go-Ariane

An exceptionally long and successful space science mission comes to an end in a few weeks. The joint ESA-NASA deep space probe Ulysses will be switched off after more than 17 years observing our Sun and its environment. The spacecraft was built in the early 80s and after launch by the Shuttle Discovery in October 1990, left the ecliptic plane to reach an orbit allowing it to pass several times over the Sun’s North and South poles. Its science instruments have provided important new data on the Sun’s magnetic field, its solar winds and heliosphere. But now the spacecraft’s power is unsufficient to pursue the mission. More & see video »

Feature on ESA’s Cosmic Vision programme, selecting the space science missions to be launched in the 2015-2025 time frame. Based on an interview with Director of Science David Southwood. A very enjoyable and extensive re-edit of the original Euronews ‘Space’ subject broadcast at the end of 2007. More & see video »

Since January, I have been mobilised on a substantial ESA contract, covering the ATV mission from before launch right up to the docking. In all eight different videos, broadcast by ESA Television and used in the live transmission on the 3 April when the Jules Verne docked into its home port. So I now have a backlog of items to archive. Let’s start with the focus on the European contributions and use of the International Space Station. More & see video »

Focus on the use of Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle. Part of the ATV mission video coverage. More & see video »

Video news release recapping on the ATV mission More & see video »

A subject that has always fascinated me. Perhaps because I covered the story of an Ariane 3rd stage explosion which polluted spece with hundreds of pieces of debris, an incident which led to the systematic ‘passivation’ of spent rockets once their mission completed. The report focuses on two facilities, in the Canary islands and in Germany, which help ESA refine their catalogs of all objects which could eventually constitute a space collision risk. More & see video »

Pursuing its ten-year journey, ESA’s comet chaser Rosetta is to swing past Earth on 13 November. After passing by our planet in 2005, a year after launch, and Mars in February this year, it will be the spacecraft’s third planetary flyby, each time gaining speed to reach comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. The upcoming flyby will provide new opportunities to observe our planet but will mainly be used to calibrate all the probe’s science instruments in view of the mission’s first scientific target in September next year, a small asteroid called Steins. More & see video »

Would I be heading north, towards the Netherlands and ESA’s Technical and Research Centre, or south to its Space Astronomy Centre in Spain? That was the question only a few days before an interview I had to do for a report on the European Space Agency’s Integral gamma-ray observatory which celebrates on 17 October its five years in orbit. Finally it was a flight to Madrid and a very stimulating meeting with the mission’s deputy Project scientist Peter Kretschmar. He greatly contributed to the script which highlights a few of the key discoveries in this field of high-energy astronomy: neutron stars, black holes and anti-matter, stuff to stretch ones understanding to the limit! More & see video »