A stormy start for Aeolus but the forecast is promising
The world just became a little bit safer as Europe’s ground-breaking wind-monitoring satellite finally blasted into orbit last night – ridding the world of Michael Fish moments. At exactly 10.20 BST the Jupiter mission control centre in French Guiana, South America, gave the final green light for lift-off following a nail-biting week which saw the launch delayed by 24 hours – ironically because of strong winds.
But with the name Aeolus, it was never going to be plain sailing for the European Space Agency’s (ESA’S) latest Earth observation satellite. Named after the god who granted Odysseus the gift of favourable sea gusts, the craft was expected to launch 11 years ago to monitor global winds, forecast deadly storms and give an extra day’s warning for extreme weather.
But like Homer’s Odyssey, the €480 million (£430 million) mission has been beset with problems, eventually taking two decades to get off the ground. When strong winds prevented the launch on Tuesday it was easy to find parallels with the Aeolus myth in which the divine gales are accidentally unleashed, blowing Odysseus’s ship off course.
“It is a very special coincidence that the launch of the satellite devoted to wind analysis has to be postponed because of wind,” said Jan Woerner, director general of the European Space Agency. “We’re now looking forward to seeing the results of Aeolus. This will give us a better understanding of our planet.”
Richard Wimmer, the Aeolus project manager, who has worked on it for 16 years at the Airbus plant in Stevenage, said: “We’ve overcome so many hurdles. It’s almost like a child going off to university, it will go out there and find it’s way in the world and you just hope you’ve done enough.” The Aeolus is expected to be a “game changer” in weather and climate forecasting across the globe. Currently, wind measurements are still made by weather balloon, or pilots passing on readings mid-air.
But the new satellite will sweep from pole-to-pole, using pioneering ultraviolet lasers to scan the lowest 18 miles of the atmosphere, covering each inch of the globe every seven days. It will hopefully mean no more Michael Fish style gaffe, when huge storms arrived unexpectedly in 1987 after the
‘Nasa has tried to do this and not succeeded. This is the first time that a UV laser has been fired from space’
BBC weatherman suggested there wasn’t a hurricane on its way.
Prof John Remedios, head of Earth observation at the UK’S National Centre for Earth Observation said: “Forecasts should get better. If you go backwards in time, particularly to the stronger storms, they often have their origins three or four days away, sometimes in the tropics, in poorly served regions.
“Remember poor old Michael Fish and the October storm? That was all to do with the structure of winds which weren’t captured in the Bay of Biscay and southerly latitudes. He hadn’t captured the storm coming up from the south, so you can imagine the new system will be helpful. There will be fewer Michael Fish moments.”
Aeolus is synchronised with the Sun, to keep itself powered using huge solar panels. Its ground-breaking on-board science instrument, Aladin, (Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument) holds two lasers, a large telescope and sensitive receivers, which take measurements every 0.01 seconds.
The lasers bounce off small particles such as dust, ice and water droplets, and the light scattered back collected by the telescope can tell the speed and wind direction based on the Doppler shift of the particles. It will determine the evolution of jet streams, and the Met Office has already signed up for its readings alongside meteorological organisations across the world.
Sam Gyimah, the science minister, said: “The Aeolus mission is a great example of the potential real-world impacts that space can have on Earth.”
Aeolus is the fifth of the ESA’S Earth Explorer missions, which address critical Earth science issues, focusing on innovative missions and leadingedge technologies that deliver scientific excellence. The mission is a proof of concept to show the brand new system actually works.
If it does, the ESA wants to put two or three similar satellites to give faster coverage. “The wind has never been measured in this way before,” said Josef Aschbacher, ESA director of Earth Observation Programmes. “In terms of science this is groundbreaking. Nasa has tried to do this and not succeeded. This is the first time that a UV laser has been fired from space. We are engaging with technology that simply did not exist.”
The satellite was due for launch in 2007 but scientists found they could not make the system work in a vacuum, because the bounced-back laser light was so bright it carbonised dust on the telescope lens, leaving a murky coating. It was only last year that Airbus finally found a solution.
The satellite is expected to last for three years and six months, after which it will be de-orbited. The spacecraft was launched on a Vega rocket from the European launch site in French Guiana.
The 430sq mile spaceport in Kourou is an incongruous base for European space ambitions. The launch facility is home to jaguars, sloths and hundreds of wild pigs, while condors and toucans soar overhead.