Development, Launch and Operations
The Hipparcos satellite was financed and managed under the overall authority of the European Space Agency. The main industrial contractors were Matra Marconi Space (now EADS Astrium) and Alenia Spazio (now Thales Alenia Space).
Other hardware components were supplied as follows: the beam-combining mirror from REOSC at Saint Pierre du Perray; the spherical, folding and relay mirrors from Carl Zeiss AG in Oberkochen; the external straylight baffles from CASA in Madrid; the modulating grid from CSEM in Neuchatel; the mechanism control system and the thermal control electronics from Dornier Satellite Systems in Friedrichshafen; optical filters, the experiment structures and the attitude and orbit control system from Matra Marconi Space in Velizy; instrument switching mechanisms from Oerlikon-Contraves in Zurich; the image dissector tube and photomultiplier detectors assembled by the Dutch Space Research Organisation, SRON in The Netherlands; the refocusing assembly mechanism designed by TNO-TPD in Delft; the electrical power subsystem from British Aerospace in Bristol; the structure and reaction control system from Daimler-Benz Aerospace in Bremen; the solar arrays and thermal control system from Fokker Space System in Leiden; the data handling and telecommunications system from Saab Ericsson Space in Gothenburg; and the apogee boost motor from SEP in France. Groups from the Institut d'Astrophysique in Liege and the Laboratoire d'Astronomie Spatiale in Marseille contributed optical performance, calibration and alignment test procedures; Captec in Dublin and Logica in London contributed to the on-board software and calibration.
The Hipparcos satellite was launched (with the direct broadcast satellite TV-SAT2 as co-passenger) on an Ariane 4 launch vehicle, flight V33, from Kourou, French Guiana, on 8 August 1989. Launched into a geostationary transfer orbit, the Mage-2 apogee boost motor failed to fire, and the intended geostationary orbit was never achieved. However, with the addition of further ground stations, in addition to the primary ground station at Odenwald in Germany, the satellite was successfully operated in its geostationary transfer orbit for almost 3.5 years. All of the original mission goals were, eventually, exceeded.
The satellite was operated by the ESA operations control centre at ESOC, Darmstadt (Germany).
Including an estimate for the scientific activities related to the satellite observations and data processing, Hipparcos mission cost some 600 MEuro (2000 economic conditions), and its execution involved some 200 European scientists and more than 2000 individuals in European industry.
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