Picard Mission Centre

The Sun and its impact on Earth’s climate is a topic of prime importance. The Picard project was first proposed in 1998 by the aeronomy laboratory of the French national scientific research centre (SA/CNRS). On 3 December, the CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) Board of Directors decided to authorize this project frozen since 30 April 2003, in line with the recommendations of its Science Programmes Committee.

Picard is a CNES Myriade microsatellite that precisely measures the Sun’s diameter and its variations, as well as solar irradiance, with the twofold aim of learning more about how the Sun affects Earth’s climate and studying its physics and inner structure. The mission is named after the 17th century French astronomer Jean Picard, who was the first to measure the Sun’s diameter and its variations with a high degree of precision.

Initially scheduled for 2003, Picard was launched on 15th June 2010 at the start of the solar cycle, on a scheduled two-year mission. The microsatellite’s payload comprises:

• an imaging telescope (developed by SA/CNRS) capable of measuring the Sun’s shape and diameter to within a few milliarcseconds,
• a suite of three photometers and radiometers (Swiss PREMOS 2 instrument) to study ozone and solar oscillations,
• a differential radiometer (Belgian SOVAP instrument) to measure total solar irradiance.

 

The PICARD Mission Center

The PICARD mission center is operated by the B.USOC, located in Brussels (Belgian Institute for space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB), mainly dedicated to the operations needing interfaces with the spacecraft. The center enables the survey of the in orbit operations and the different instruments modes of observations.

The main role of the Picard Mission Center is to :

check of the instruments correct functioning, survey the instruments performances all along the mission to re-adjust, if necessary, the instrument parameters, supply calibrated data (L1) and preliminary scientific results (L2A) to the scientists (PIs and Co-Investigators), create and supply the needed commands to the instruments.

• Detailed overview of the Picard Ground Segment, on the CNES Picard Website
• Picard news on http://picard.busoc.be

 

Source:

Website CNES :

http://smsc.cnes.fr/PICARD/index.htm http://www.cnes.fr/html/_455_463_1545_2961_.php