ESA – Launchers Home – Sloshsat FLEVO
Experiment
The satellite includes one experiment: an 87-litre cylindrical tank containing 33.5 litres of de-ionised water. On the tank walls, 270 sensors will measure the sloshing behaviour by calculating the thickness of the water. At the same time, the temperature, pressure and fluid velocity will be measured at 17 locations while three accelerometers and fibre-optic gyroscopes will monitor the resulting spacecraft motions. Thrusters, powered by a cold-gas nitrogen system, will provide linear and rotational movement to excite fluid motion.
Well, the latest Inmarsat-4 launch was a big success despite initial delay. Inmarsat is planning to provide half megabit satellite internet access for 90% of the Earth’s landmass with these new generation satellites that weigh up to 6 metric tonnes each. Anyway, while I was reading about the Inmarsat launch, the peculiar Sloshsat experiment above caught my eye. It was launched to orbit earlier this year with a Ariane 5 ECA launcher.
As a the ESA launcher history page points out, without a launcher there can be no space program. The European Space Agency’s extremely reliable launcher was named after the Greek goddess Ariadne, who gave Theseus the thread to help him find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth.
Posted by api in Wonders of technology