ESA Satellite Now in Orbit for Five Years

The European Space Agency celebrated the fifth anniversary Wednesday of the launch of its Envisat spacecraft — the world’s largest environmental satellite.

Envisat, which has orbited Earth more than 26,000 times, lifted off from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana on the night of Feb. 28, 2002, and has since traveled a distance of more than 621 million miles.

The Paris-based ESA says Envisat, generating approximately 280 gigabytes of data each day, monitors Earth’s global environment. Results of ongoing Envisat research projects, as well as data from other ESA satellites, will be presented during the 2007 Envisat Symposium in Montreux, Switzerland, in April.

ESA scientists say this anniversary is particularly important because it marks the end of Envisat’s nominal lifetime, since the satellite was initially only intended to remain in orbit for five years. However, given the overall excellent operation of the satellite, ESA member states have agreed to extend funding of the mission until 2010.