The Polar Platform and EnviSat Mission Characterization - Abstract
The Polar Platform (PPF) And ENVISAT-1


Cyril Annarella


Fall 94


This report is a description of the European Polar Platform project and its first payload ENVISAT-1 (Formerly POEM-1). This satellite is a part of the contribution of Europe to the international Colombus project. It is currently in its phase B/C of development and is scheduled to be launched in 1998 with ARIANE 5.

Introduction

As the Rio Ecological Summit in 1992 pointed out, environment and ecology have become one of the main preoccupations of the international community. The environmental and climatic changes have made people aware of the new dangers that threaten our big blue planet itself because of our neglected and ignorant behaviour towards the Earth. Even if the issue of how man interacts with the nature started to be tackled in the late 60's, the political and public awareness only appeared in the late 80's, with passionate debates such as the greenhouse effects, the hole in the ozone layer, the acids rains, the systematic destruction of the Amazonian forest and the chemical refuse.

This statement provided support for a growing scientific interest in the complex interactions that occur between the Earth's atmosphere, oceans, ice and land areas.Thus, the Earth's observation, thanks to the remote-sensing techniques on satellite, seemed to give the best answer for a better understanding of the water and earth process.

Starting with the ERS-1 program, the European Space Agency (ESA) has played a key role in the development of these techniques. ERS-1, launched on July 1991 has baited the research on the climate by a permanent Earth's observation. Then, the Topex/Poseidon program , launched on August 1992 and product of the cooperation between NASA and CNES (fr.) has confirmed the endeavour displayed to understand the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean by the measurement of the ocean waves and wind surface speed.

Nevertheless, the project of ESA does not stop to ERS-1. Actually, the Agency has proposed a very ambitious and global perspective of the Earth's observation to the Member states since 1988. Polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites are under development to support several missions , in particular:

  • The study of the Earth's environment and resources,

  • The continuation and improvement of meteorological observation,

  • The study of the structure and dynamics of the Earth's crust and interior.

    In preparation for this effort, ESA has accomplished intensive studies on various types of missions, instruments and technology.Past experience on ERS-1 and ERS-2 (to be launched in Nov. 94) have shown the need for flexible payload accomodation in surface and volume, large power ressources and high data gathering and transmission capabilities.

    From this idea was born the European Polar Platform, and its first payload ENVISAT-1 that will perform various missions in oceanography and chemistry of the atmosphere.

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