The Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) satellite, the first hyperspectral satellite developed and built in Germany, landed safely at NASA's spaceport in Florida on 27 February 2022 at 13:05 local time (19:05 CET). It is now being prepared for flight and integrated onto a Falcon 9 rocket inside the hangar of the US space company SpaceX. EnMAP is expected to set off for its target orbit at the beginning of April 2022. The hyperspectral satellite is expected to collect data on the state of our home planet for at least five years. "We are very happy that EnMAP has now arrived safely in Florida. It was a great feeling to see the aircraft land collect the EnMAP satellite. Now we are taking big steps towards the launch," says Sebastian Fischer, EnMAP Mission Manager at the German Space Agency at DLR , who is on site in Florida.
It all started in the evening hours of 24 February 2022. At 21:00, two heavy transporters left the OHB System AG factory site in Bremen with a special container housing the satellite measuring 8.9 metres long by 2.8 metres high by 3.2 metres wide and another container full of test equipment. The destination of the EnMAP convoy was Hanover-Langenhagen Airport. The transport arrived at 00:00, at which point the container with the EnMAP satellite was loaded onto a transport aircraft. Following take-off at 16:00 on 25 February, it then travelled via Keflavik in southwest Iceland and Portsmouth International Airport at Pease in New Hampshire (USA) to the space shuttle runway at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. There, the satellite was unloaded from the container on 28 February 2022 and taken to SpaceX's integration hall, where it will be prepared for its journey atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
New EnMAP video explains the mission
The German environmental mission EnMAP will improve our understanding of Earth's ecosystem. Walther Pelzer, DLR Executive Board member and Head of the German Space Agency at DLR, and Sebastian Fischer, EnMAP Mission Manager at the German Space Agency at DLR, together with the mission partners, explain exactly who the mission will support and how in our EnMAP video (German only) on the YouTube channel of the German Space Agency at DLR.
