On 11 February a diverse group of over 80 people gathered to inaugurate a new dish antenna located at the European Space Agency’s tracking station at New Norcia.
Members of the Benedictine Community New Norcia, neighbouring farmers and local, regional and national representatives, including Mr Sem Fabrizi, EU Ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, joined senior staff from the European Space Agency (ESA) who had flown in from Germany for this important event. The group was given a grand tour of the ground station facilities and antennas on site at the ESA tracking station, followed by a BBQ hosted by the Benedictine Community at New Norcia.
The new tracking antenna, formally dubbed the “New Norcia Acquisition Aid NNO-2,” will be used for communicating with rockets and newly launched satellites, taking advantage of Western Australia’s ideal geographic location under the initial flight path of launchers departing from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
When rockets and their satellites leap into the sky from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou they typically head east across the Atlantic and can be seen in Western Australia, rising up from the Indian Ocean horizon and then arcing high in the sky, some 50 minutes after launch.
Since 2002, ESA has operated a much larger 35 m-diameter deep-space tracking antenna at the New Norcia site, which has most recently provided critical support for missions such as Rosetta, Mars Express and Gaia – all voyaging millions of kilometres away in the Solar System. Its size and technology are not ideal, however, for signalling to rockets or satellites just entering orbit near Earth.
In contrast, the new dish, just 4.5 m across, will quickly and with high precision lock onto and track launch vehicles, such as Europe’s Ariane 5, Vega and Soyuz, and satellites during their critical initial orbits, up to roughly 100 000 km out.
Both the existing and new New Norcia antennas form part of Estrack, the Agency’s global system of ground stations providing links between satellites in orbit and flight control teams at ESA’s mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany. You can learn more at www.newnorcia.wa.edu.au/
