EURECA

 1992-049B

---

ESA's European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA) was built by MBB-ERNO (later DASA-ERNO). The 4491 kg spacecraft was 4.5m by 2.54m in size, with a retractable 20m x 3.5m solar array. It was deployed from Atlantis in Aug 1992 and used its on-board engine to raise its orbit over the next few days to 501 x 506 km. In late May 1993 it lowered its orbit again to 474 x 482 km and in June it was recovered by Endeavour on mission STS-57, and brought back to Earth.

EURECA
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1992 Aug 2	0707	Deploy from RMS
	1229	Sep burn OTM-1
	1236	Aborted sep burn 1	93.29 430 x 440 x 28.47
1992 Aug 5	0000		93.47 428 x 461 x 28.46
1992 Aug 6	1027	OTM-1B mv up	94.33 466 x 505 x 28.46
1992 Aug 7	0926	OTM-2 mv up
1992 Aug 12			94.70 501 x 506 x 28.45
1992 Oct 11			94.66 499 x 504 x 28.45
1992 Nov 8			94.63 497 x 503 x 28.45
1993 Jan 27			94.53 494 x 498 x 28.45
1993 Mar 23			94.47 480 x 505 x 28.45
1993 Apr 19			94.44 464 x 518 x 28.45
1993 May 7			94.41 460 x 519 x 28.45
1993 May 20		orbital adjust	94.86 477 x 545 x 28.45
1993 May 24		orbit adjust
1993 May 25			94.80 474 x 544 x 28.46
1993 May 27			94.15 471 x 483 x 28.45
1993 Jun 8		Trim burn	94.14 470 x 483 x 28.45
1993 Jun 9	0430?		94.18 474 x 483 x 28.45
1993 Jun 23			94.17 474 x 482 x 28.46
1993 Jun 24	1224	Solar panels retracted
1993 Jun 24	1353	Eureca grapple by STS-57 OV-105

Payload:

• Solution Growth Facility (SGF)

• Protein Crystallization Facility (PCF)

• Exobiology And Radiation Assembly (ERA) with Biostacks (DLR-Koln/Horneck)

• Multi-Furnace Assembly (MFA)

• Automatic Mirror Furnace (AMF)

• Surface Forces Adhesion Instrument (SFA) (Milano/Poletti)

• High Precision Thermostat Instrument (HPT)

• Solar Constant And Variability Instrument (SOVA) 3350,5000,8620A (IRMB/Crommelynck)

• Solar Spectrum Instrument (SOSP) UV/opt spectrometer 1700A-3.2mu,

• SOSP IR spectrometer 8000A-30 mu (CNRS-Aero/IASB/Thuillier)