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Monster European Environmental Satellite

Posted by michael on from the ozone-hole-what-ozone-hole dept.

andygood writes: "Spaceflight Now has this article about the 'Mother of All Earth Observation Satellites' which will be launched by Europe in early 2002. This thing is the size of a juggernaut and 'every hour will gather as much data as can be stored on a dozen PC hard disks'. 'ENVISAT' (ENVIronmental SATellite) has been in the works for almost fourteen years with a price tag of 2.3 billion (Euro)."

3 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Say what you want.. by supagoat · · Score: 0, Redundant

    But it's still looks like a bunch of aluminum foil and bowls put together by some second grader. I can't believe nasa put the brakes on the X11... We need a better way to get stuff into space! I want death star!

  2. Hmm by NMerriam · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Y'know, if we got all these satellite guys together, the ones in the previous story could have helped the EU save a few billion by using parts from Radio Shack...

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    Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
  3. Too many eggs in one basket by kingdon · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Instead of putting 10 instruments on one satellite they should put two instruments one each of 5 satellites (or 3.33 instruments on each of 3). That way if one blows up on launch you haven't lost 2.3 billion euros (about 2 billion US dollars, compared with say $200-300 million or so for NASA's recent science missions, e.g. to Mars).