Biomass

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Overview

Destination: Sun-Synchronous Orbit
Mission: Earth Science

Sun-Synchronous Orbit Ariane Launch Area 1 (ELV) Guiana Space Centre, French Guiana

Biomass is an European Space Agency mission designed to measure the density of carbon stored in the world's forests. The spacecraft, built by Airbus Defence and Space, features the first civilian P-band synthetic aperture radar as well as a 12m-diameter deployable reflector from L3Harris made of over 900 km of gold-coated molybdenum 25µm wire. With a minimum operational lifetime of 5 years in its 666km 6am/6pm sun-synchronous orbit, the global coverage achieved every 9 months allows to precisely monitor the evolution of forests over time.

Updates



Nosu • March 27, 2024, 10:48 a.m.

Targeting March 2025


Cosmic_Penguin • Dec. 5, 2023, 2:40 p.m.

Launcher swapped with one for Sentinel-2C in summer 2023.


Cosmic_Penguin • Oct. 2, 2023, 11:26 a.m.

NET Q2 2024.


Vega-C

Family:
Configuration:

Vega-C is a single-body rocket nearly 35 m high with that weighs 210 tonnes on the launch pad. As with Vega, its main elements are three solid-propellant stages, an upper stage powered by a reignitable liquid-propellant engine and a payload fairing. Vega-C's P120C first stage replaces Vega’s smaller P80 to provide a significant increase in thrust at liftoff. It is also used as boosters (2 or 4) for the Ariane 6 rocket.

See Details
Specifications
  • Stages
    4
  • Length
    35.0 m
  • Diameter
    3.0 m
  • Fairing Diameter
    3.3 m
  • Launch Mass
    210.0 T
  • Thrust
    2974.0 kN
Family
  • Name
    Vega-C
  • Family
  • Variant
  • Alias
  • Full Name
    Vega-C
Payload Capacity
  • Launch Cost
    $48000000
  • Low Earth Orbit
    3300.0 kg
  • Geostationary Transfer Orbit
  • Direct Geostationary
  • Sun-Synchronous Capacity
    2300.0 kg

Avio S.p.A

Avio S.p.A

(Avio)

CEO: Giulio Ranzo Founded: 1908 Successes: 0 Failures: 0 Pending: 3

Agency Type:

Avio S.p.A. is an Italian company operating in the aerospace sector with its head office in Colleferro near Rome, Italy. Founded in 1908, it is present in Italy and abroad with different commercial offices and 10 production sites.

INFO WIKI

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Biomass cleared for fuelling

From the ESA Blogs.

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