18 Jun What is a Deorbit?

The CoRoT satellite, from website: http://physicsforme.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/corot2.gif

CoRoT deorbit: 17 June 2014

SANSA is currently providing support for the CoRoT satellite which belongs to the French space agency CNES. With assistance from the ground station, final TT&C manoeuvres to end the life of this satellite are executed together with other ground stations as it goes into deorbit.

CoRoT which stands for the COnvection ROtation and planetary Transits, is a space mission led by CNES, together with the European Space Agency (ESA) and other international partners.

The mission’s two objectives are to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly those of large terrestrial size, and to perform asteroseismology by measuring solar-like oscillations in stars. The probe was launched on 27 December 2006 on the Soyuz 2.1b carrier rocket and reported first light on 18 January 2007.

CoRoT is the first spacecraft dedicated to the detection of transiting extrasolar planets, opening the way for more advanced probes such as Kepler as well as future missions such as TESS and PLATO.

SANSA is now playing a global role in the decluttering of space by providing deorbit support which has a main focus on removal of inactive or non-functional satellites. This is critical as without this capability, it will soon prove impossible to launch any future space missions as space junk continues to accumulate around our planet.