- EURECA
EURECA (EUropean REtrievable CArrier) was an unmanned 4.5 tonne satellite with 71 experiments [http://esapub.esrin.esa.it/br/br200/Eureca.pdf] . It was an
ESA mission and the acronym was derived fromArchimedes ' bathtub revelation; Eureka!.It was build by the German MBB-ERNO and had automatic material science cells as well as small telescopes for Solar observation (including x-ray).
It was launched 31 July 1992 by
STS-46 - "Atlantis", and put into an orbit at an altitude of 508 km. EURECA was retrieved on 1 July 1993 bySTS-57 - "Endeavour" and returned to Earth. It was designed to fly five times with different experiments but the following flights were cancelled.EURECA is one of the few unmanned space vehicles, that have been returned to the Earth unharmed. EURECA has been on display at the
Swiss Transport Museum inLucerne since 2000.
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