PROBA-V

Launch data: Designation  39159 / 13021A Launch date  07 May 2013 - 02:06 UT Launch site  Kourou, ELA-1 Launch vehicle  Vega (VV02) Mission  Technology, Imaging Earth orbit: Perigee / Apogee  821 x 826 km Eccentricity   Inclination  98.7 deg Period  101.2 min

Spacecraft data:

The Proba-V satellite sits atop the Vespa dual-payload adapter, which houses the VNREDSat 1 satellite inside. The Vega's 8.5-foot-diameter payload fairing emblazoned with decals is visible in the background. Credit: ESA/Karim Mellab

Description:

• PROBA-V (Project for On-Board Autonomy - Vegetation) is an attempt, spearheaded by ESA and CNES, to accommodate an improved smaller version of the large VGT (Vegetation) optical instrument of SPOT-4 and SPOT-5 mission heritage on a small satellite bus.
• Proba-V will fly a reduced-mass version of the Vegetation instrument currently on board the Spot satellites to provide a daily overview of global vegetation growth.
• Proba-V's main sensor, designed with eyes to see in visible and infrared light, comprises an array of three telescopes and detectors. Although smaller than the preceding instruments on the Spot satellites, Proba-V's camera is more than twice as sensitive, with a peak resolution of 100 meters, or about 328 feet. Each scan from the satellite's instrument covers a swath of Earth about 1,400 miles (2,253 km) wide, giving context to scientists studying crop yields, wildfires and water shortages. The spacecraft flies in an orbit allowing it cover the whole planet in two days.
• Bearing a different designation from its predecessors, Proba-V is an operational as well as experimental mission, designed to serve an existing user community.
• Funded primarily by Belgium, Proba-V will fly in an orbit allowing its vegetation instrument to map global land cover every two days. Proba-V's vegetation sensor provides up to a ten-fold increase in spatial resolution over the Spot 4 and Spot 5 satellites, distinguishing between different plant species and spotting the scars from wildfires, according to ESA.

Mission details:

• Arianespace's Vega rocket made a second successful flight on May 7, 2013. Flying north-northwest from Kourou, the three solid stages reached a near-orbital trajectory of around -370 x 226 km. Stage 3 reentered over the Canadian Arctic around 0228 UTC. The AVUM liquid fourth stage then made a first burn to about 289 x 820 km at 0217 UTC.
• At 0300 UTC a second burn circularized the orbit at apogee and the upper payload, Proba-V, was deployed into a 787 x 828 km x 98.7 deg orbit. A third burn at 0310 UTC lowered perigee, leading to a 670 x 815 km orbit. At 0357 UTC the lid of the dual payload adapter, Vespa, was ejected, and at 0400 UTC AVUM's burn 4 recircularized the orbit at 669 x 673 km x 98.1 deg. The lower payload VNREDSAT-1 was ejected at 0404 UTC, with the 1U cubesat ESTCube-1 deployed three minutes later. At 0423 UTC the AVUM stage was scheduled to make a deorbit burn for disposal in the South Pacific, probably reentering around 0510 UTC west of southern Chile.

Satellite tracking: