the composite spacecraft with its extended solar arrays is included for reference.

The simulation tracks the particles in the beam as well as those that diffuse around the spacecraft, which are created by the interaction of the high energy beam ions with the neutral xenon atoms that also flow out of the thruster.  It shows the density of the plasma flowing around the spacecraft and its evolution: red represents high density, blue is low density (see animation for detailed scale).

Although the animation is several seconds long it has been slowed down, representing a mere eight milliseconds of real time – the time necessary for the plasma to reach a steady state.

The simulation was performed to demonstrate that the plasma produced by the thruster is not damaging to the spacecraft: its materials, including solar arrays or instruments, for example, or to the electric propulsion system itself. The simulations also confirmed there are no spurious or dangerous charging events.

Inflight measurements will verify the simulation results and help improve ways in which the generated plasma, spacecraft and space environment interactions can be better modelled.

BepiColombo is a joint endeavour between ESA and JAXA. After their seven-year interplanetary journey, the two science orbiters – the Mercury Planetary Orbiter and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter – will start their main mission to provide the most in-depth study of mysterious Mercury to date.

The spacecraft begin transferring to Europe's spaceport in Kourou this week, wh ere an intensive period of preparations will ready the mission for launch later this year.

The simulations were performed by Félicien Filleul as part of ESA's Young Graduate Trainee programme.
[свернуть]