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The European Space Agency (ESA) is putting the finishing touches on the Euclid Space Telescope. Next month, the telescope will head into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, eventually making its way to the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange Point, which is also home to the James Webb Space Telescope. Euclid will just be visiting, though. Its mission is just a few years long, but the ESA hopes to be able to map billions and billions of galaxies before it’s over.
Similar to Webb, the Euclid telescope operates in the infrared part of the spectrum. While it doesn’t get as deep into the infrared as Webb, it still benefits from being isolated on the far side of the moon’s orbit. As you can see from the ESA’s fueling images (above), Euclid is much smaller than Webb. The main reflector is just 1.2 meters across, but it does use the same segmented Korsch-style mirror as Webb.
The ESA worked to complete Euclid during the pandemic, but a planned partnership with Russia on the launch fell apart in 2022 (for obvious reasons). Euclid switched to SpaceX, and that’s what brought the spacecraft to Florida. Euclid is currently in an Astrotech Corporation facility near Cape Canaveral. There, technicians have loaded the spacecraft with all the fuel it will rely on for its mission. It has a 140-kilogram tank of hydrazine, a toxic chemical propellant often used in maneuvering thrusters. Euclid will use this fuel to maintain its planned orbit around L2, which will require monthly adjustments.
Credit: ESA
In addition to the energetic but dangerous hydrazine, Euclid has four tanks of nitrogen gas, totaling 70 kilograms. Since Euclid is going to be looking at extremely distant objects, it needs precision control over its orientation. The nitrogen fuels six cold gas thrusters that tweak the telescope’s position as needed to keep the data crisp. With fueling done, the team will begin prepping the telescope for mounting to the Falcon 9 rocket in advance of the July 1 launch.
Euclid’s goal is to scan about a third of the sky in six years. It will focus mostly on extragalactic targets up to 10 billion light years away. It will create a 3D map of the universe’s large-scale structures, which could help scientists unlock the secrets of dark matter and the earliest eons of the universe. The ESA doesn’t know for sure how long Euclid will last, but it has kept open the possibility of tacking on five years at the end of the primary mission. The Webb telescope will probably still be going strong when it’s time for Euclid to call it a night. The perfect launch helped Webb save fuel, boosting its expected life from ten to twenty years.
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