South Africans to support European space launch in South America
The second flight of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) new small satellite launch rocket, Vega, currently scheduled for April, will be supported by a mobile telemetry station and two specialists from South Africa’s Denel Overberg Test Range (OTR). The OTR is situated near Bredasdorp in the Western Cape province.
The mobile station is being deployed to French Guiana, in the north-east of South America, which is the location of ESA’s space launch centre. It will be used to strengthen ESA’s coverage of the telemetry from the rocket following its launch.
The South African telemetry experts taking part in the mission are Deon van der Hoven and Leon Korkie. They will assemble and operate the mobile telemetry station at the ESA centre, known as “Europe’s spaceport”, and which is located in the district of Kourou, just 500 km north of the equator.
Once the station has been set up, it will be integrated with the Kourou telemetry system and take part in the prelaunch qualification of the telemetry network. It and they, will then support the actual launch, receiving telemetry from the Vega during the first phase of its launch – until it disappears over the horizon from Kourou.
“We are very proud of our team that provides a reliable and responsive service to international clients,” said Denel OTR project manager Japie Venter. This will be the fourth European launch that the South African facility has supported, under a five year contract with the French National Space Studies Centre (better known as CNES and that country’s space agency), which operates Kourou.
Vega is 30 m tall, has a diameter of 3 m, a payload of 1.5 t and launch mass of 137 t. It has three solid-fuel stages, plus a liquid-fuelled fourth stage which is used for altitude and orbit control and to release the satellite(s). (Unusually for a small rocket, Vega can carry multiple payloads.)
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