ESA’s new breed of Galileo endures weeks of simulated space / Navigation / Our Activities / ESA

ESA’s new breed of Galileo endures weeks of simulated space / Navigation / Our Activities / ESA

ESA’s newest Galileo satellite has emerged from five weeks of simulated space conditions: Friday saw a hatch slid open to end its thermal-vacuum test, a milestone on the way to orbit.In late October the phone booth-sized satellite was placed in the 4.5 m-diameter Phenix chamber in ESA’s ESTEC Test Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands – the largest spacecraft testing facility in Europe.Once inside, the air was pumped out to create a space-quality vacuum at the same time as the temperature extremes in Galileo’s planned orbit were also reproduced. The six copper walls of the ‘thermal tent’ were independently cooled by liquid nitrogen down to the –180°C chill of sunless space.(...)