Skip to main content

See the enormous solar panels of this Earth-monitoring satellite unfurled

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) are preparing to launch a new Earth-monitoring satellite called EarthCARE which will study clouds and aerosols to see how they interact with the atmosphere and contribute to its temperature. As part of testing the satellite’s hardware before launch, the craft’s solar panel wing was recently unfurled for the first time.

EarthCARE has a large set of instruments for taking measurements, including an atmospheric lidar, a Doppler cloud radar, a multispectral imager, and a broadband radiometer. This range of instruments is necessary to understand the complex relationship between clouds, aerosols, radiation, and climate change. But this many instruments require a lot of power, hence why the satellite is also equipped with a huge five-panel solar wing.

One of the first tests of ESA’s EarthCARE satellite involved the deployment of the satellite’s 11 metre solar wing from its folded stowed configuration, which allows it to fit in the rocket fairing, to its fully deployed configuration as it will be in orbit around Earth. The photograph shows the wing fully deployed.
One of the first tests of ESA’s EarthCARE satellite involved the deployment of the satellite’s 11-meter solar wing from its folded stowed configuration, which allows it to fit in the rocket fairing, to its fully deployed configuration as it will be in orbit around Earth. The photograph shows the wing fully deployed. ESA–M. Cowan

At 11 meters (36 feet) long, the wing has to be folded up to fit inside the nosecone of the rocket which will launch the satellite from Earth and into orbit. To test this folding and unfolding process, the wing has now been deployed fully for the first time at an ESA testing facility in the Netherlands.

“We are extremely happy to say that the solar wing deployment test went very well. The timely and complete deployment of the large solar wing soon after launch is crucial to the mission,” said ESA’s Mehrdad Rezazad. “Since we have to deal with gravity on the ground, the separate panels were supported by wires for the test. In orbit the ties, holding the five panels together during the launch configuration, will be automatically sliced open by a set of thermal knives, releasing the folded wing so that it can deploy fully behind the satellite platform.”

You can also see video of the wing unfolding, shared by ESA:

Spreading EarthCARE’s solar wing

The launch of EarthCARE is scheduled for September 2023 from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana.

Editors' Recommendations

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
Watch space station’s new solar array unfurl in space
A new solar array unfurling at the space station in December 2022.

Two American astronauts successfully completed a spacewalk at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, December 3.

NASA’s Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio spent just over seven hours outside the orbital laboratory before concluding their spacewalk at 2:21 p.m. ET. This was only the second spacewalk for both astronauts, following the pair’s first one on November 15.

Read more
How to watch the launch of NASA’s JPSS-2 weather satellite this week
Illustration of the Joint Polar Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2) satellite.

This Thursday, November 10, NASA will launch a weather satellite called JPSS-2 into a polar Earth orbit. This environmental satellite will be accompanied by a test of a new inflatable heat shield, making this launch one well worth tuning in for.

Launch of JPSS-2 Weather Satellite & LOFTID Mars Tech Demo (Official NASA Broadcast)

Read more
Lucy spacecraft snaps stunning image of Earth during flyby
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image (which has been cropped) of the Earth on Oct 15, 2022, as a part of an instrument calibration sequence at a distance of 380,000 miles (620,000 km). The upper left of the image includes a view of Hadar, Ethiopia, home to the 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor fossil for which the spacecraft was named.

Earlier this month, NASA's Lucy spacecraft whipped by Earth as it performed a flyby on its way to the Trojan asteroids in the orbit of Jupiter. While it was passing by, it snapped images of both the Earth and the moon as seen from space. NASA recently shared these images with the public.

Lucy is visiting the asteroids in the orbit of Jupiter to learn about the formation of the solar system, but it's a long journey to reach there. The spacecraft was launched in October 2021, and it is taking a complex path around the solar system to reach the asteroids over the course of 12 years. As part of this journey, Lucy swung back around Earth to get a gravity boost to help carry it on its way.

Read more