Curtiss-Wright Controls launches with Ariane 5 and Envisat
Date: Monday 4th March 2002
Transducers manufactured by Curtiss-Wright Controls were fitted to the engines of the Ariane 5 rocket that successfully launched Envisat, Europe´s largest and most expensive satellite, on its voyage to monitor the health of the planet.
Weighing more than 8,000 kg and measuring 10 metres in length, the satellite is the largest payload to be launched on an Ariane vehicle. It will circle the planet every 100 minutes in a polar orbit, looking down from a height of 800 kilometres (500 miles).
Curtiss-Wright has supplied four different types of LVDTs for the European space programme. They have been installed on the direct drive valves and servo actuators used for both the thrust vector control of solid boosters and the Vulcain engine of the first stage of the Ariane 5 launch vehicle; and on the Aestus engine of the second stage.
LVDTs first made it into space in the successful launch of mission 502 from Kourou, French Guyana on 30th October 1997.
