The mission

TARANIS mission


 * Mission profile

TARANIS belongs to the CNES Myriade microsatellite family. It is a three axis stabilized satellite. The dimension of the platform is 98×107×115 cm. The total weight is around 150 kg, including about 35 kg for the scientific payload. The microsatellite subsystems include a mass memory of 16-Gbits capacity, a high rate X band telemetry (16.8 Mbits/s) for the transmission of the scientific data. The mission profile is very close to the DEMETER profile. TARANIS is forecast to be a two-year mission with a four-year mission as an objective. It will fly in a polar sunsynchronous orbit with an inclination of 98° and an altitude close to 700 km. TARANIS is expected to be launched in 2012 from Kourou as a piggy-back on a Soyouz rocket. Practically, this means a SSO orbit with a local time equal to 22H30.

Due to limitations in the power budget, in particular for the night time orbits, the scientific experiments will be switched off at high geographical latitudes (below −60◦ and above 60◦) during the nominal operation modes. However, this will allow coverage for most regions where lightning activity is strong and therefore where the probability of observations of TLEs or/and TGFs is high. Data will be transmitted to the ground at least twice per day. The TARANIS mission Centre will be developed and operated by the Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l’Espace et de l'Environnement (LPC2E).

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