ESA GNC Conference Papers Repository

The Atmospheric Dynamics Mission ADM-Aeolus, part of the ESA Living Planet programme, is intended to measure wind profiles over the entire Earth, including areas too remote for ground stations. The primary goal is to provide vertical profiles of wind field for the improvement of atmospheric analyses, serving both climate research and numerical weather prediction. The AEOLUS platform was successfully qualified in December 2009 following an intensive 7 months final functional validation campaign on the spacecraft in flight configuration. This paper presents the overall AOCS performance and functional validation campaign that was performed by Astrium Ltd (prime contractor for the spacecraft and AOCS) culminating in the successful platform qualification review. Particular focus is given to the final part of the test campaign with test configurations as representative as possible of the final flight configuration. The key results and lessons learnt are finally presented and discussed.