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Thales Alenia Space in Spain is responsible for the Euclid communications system, one of its major contracts in 30 years of activity in Spain
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The mission, to be launched in 2022, will study dark energy and dark matter to help understand the origin of the accelerating expansion of the Universe.
Madrid, December 10, 2020 - Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), has delivered the K-band high gain antenna to be integrated with the rest of the Euclid satellite in its plant in Turin. Thales Alenia Space in Spain is responsible for the deep space communications system, which comprises the communications panel delivered in 2019 and the high gain antenna, built by Thales Alenia Space in Rome. Thales Alenia Space in Italy is the satellite prime contractor of the Euclid mission and also responsible for the service module while Airbus in France as main industrial partner is developing the instrument.
Euclid, an astronomy and astrophysics mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) scheduled for launch in 2022 on a Soyuz rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, will survey the sky with a 1.2 m diameter space telescope to explore dark energy and dark matter and understand the origin of the accelerating expansion of the Universe.
Euclid will map the general structure of the Universe over 10 billion light years to show its expansion and growth during the last three-quarters of its history. The mission is designed to address two of the most important questions in cosmology today: How did the Universe originate and why is it expanding at an accelerating rate, rather than slowing down due to the gravitational attraction of its constituent matter?
Communicating at 1.5 million kilometers
Euclid will map the 3D distribution of up to two billion galaxies and associated dark matter during a six-year mission, covering most of the observable sky outside our Milky Way. The complete survey consists of 150 thousands high definition images with associated colour and spectral information, resulting in close to a petabyte of data to be downlinked. This huge amount of data will be transmitted by the satellite from its orbit around the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrangian point at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth, using its K-band (26 GHz) radiofrequency data transmission system to the ESA's 35m deep space stations located in Cebreros, Spain, and Malargüe, Argentina. Euclid also incorporates an X-band system to control and monitor the spacecraft, and measure its distance to Earth.
Thales Alenia Space in Spain is specialized in satellite communications, building on a long heritage in TT&C and data transmission systems for all type of space missions, including missions in low Earth orbit, geostationary orbit, lunar orbit (Smart-1, KPLO, ESPRIT), the Moon’s surface (VIPER, NOVA-C), science missions orbiting around the L2 Lagrangian point (Herschel, Planck, Euclid, WFIRST, PLATO) and missions to asteroids (HERA).
The Euclid K-band deployable and steerable high gain antenna draws on Thales Alenia Space in Italy’s unique expertise in this domain in exploration missions to the Solar System, like Cassini-Huygens (Saturn), BepiColombo (Mercury) and ExoMars (Mars).
Thales Alenia Space in Italy has also provided the X-band Transponder, while the X-band and K-band Traveling Wave Tube Amplifiers (TWTA) have been developed by Thales Alenia Space in Belgium.
The Service Module and the Payload Module are currently under their final integration tests, respectively in Thales Alenia Space in Turin and in Airbus in Toulouse.
After the mating of the 2 modules and the large Sunshield Solar array, expected in Thales Alenia Space in Turin in the third quarter of 2021, the full flight model spacecraft will be subjected to the environmental test campaign, paving the way to its launch.
ABOUT THALES ALENIA SPACE
Drawing on over 40 years of experience and a unique combination of skills, expertise and cultures, Thales Alenia Space delivers cost-effective solutions for telecommunications, navigation, Earth observation, environmental management, exploration, science and orbital infrastructures. Governments and private industry alike count on Thales Alenia Space to design satellite-based systems that provide anytime, anywhere connections and positioning, monitor our planet, enhance management of its resources, and explore our Solar System and beyond. Thales Alenia Space sees space as a new horizon, helping to build a better, more sustainable life on Earth. A joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), Thales Alenia Space also teams up with Telespazio to form the parent companies’ Space Alliance, which offers a complete range of services. Thales Alenia Space posted consolidated revenues of approximately 2.15 billion euros in 2019 and has around 7,700 employees in nine countries. www.thalesaleniaspace.com
THALES ALENIA SPACE – PRESS CONTACTS
Sandrine Bielecki
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 92 70 94
sandrine.bielecki@thalesaleniaspace.com
Tarik Lahlou
Tel: +33(0)6 87 95 89 56
tarik.lahlou@thalesaleniaspace.com
Cinzia Marcanio
Tel: +39 (0)6 415 126 85
cinzia.marcanio@thalesaleniaspace.com
Marija Kovac
Tel: +39 (0)6 415 129 91
marija.kovac-somministrato@thalesaleniaspace.com
Oriol Casas Thió
Tel: +34 91 807 78 06
oriol.casasthio@thalesaleniaspace.com