The 22 FOC Galileo satellites being built by OHB in Germany with a payload from Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd in the UK will pass through ESTEC for testing on their way to launch in the next few years.
The testing of the first two FOC satellites, already in ESTEC, is especially rigorous because the overall design is being validated, while the next batch of satellites will undergo lighter acceptance testing instead. Read more…
The first of the two Galileo FOC satellites (FM1) has been under testing since May 2013 in simulated space conditions.
In late October the phone box-sixed satellite was placed in the 4.5 m-diameter Phenix chamber (stainless steel vacuum chamber) in ESA’s ESTEC Test Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, the largest spacecraft testing facility in Europe, with a full range of space simulation facilities under a single roof in cleanroom conditions. Once inside, the air was pumped out to create a space-quality vacuum at the same time as the temperature extremes in Galileo’s planned orbit were also reproduced. Read more…
The 22 satellites so far contracted to join the four already in orbit are having their payloads manufactured at Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd in the UK, which are then integrated to their satellite platforms at OHB in Germany. Finally, each complete satellite is tested at ESTEC in the Netherlands for launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
This main manufacturing process is fed by smaller but no less crucial production lines all across Europe, run by specialised companies supplying essential building blocks to Galileo’s prime contractors. Read more…
These pictures give the first detailed views of the next batch of Galileo Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellites, the first of which has already been delivered to ESA for rigorous testing in simulated space conditions.
It is being prepared for testing in the ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk (the Netherlands), a unique test centre with all the facilities needed to validate a satellite for launch under one roof. Read more…
Late last year, Galileo program managers laid out an ambitious schedule of launches, including two dual-satellite launches this year. They wanted 14 to 18 FOC (Full Operational Capability) spacecraft in place by the end of 2014. Target difficult to achieve assuming the missing of the planned september/october 2013 launch, postponed to december. Even this last milestone seems quite unlikely to meet.
The first FOC Galileo satellite is under test at the ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, It has been acknowledged that the new-generation spacecraft’s launch will not occur until December 28, and even that date looks highly unlikely. Read more…