At 17.11 (Central European summer time) on July 1, a satellite will be launched from Cape Canaveral – Florida to explore the composition and evolution of the Dark Universe.
Cosimo Massimiliano D’Ascanio (Mino) from Vieste is a staff engineer (AIT) who assembled, integrated and tested the satellite in seven years. Years of hard work, away from home and loved ones, hours of meticulous experimentation and testing of teamwork made up of minds of different nationalities.
The ESA mission has the name of “EUCLID” and aims to explore the composition and evolution of the Dark Universe. The space telescope will create the largest 3D map of the universe, observing billions of galaxies up to 10 billion light years away. Euclid will help understand how the universe expanded, revealing more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter.
After the launch on July 1 at 17.11 CEST, Euclid will sail towards the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point. Four weeks after launch, Euclid will enter orbit around this point, which is 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, in the opposite direction from the Sun. Once in orbit, mission operators will begin testing all functions of the telescope. During this period, the residual water is degassed and subsequently the Euclid tools are switched on. Between one and three months after launch, Euclid will go through several calibration and scientific performance tests and prepare for science. The telescope begins its first phase of surveying the Universe three months after launch.
Meanwhile, a few hours after the launch, we all have our fingers crossed for this mission together with engineer Massimiliano D’Ascanio.
Cajetan Simon
For those who want to follow the launch phases, they can connect to the following link: