#GAIA PROJECT MAP GENERATOR GENERATOR#

If that occurs, two additional pairs of satellites would be ready for launches before the end of the year.ĮSA’s Sentinel-1A Earth observation satellite, which is also late, is slated for a Soyuz launch in 2014 as well. 16 that two Galileo satellites likely will be ready for launch in June. O3b, based in Britain’s Channel Islands, has not yet announced a new launch date.ĮSA, which is the technical manager of the Galileo project on behalf of the European Commission, told its ruling council the week of Oct. Others include satellites for Europe’s Galileo positioning, navigation and timing constellation, which has suffered multiple delays. The O3b issue has pushed the four satellites’ launch into early 2014, where it joins a list of payloads awaiting 2014 launch slots aboard the Europeanized Soyuz. Gaia, whose mission is to map 1 billion stars in the Milky Way, cost some 940 million euros ($1.3 billion).įor Evry, France-based Arianespace, the second consecutive 11th-hour cancellation of a Soyuz launch because of a satellite issue can only complicate a 2014 manifest that is already crowded. 17 and lasts for about three weeks, and that the spacecraft would be ready to launch on that day. Passvogel said Gaia’s next launch window opens on Dec. Once ESA is certain of when Gaia will be ready for launch, it will open negotiations with the Arianespace launch services consortium on a new launch date. “We’re fortunate in that it’s not that deeply embedded” in Gaia, Passvogel said. 23 interview, Thomas Passvogel, head of projects at ESA’s science and robotic exploration directorate, said the component in question is fairly easy to remove from the Gaia satellite, and that returning it to Europe for repair is expected to take about four weeks.

Thales Alenia Space officials did not respond to requests for comment.

#GAIA PROJECT MAP GENERATOR GENERATOR#

Gaia therefore will remain at Europe’s Guiana Space Center spaceport on the northeast coast of South America while the defective timing-signal generator and the small box that houses it will be removed and returned to Italy for repair.

While Gaia shares the timing component, the hardware’s location on the satellite makes it much easier to remove than is the case with the O3b spacecraft. 22 elected to pull Gaia from the Soyuz launch manifest. The company sent out an alert to all its customers about the issue, including ESA, which on Oct. Thales Alenia Space officials apparently discovered the cause of the problem, a digital clock used to create timing signals to downlink satellite telemetry, during the week of Oct. The O3b satellites were subsequently returned to their manufacturer, Thales Alenia Space, where they have been undergoing tests at the company’s Rome facility following the prelaunch discovery of a signal anomaly in one or more of the four O3b satellites already in orbit.

Gaia project map generator