18 April 2006

Some 15,000 Argos transmitters are taking the pulse of the Earth and its atmosphere, acquiring temperature, pressure, humidity and sea level readings, and monitoring fishing fleets and tracking wildlife across the globe.

18 April 2006

Today’s weather forecasts are reliable out to around 7 days. In the last 20 years, weather services have made great strides but one of the main barriers to better weather forecasting today is our sketchy knowledge of atmospheric humidity and temperature profiles.

12 April 2006

For 500 days, Venus Express will study the planet considered as Earth’s twin in terms of its size and mass.

12 April 2006

The pictures here retrace the steps of the components making up the Corot satellite. After delivery to Alcatel Alenia Space early in January, the flight model of the telescope was integrated with the Proteus spacecraft bus.

5 April 2006

Calipso has been ready to go for some time now, but its launch with companion satellite CloudSat has been pushed back several times in the last year due to a series of hitches.

As a result of strikes at launch operator Boeing and the shutdown of the launch base for maintenance, the 2 satellites have been on standby for several months.

Launch preparations have nevertheless been underway since 15 March at Vandenberg. The qualification readiness review and performance tests were successfully completed end March.

5 April 2006

Michel Bach joined CNES in 1977 as a design engineer, since when he has worked on a series of projects spanning exploration of Venus to Earth observation with the Spot programme.

3 April 2006

The objective underlying the agency’s new mantra, its 1^st-ever graphic template and redesigned logo is to give CNES’s brand identity more impact and clarity.

Just over a year ago, CNES adopted On Earth, in Space as its new mantra.

30 March 2006

In 2004, huge swarms of desert locusts returned to Africa in the Sahel. Able to drift on the wind for up to 200 km in one day, these swarms devour up to 10,000 tonnes of vegetation daily.

29 March 2006

Winter 2005. An unexpected wave of cold weather forces birds from the Caspian Sea to extend their migration to the marshes of eastern France.

28 March 2006

An altimeter is a radar instrument that measures sea-surface height with very high accuracy.
It works simply by beaming down a signal that hits the ocean surface and then bounces back to an antenna. The distance (or range) from the ocean to the satellite is then calculated from the return-trip time of the signal.