ESA supports lunar and solar missions in India

ESA’s Global Deep Space Communication Antennas will provide essential support to two scientific missions of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

ISRO is launching two pioneer science spacecraft this year. One reads the sun, one lands on the moon, and the other is the nation’s first soft landing in the sky. ESA’s antennas provide essential support for both spacecraft tracking, pointing at critical locations, sending commands, and receiving ‘telemetry’ and valuable scientific data.

In June 2021, ESA and ISRO signed an agreement to provide technical support to each other.Including surveillance and communications services for India’s upcoming space missions via ESA ground stations.

The first tasks that will benefit from this new support agreement The Aditya-L1 Solar Laboratory and the Chandrayaan-3 lander and lunar rover will enable India to see the sun and the moon, both of which are scheduled to launch in 2022 from the Satish Dhawan Space Center (SDSC SHAR) in Sriharikota, India.

“Communication in deep space is an essential part of any spaceflight,” says Ramesh Sellathurai, ESA Service Director and ISRO’s ESA Liaison Officer. “Ground stations securely connect unidentified and dangerous spacecraft to Earth.. Without the support of the ground, it would be impossible to retrieve data from a spacecraft, find out how it looks, whether it is safe or even know where it is.

Aditya-L1 Solar Laboratory It is named after the Hindu sun god Aditya and the future home of the spacecraft L1, the first lockrange point of the Earth-Sun system. It will study many properties of the sun, such as the dynamics and origin of coronal mass discharges.

Its house on L1 will allow Aditya to orbit the sun at an almost constant distance from the earth. But without the planet would not obscure the view of our star.

“The spacecraft will always be in the direction of the sun from the earth,” says Ramesh. So when the earth rotates, In Aditya-L1’s view there will be no ground station. Using a global station network like ESA is the best way to exchange data and commands with this spacecraft as often as possible. “

ESA is one of the only agencies in the world to have a network of deep space stations located across the planet.To do. The Estrock Network allows you to monitor and communicate with spacecraft at any time and in any direction at a distance of 2 billion kilometers from Earth.

Extrac Deep Space 35m “Large Iron” Antennas«Located in Nueva Norcia, Australia, Malargüe, Argentina and Cebreros, Spain, all support Aditya-L1. Additional support will include ESA’s 15-meter antenna at European Spaceport in Guerrero, French Guiana, and a commercial 32-meter deep space antenna at the Goonhilli station in the UK.

Integrated ESA and Goonhilly antennas provide support Surveillance, Telemetry and Command (TT&C) for Aditya-L1 and ISRO’s deep space antennas in India will provide extra time.

Data and telemetry sent by Aditya-L1 Arrive via any ground station and be sent to ESA’s ESOC Mission Control Center in Dormstad, Germany. From there, they will be sent to ISRO’s ISTRAC facility for analysis.

ESA’s participation in the mission has already begun. ISRO’s Flight Dynamics team tested software used to accurately detect Aditya-L1’s location and orbit at ESA’s Gaia laboratory. ESA Flight Dynamics experts have been flying the spacecraft through their solar system for decades and comparing this software with their own measurements.

Meanwhile, significant radio frequency compatibility tests were conducted in December 2021 to ensure that the hardware used by the two agencies worked together.