ESA TV Service — schedule today’s transmissions 16 Feb 2001

Today, there will be two ESA TV Service transmission, as follows:

16 February 2001

A Scandinavian satellite to be launched next week

The Odin satellite is scheduled for launch on 20 February 2001, on a small Russian launcher. Odin combines two scientific disciplines on a single spacecraft: studies of star formation/early solar system (astronomy) and studies of the depletion of the ozone layer in the Earth atmosphere (aeronomy).

Swedish Space Corporation, on behalf of the Swedish National Space Board and the space agencies of Canada, Finland and France, has developed the satellite for astronomers and atmospheric researchers in the participating countries. Despite challenging goals and the use of advanced technology, Odin is a small, low-cost spacecraft, like the earlier Swedish research satellites Viking and Freja. It is claimed that, provided that the customer and end-user interfaces to the project team work smoothly, the essentials of low-cost development methods can be applied also to fairly complex missions in an international setting.

Today’s transmission provides background pre-event footage on Odin, including extensive 3-D graphics and recordings of Odin development and testing. The material is courtesy of the Swedish National Space Board, and of the French Space Agency CNES.

More backgroud information can be found on: http://www.ssc.se/ssd/

16 February 2001

Near-live coverage of the undocking from the ISS

The undocking of the Shuttle from the International Space Station is scheduled for today, 14:06 GMT. The Shuttle will then make a fly-around manoevre providing images of the Station in its new status. The best images of this afternoon’s lve coverage of the STS-98 mission will be transmitted in time for Europe’s evening prime time news.

More background information can be found on http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

Both transmissions of today are on:

Eutelsat W1 at 10 degrees East

Transponder B5, dig ch 1 (SCPC), horizontal

F=11.13475 MHz, SR=5.632 MS/sec, FEC=3/4

For further information and a daily update of the transmission schedule, visit our website at http://television.esa.int. For all enquires, contact Claus Habfast, Tel +31 71 565 3838, Fax +31 71 565 6340, e-mail chabfast@hq.esa.fr.