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.

Recommended Videos

“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.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Asimov’s vision of harvesting solar power from space could become a reality
Simplified diagram of space solar power concept..

It's an idea straight out of science fiction: A space station orbits around Earth, harvesting energy from the sun and beaming it down to our planet. Isaac Asimov popularized the concept in his 1941 story Reason, and futurists have been dreaming about it ever since.

But this notion is more than just an idle fantasy -- it's a highly practical concept being pursued by space agencies across the world, and it's almost within reach of current technologies. It could even be the solution to the energy crisis here on Earth.

Read more
NASA and Russian satellites just miss in ‘too close for comfort’ pass
An illustration of NASA's TIMED satellite.

There’s already enough hazardous debris in orbit, but on Wednesday, an incident occurred that almost created a whole lot more.

It involved NASA’s operational TIMED satellite and the defunct Russian Cosmos 2221 satellite, which came alarmingly close to colliding about 378 miles (608 kilometers) above Earth.

Read more
Dramatic images show a large satellite tumbling toward Earth
ESA's ERS-2 satellite tumbling toward Earth.

An illustration of the European Space Agency's ERS-2 satellite. ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) has shared remarkable images showing one of its satellites in what it describes as a “tumbling descent.”

Read more