SPACE RESEARCH IN SPAIN

By: Paz Cantalapiedra, Marta Orgaz and Olga Estévez

SPACE RESEARCH IN SPAIN

BY: Paz Cantalapiedra, Marta Orgaz and Olga Estévez

CATEGORY OF ARTIFICIAL SATELLITE

• Deimos-1• Helios (satellite)• Intasat• Minisat• Musis• Nanosat 01• Paz (satellite) PNOIS• SeoSat• UPM-sat• Xatcobeo

HELIOS, PAZ AND MUSIS• HELIOS:Is the name of a multinational program (led by France)

military satellite remote sensing.It has 2 generations of total 4 satellites.

• PAZ:Is the artificial satellite radar of the national program on

Earth observation satellite, 2 created by the Ministries of Defence and Industry, Trade and Tourism of the kingdom of Spain.

Besides France they are also involved Spain , Italy and Belgium.

• MUSIS:Is a program of reconnaissance satellites where

France ,Germany ,Belgium ,Spain ,Greece and Italy are involved .

It is anticipated that these countries have from 2015 a constellation of satellites to replace the existing ones : HELIOS, COSMO-SHYMED ,SAR-Lupe

SPACE ORGANISATIONS IN SPAIN

• INTA: Is the span´s Space Agency (1942) an has its

headquarters in Torrejón de Ardoz near Madrid. Its 2 main areas of activity are research and development and certification and testing.

EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY

• ESA:• Is an intergovermmental organization dedicated

to the exploration of space ,with 20 member states (1975) has its headquarters in Paris.

• ESA´s space flight programme includes spaceflight, the launch and operations of unmanned exploration missions to other planets and the Moon ,Earth observation .

• Spain is one of the ESA science missions and also many countries.

SPACE STATION

• The main activities of a space station are: providing intensive supporting activity in great international missions by performing tracking, telemetry, calibration and control operations and working efficiently with data.

MASPALOMA STATIONAlso called Canary’s space centre. It is located in the INTA (National Institute for Aerospace

Technique), at Montaña Blanca in the south of Gran Canaria.It was constructed as a NASA satellite tracking station in 1960 when the Spanish and US

government made an agreement. So it was one of the 14 NASA Mercury stations distributed all around the world, which took part in the Gemini program when the Mercury one came to an end.

The station became operative the 13th September 1961 to support the mission MA-4, an unnamed capsule which orbited around the world.

During the 1960s the station had to be closed and rebuilt several km apart from the original one because of the great amount of tourist coming to the Canary Island.

When the station finished it collaboration with one of the programs, the NASA decided to deactivate it and transfer it to the institute.

• FACILITIES AND TECHNOLOGY: The main facility is the 15 meters dish antenna which characterizes this station, although there

are also antennas of 10, 9.3, 5, 4.88 and 2.4 meters. It is responsible for the reception and retransmission of alert messages from the COPAS-SARSAT mission within its geographical area. It has also taken part in the Apollo missions.

ROBLEDO DE CHAVELA STATIONDuring January and February 1963 representatives of INTA and NASA were looking for large

areas in provinces of Seville, Málaga, Toledo, Ávila and Madrid to construct the station. Finally on the 24th February 1964, one year later, the Spanish and the US government singed a Memorandum to construct it 47 km west from Madrid. It was operative on July 1965.

It became one of the NASA’s deep space network station. Although through the years its responsibilities has been transferred to INTA and later on to INSA.

The main activities of the station have consisted on transmitting the first images from Mars. Not to mention the collaboration with all the NASA projects to explore the Solar System including the first voyage to the Moon or the “Gran Tour” through the Solar System. Furthermore the station has contribute with project and missions of lots of European Countries.

• FACILITIES AND TECHNOLOGY:The station has a 64m diameter antenna enlarged to 70m, a 26 meters one enlarged to 34m,

two of 34m and one of 26m.

CEBREROS STATION

• On the 11th October 1965 the Spanish and the US government signed another treaty for the enlargement of the Robledo station so the Cebreros and Fresnedillas station were built.

• The representatives of the station belonged to the NASA in its origins, but in 1969 NASA began transferring the powers to the INTA and by 1983 INTA had all the powers.

• The station was constructed in Ávila and it started operating on the 27th December 1966.

• The station had a 26 m antenna, a duplicate of the Robledo’s station one. Although they were 12km apart they both worked together in the NASA programs of the exploration of the Solar System.

• The station was deactivated in 1986.

FRESNEDILLAS STATION• It is located in the municipalities of Fresnedillas de la Oliva and Navalgamella in

the province of Madrid.• It was first constructed exclusively as a supporting station in the Apollo program.

It consisted with two identical stations located in Camberra, Australia and Goldstone, California, USA as key elements of communication with astronauts in lunar distances. Although with time the station worked for other NASA programs.

• At the begining the INTA participated with the NASA on the station, but it wasn’t until 1972 when the NASA transmitted all the powers to the INTA. Together with the Robledo and Cerberos station INTA formed the Robledo complex.

• The main facilities of the station were two antennas of 26 and 9 meters. The 26 meters antenna was moved to the Robledo station when the Fresnedillas station was deactivated in 1985.

MASPALOMA STATION

ROBLEDO STATION

FRESNEDILLAS STATION

THERE ARE TWO SPANISH ASTRONAUTS

• Pedro Duque :born March 14, 1983 in Madrid

• Miguel Lopéz : May 30, 1958 in Madrid

Pedro Duque

• Bachelor's Degree at the Technical University of Madrid in 1986

• in 1992 was selected to be an astronaut • first space mission may in 1998 on the STS-45

space Shuttle Discovery • second mission was another trip which was

launched from a Soyuz TMA,

2 missions

• STS-45 space Shuttle Discovery: which was the third that was operating and the oldest and was used 34 times, a space shuttle is a spacecraft that is reusable and also serves to place the satellite in orbit.

• Soyuz TMA, which are designed to carry astronauts to the international station and also used as lifeguard vote on this mission was the flight engineer and visiting international station during 10 days to complete the mission cervantes.

• STS-45 space Shuttle Discovery

• Soyuz TMA

Miguel López

• was the first astronaut born in Spain, apart of filters made space shuttle missions

• was graduated in engineering in 1980 • first mission was in 1995 with the STS-73 • participated in the program NEEMO EU

program to protect Earth asteroids

• STS-73

•NEEMO