Double Star mission extension

On 8 November 2006, the Science Programme Committee (SPC) of the European Space Agency (ESA) has approved a 9 months extension of ESA involvement in the Double Star Programme (DSP) operations from 1 January 2007 to 30 September 2007.

The Double Star mission is the first mission conducted in collaboration between ESA and the Chinese National Space Administration. The mission comprises two spacecraft to investigate magnetospheric global processes and their responses to interplanetary disturbances, in particular in conjunction with the Cluster mission.
The first spacecraft, TC-1, was launched on 29 December 2003 and the second one, TC-2, on 25 July 2004, both on board Chinese Long March 2C rockets. TC-1 was injected into an equatorial orbit and TC-2 into a polar orbit. After a nominal mission of 1 year (from the launch of TC-2), Double Star was extended for another 1.5 years, up to end of 2006, following an SPC decision in May 2005.

ESA contributed to the construction/refurbishment and pre-integration of the eight European instruments, and is now acquiring data for 4 hours per day using the VILSPA-2 ground station near Madrid, Spain. ESA also co-ordinates the scientific operations for the European instruments. China's contribution included the two spacecraft buses, eight scientific experiments, and the launch. China also conducts the spacecraft and Chinese instrument operations.

The orbits have been designed to complement the Cluster mission by maximizing the time when both Cluster and Double Star are sampling the same scientific regions at different distances from the Earth. The two missions allow simultaneous observations of the Earth's magnetosphere from six points in space. To facilitate the comparison of data, half of the Double Star payload (with the exception of the NUADU instrument) is made up of spares or duplicates of Cluster experiments; the other half consists of new Chinese instruments.

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ESA Science & Technology News Release