Earth Observation Through European Data Relay System

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European Space Agency uses laser to gather pictures of the planet taken by other spacecraft.

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In this new system  the satellite, via laser will tramis the pictures to another satellite much higher in the sky that has a constant view of the ground station.  By doing this the time taken for the picture to reach the space station is reduced as a satellite will send pictures only when they pass over a receiving dish and they will have visibility of this antenna for just 10 minutes in most cases during every 90-minute tour around the globe.

Highlighted Benefits:

  • Monitoring of pollution
  • Monitoring ship’s onboard and reduce incidents
  • Control illegal fishing or ocean piracy
  • This system will systematically map the Earth, to help inform and enforce EU policies.

Highlights of the system:

  • It opens up new horizon to a quasi real time Earth observation.
  • With a successful connection, data will move at a rate of up to 1.8Gbps.
  • The laser technology is very much a German development. Germany has invested more than 280m euros in the capability.
  • Britain will also be a major downlink point for EDRS through a dish sited at Harwell in Oxfordshire.

Many weeks of testing lie ahead. A second relay satellite carrying another laser terminal will go up in 2017.

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