Sentinel-1C has arrived at CSG, the European Spaceport! After its journey, the satellite remained in its transportation container for 24 hours to acclimate.
While Sentinel-1C acclimated, the team was busy unpacking and setting up all the equipment necessary for health checks and validation. The equipment used in the space industry is known as EGSE (Electrical Ground Support Equipment). Some EGSE allows us to communicate with Sentinel-1C through a process we call telecommand, while other EGSE is used to check the satellite’s instruments.
Once the process of Sentinel-1C was acclimated, the transportation container was opened, and Sentinel-1C was greeted with a warm welcome to CSG in Kourou.
Sentinel-1C was moved to the clean room, allowing the engineering teams to start the health checks. These checks are vital since we can not send anyone to space to fix any problem. We call this part of the campaign the test and validation campaign; generally, this takes about four weeks.
Leave a Reply