The Eureca satellite to reveal secrets
© 2016 Swiss Space Center EPFL
Displayed at the Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne since 2000, this impressive 4.5-tonne vessel was recently unhooked and brought to Empa's laboratories, in Dübendorf, for substantive analysis.
The science satellite Eureca is back in the news! Displayed at the Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne since 2000, this impressive 4.5-tonne vessel was unhooked from the exhibition hall early August and brought to Empa, the materials science specialist in Dübendorf, for substantive analysis. It will undergo a complete X-ray scan, in order to detect cracks and others features that its stay in space might have left on its structures.
Eureca was launched in 1992 as an European Space Agency (ESA) mission. Retrieved in 1993 after an 11-month stay in orbit, it lead 15 different experiments. Built by the German MBB-ERNO, it had automatic material science cells as well as small telescopes for solar observation. It is one of the few unmanned space vehicles that have been returned to the Earth unbroken.
Follow the story on: blogs.ethz.ch/Eureca/