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Concept
Envisat
Summary
Envisat ("Environmental Satellite") is a large inactive Earth-observing satellite which is still in orbit and now considered space debris. Operated by the European Space Agency (ESA), it was the world's largest civilian Earth observation satellite.
It was launched on 1 March 2002 aboard an Ariane 5 from the Guyana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, into a Sun synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of 790 ± 10 km. It orbits the Earth in about 101 minutes, with a repeat cycle of 35 days. After losing contact with the satellite on 8 April 2012, ESA formally announced the end of Envisat's mission on 9 May 2012.
Envisat cost 2.3 billion Euro (including 300 million Euro for 5 years of operations) to develop and launch. The mission has been replaced by the Sentinel series of satellites. The first of these, Sentinel 1, has taken over the radar duties of Envisat since its launch in 2014.
Envisat was launched as an Earth observation satellite. Its objective was to service the continuity of European Remote-Sensing Satellite missions, providing additional observational parameters to improve environmental studies.
In working towards the global and regional objectives of the mission, numerous scientific disciplines currently use the data acquired from the different sensors on the satellite to study such things as atmospheric chemistry, ozone depletion, biological oceanography, ocean temperature and colour, wind waves, hydrology (humidity, floods), agriculture and arboriculture, natural hazards, digital elevation modelling (using interferometry), monitoring of maritime traffic, atmospheric dispersion modelling (pollution), cartography and study of snow and ice.
Dimensions
× × in orbit with the solar array deployed.
Mass
including of fuel and a instrument payload.
Power
Solar array with a total load of 3560 W.
Envisat carries an array of nine Earth-observation instruments that gathered information about the Earth (land, water, ice, and atmosphere) using a variety of measurement principles. A tenth instrument, DORIS, provided guidance and control.
Official source
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