Noordwijk, News, Pictures & buzz

Dancing With the Stars: Corridor Test of Proba-3’s Formation Flying Sensors  SciTechDaily

Cop roughed up while breaking up lockdown party at Noordwijk beach  NL Times

Many Dutch celebrate Easter with a domestic vacation  NL Times

READ Ninety years of badminton in the Netherlands  Commentary Box Sports

Searching for Skylab: America's forgotten triumph in Space  Open Access Government

Will working from home change where we choose to live?  IamExpat in the Netherlands

RUSSELL KENT GARRETT | Obituaries | victoriaadvocate.com  Victoria Advocate

The Dutch housing market in 2021  IamExpat in the Netherlands

Greenville Bolsters Attack with Arrival of Marios Lomis  USL League One

5 things you should and shouldn't do when buying a house in the Netherlands  IamExpat in the Netherlands

Prolific kiteboarding photographer injured >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News  Scuttlebutt Sailing News

ESA Archival Research Visitor Programme | Planetary News  Planetary News

Another weather record broken: Warmest February 21  NL Times

The Netherlands is one of the world's best countries for remote working in 2021  IamExpat in the Netherlands

Housing sector and municipalities call for 1 million new homes by 2031  IamExpat in the Netherlands

Reaching for the moon? Space agency aims for diversity in new astronauts - DutchNews.nl  DutchNews.nl

25 Logos With Hidden Messages  Newsweek

How to survive and thrive as a freelancer in the Netherlands  IamExpat in the Netherlands

Why is investing in real estate so interesting?  IamExpat in the Netherlands

Selling online: What you need to know about VAT in Europe  IamExpat in the Netherlands

violacran: And now I see this happening. The Austrailan nurse, the man in Noordwijk Netherlands after his vaccinati^*, that man in Denmark???

Say in 5 to 10 years? Any plans for manned space flight. Has of now only US, Russia and China and US is working on replacement for shuttle.

Hello Everyone, I wonder if someone from the Netherlands can help? I live in the UK and I would like to take a week or so off between projects to clear my mind. I am an experienced rider and I would very much like to (horse) ride along the Dutch North Sea Coast. I would like to stay locally for something like 5 days or so. I like peace and quiet and I don't mind if the weather is a bit bleak. I did do some research on the web. I am not sure about the Haarlem as it looks very tourisy. I want to try the west coast of the Texel island. Does anyone out there know the area or could you suggest other places? Many thanks

Table 1. Major capabilities of Envisat • Sun-synchronous orbit: 800 km, 10 a.m. descending node, 35-day repeat cycle • Stellar yaw steering, for accurate pointing and Doppler compensation of SAR • 1900 Watts, 2500 kg for instruments • Data recovery at up to 100 Mbps direct via X-band or via Artemis • On-board storage in solid-state recorders for regional and global missions • S-band command and control; 2 kbps uplink, 4 kbps downlink rbulletin 106 — june 2001 26 The Envisat Satellite and Its Integration P.A. Dubock, F. Spoto Envisat Programme, ESA Directorate of Earth and Environment Monitoring from Space, ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands J. Simpson, D. Spencer Astrium Ltd., Bristol, UK E. Schutte & H. Sontag Astrium GmbH, Friedrichshafen, Germany Introduction Envisat is the largest and most complex freeflying satellite ever built in Europe. It will carry a comprehensive series of instruments designed to observe a whole series of interrelated phenomena that characterise the behaviour of the Earth’s environment as a system. The satellite, together with its related ground systems, will continue and extend the data services provided by the Agency’s earlier ERS- 1 and ERS-2 satellites. In particular, Envisat should substantially increase our knowledge of the factors determining our environment. It will make a significant contribution to environmental studies, notably in the areas of atmospheric chemistry and ocean studies, including marine biology. The observations made by Envisat will eventually be continued and extended by a series of new, smaller satellite programmes being initiated within the Agency’s Earth Observation Envelope and Earth Watch Programmes. Background The Columbus Programme approved at the ESA Ministerial Council Meeting in The Hague in 1987 included the development of a multimission Polar Platform as part of the International Space Station. Following a series of studies and iterations with potential users, an implementation re-using the equipment and architecture of the Spot-4 spacecraft bus design, although with a significantly enlarged structure, was decided upon. The main development phase (Phase-C/D) for the Polar Platform programme was awarded to British Aerospace in Bristol (UK) – later to become Matra Marconi and now Astrium Ltd. – in late 1990. Meanwhile, in the Earth Observation area, the Agency was considering, as ERS-1 grew closer to launch, how to continue and extend the services offered. In 1988, these elements were drawn together in an ESA proposal to its Member States for an overall ‘Strategy for Earth Observation’. These considerations led to the adoption of the POEM-1 programme, using the Polar Platform, at the Ministerial Council Meeting in Munich in November 1991. There continued to be an evolution in the payload complement for POEM-1. This culminated in a splitting of the payload into separate Envisat and MetOp satellites, which was finally agreed at the next Ministerial Council in Granada in November 1992. A Phase-C/D contract for the procurement and support of the Envisat payload (the so-called ‘Mission Prime Contract’) was awarded to Dornier Satellitensystem, now Astrium GmbH, in July 1992. For the early years of this new millennium, Envisat is ESA’s major contribution to the study of the Earth as a system. Carrying ten sophisticated instruments – both optical and radar – it is the largest and most complex satellite ever built in Europe. It has been designed and tested over a period of more than 10 years. Much of the integration and test programme was conducted on site at ESTEC, in Noordwijk (NL). It will be the first satellite launched into a polar orbit by Ariane-5. This article summarises the design and engineering of Envisat, and explains the model philosophy and test approaches used. The launch campaign plans are also briefly described. The satellite makes use of the multi-mission capability of the Polar Platform originated in the Agency’s Columbus Programme. This development also forms the basis for MetOp. The Polar Platform in turn has drawn heavily on the equipment and technologies developed within the framework of the French Spot programme. Almost all of the instruments on the satellite have been specifically developed for Envisat, with one or two having a strong design heritage from ERS. the envisat satellite and its integration 27 As a result of the programmatic origin of the satellite, there remain two large contracts for its implementation: – the Polar Platform Prime Contract (Astrium Ltd.), and – the Mission Prime Contract (Astrium GmbH). These two large contracts, interfacing with each other at some of the technically most critical on-board locations, caused a number of problems during the development programme. The satellite integration programme has, however, largely been carried out at ESTEC following the closure of Astrium’s Bristol site. As a result, many of the technical personnel have been collocated (with ESA) at ESTEC. This, and the grouping of both contractors within the Astrium company, has ensured a much smoother technical path for the programme in its final phase. The organisation of the Agency’s project teams initially also reflected the programmatic split, with separate project divisions for Polar Platform and payload. More recently the project teams hav More recently the project teams have been merged within a single division. This too has simplified the technical conduct of the programme. Major capabilities The satellite is designed for a Sun-synchronous polar orbit (Table 1). The planned operating altitude is 800 km, although a range of altitudes can be selected allowing variations in the repeat cycle of the ground track. The local time at the equator for the descending node has been selected as 10.00 a.m., which optimises illumination conditions for part of the optical payload. The selected orbit has a repeat cycle of 35 days and an orbital period of 100.6 min. Its inclination is 98.54 deg, which implies small, uncovered areas at the poles for instruments with limited swath widths. The on-board systems allow the ground track to be maintained within 1 km and the local hour to within 5 min. One of the on-board instruments (DORIS), when used in conjunction with a dedicated set of ground stations, provides realtime knowledge of position to within 50 cm, and a precision altitude restitution to within 5 cm. In nominal operations, the satellite is pointed using star trackers in a ‘stellar yaw-steering mode’. In this mode, the satellite is yawed to compensate for the apparent motion of the Earth across-track beneath the satellite. This compensation simplifies the processing of Doppler signals from the synthetic-aperture radar. When using the star trackers, random pointing errors will be less than 0.0085 deg, and the stability over all periods of up to 170 s better than 0.015 deg. Attitude estimation will be better than 0.04 deg. This pointing performance allows both adequate geographical location for data measured on the Earth’s surface, and a vertical resolution when viewing the atmosphere at the limb of better than 3 km. The satellite provides an average of 1900 W for instrument operations through sunlit and eclipse portions of the orbit. This enables all instruments except MERIS and ASAR to be operated continuously throughout the entire orbit. MERIS, the Medium-Resolution Imaging Spectrometer, requires sunlight to operate. ASAR, the Advanced Synthetic-Aperture Radar, produces such enormous quantities of data in its high-resolution mode that its operation is limited to 30 min per orbit. The SM includes eight batteries, and the solar array. This is a flat-pack array designed for the Polar Platform by Fokker Space (NL), based on their standard design elements. Once deployed, the array is rotated to point continuously towards the Sun using a solar-array drive mechanism, which is attached to the base of the central cone. The propulsion module on top of the cone contains four tanks, which hold 300 kg of hydrazine. A single central computer containing both command and control and AOCS functions performs on-board data management. It controls the SM equipment via a standard onboard data-handling bus. The central computer also communicates with the central computer of the PLM via the same bus. The data-handling capabilities of the spacecraft have also been sized to support the global and regional missions. All instruments except MERIS and ASAR operate continuously, together producing 4.6 Mbps. There are separate additional regional missions for MERIS (up to 25 Mbps) and ASAR (up to 100 Mbps). On-board storage in redundant solidstate recorders allows the recording and dumping of all data from the global and regional missions. Data can be downlinked directly when overflying a suitable ground station, such as Kiruna in Sweden, via a fixed X-band antenna, or when within visibility of Artemis, via a steerable Ka-band antenna. Command and control of the satellite and payload is via an S-band transponder. The satellite will normally be operated by uplinking a 24-hour command timeline. Housekeeping data is available in real time when over a ground station, but is also included in the global mission data stream. The satellite is designed for launch only by Ariane-5. It has a total launch mass of 8100 kg, of which 2150 kg are instruments. The physical size of the spacecraft requires the Ariane-5 long fairing, for which Envisat is the first customer. Major components The satellite is made up of two major subassemblies, the Service Module (SM) and the Payload Module (PLM), with a simple structural, electrical and avionics interface between them. All instruments are physically located on the PLM, to which the instruments have a largely standardised interface. The modularity of the design has made it possible to conduct by far the majority of the integration work on the SM, PLM and instruments in parallel. Service Module The SM provides the standard satellite support functions, and was subcontracted to Astrium SAS. It is based on the design of the Spot Mk- II service module, but with a number of important new developments, particularly in the structure and solar-array areas (Fig. 1).

The coastline of northish Holland, North West Germany, West Denmark. What is it like and what are the best places, what is the atmosphere like and what is there to offer? Hi thanks, if you could edit and add more that'd be fantastic. I like parks, sports facilities, forests, paths, beaches, good pubs/bars and cafes. Nice suburbs with a good vibe too. Places that are more people doing jobs than tourists, but it's ok if there are some tourists.