Herschel and Planck Power System Flight Return Experience
Abstract
Herschel and Planck are space observatories managed by the European Space Agency. The two satellites were launched on May 14, 2009 by a single Ariane-5 launcher and operated in two different Lissajous orbits around the second Lagrangian point (L2), 1.5 million kilometres away from the Earth.Herschel completed its scientific operation in April 2013 and it was passivated on 17 June 2013; Planck has been passivated on 23 October 2013.This paper will first outline the power system design providing a description of the major design drivers, then will provide a synthesis of the behaviour of the Electrical Power System (EPS) in the whole 4-years mission, looking at the performance at launch and during major manoeuvres, verifying the Solar Array degradation with life compared to the expected one and summarizing the main lesson learnt.
- Publication:
-
ESA Special Publication
- Pub Date:
- August 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014ESASP.719E.105C