Solutions

Mission

Eureca was designed to carry a mix of experiments totaling up to 1 tonne for 6-9 months in orbit, released and retrieved by NASA’s Space Shuttle. It was the world’s first free-flyer designed specifically to satisfy microgravity experiments, providing 10-5 g conditions for long periods.
Although Eureca was controlled from ESOC in Germany, it could operate autonomously for up to 48 h. An important feature was reusability: Eureca was capable of making five flights over a 10-year period.

OIP’s Participation

OIP, as a subcontractor to Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (IASB-BIRA), designed, developed and manufactured the optical sub-assembly of ORA.

IASB-BIRA was responsible for the mechanical structure and the UV-visible unit. Furthermore, the electronics unit and the associated software were designed and developed entirely by IASB-BIRA. Finally, IASB-BIRA was also responsible for the qualification of the flight model and the management of the project.

Status

EURECA-1 and its 15 experiments were launched aboard Shuttle mission STS-46 on 31st July 1992 and released from the Shuttle’s robot arm by ESA Mission Specialist Claude Nicollier on 2nd August 1992.
EURECA-1 was retrieved on 1st July 1993 by the Space Shuttle Endeavor and returned to Earth on Cape Canaveral at Kennedy Space Center

ORA retired after successful mission.

Partners

The ORA project was a realization by different partners: BIRA-IASB (Uccle, Belgium), University of Oxford (UK), LMS, SABCA (Belgium), ETCA (Charleroi, Belgium) for the European Space Agency.

OIP was a subcontractor to BIRA-IASB.