The next SSC-developed system to be launched into space is the communication system Telescience Support Unit (TSU). The system will be used by the European Space Agency (ESA) onboard the Russian space capsule Foton M3. This is SSC’s fourth delivery of a TSU for Foton, and this time, SSC’s engineers have developed a new generation of the system. Foton M3 is planned to be launched on 14 September 2007, and the flight will last eleven and a half days, to be exact.

The TSU will store and process data from ten experiments onboard the capsule. The information will be transmitted to Esrange Space Center – SSC’s facility in northern Sweden – from where the scientists can monitor and control their experiments. For these real-time studies, the new SSC software RAMSES will be used.

In the beginning of April, the TSU system was delivered to ESTEC, ESA’s research and technology centre in the Netherlands, where a Mission Simulation Test was performed. Some forty scientists took part in simulations of Foton’s first and last three days in orbit. In the end of May, the TSU was flown to Samara in Russia for integration and tests in the Foton capsule. The capsule was then transported to Baikonur for final tests and launch.

In Baikonur, all instruments onboard Foton M3 are now checked to make sure they are intact after the transport. SSC’s engineers on site have verified that the TSU works fine. It will now be submitted to numerous communication tests with the experiments.

For more information, please contact Stefan Lundin, project manager, SSC, tel +46 8 627 62 00.