Hipparcos Mission Archive
The ESA project scientist (Michael Perryman), and the four scientific consortia leaders (Erik Høg, Jean Kovalevsky, Lennart Lindegren, and Catherine Turon) have placed their most significant Hipparcos documents dating from the Phase A studies in the 1970s, through to the catalogue completion in 1997, in the following locations:
- the papers of Michael Perryman, Catherine Turon (including items
from the archives of Pierre Lacroute), and Jean Kovalevsky are preserved and registered in the library of the Observatoire de Paris (France);
- the papers of Erik Høg are kept and registered in the Ole Rømer museum, near Copenhagen (Denmark). This museum is now an astronomy division in a larger museum, including especially archeology;
- the papers of Lennart Lindegren are archived at the Lund Observatory (Sweden);
- evidently, other documents reside with other members of the science team or scientific consortia, with ESA-ESTEC (for the project team hardware related aspects), and with ESA-ESOC (for the operational aspects).
Hipparcos Science Team (HST) minutes
The minutes of the Hipparcos Science Team (meetings 1-39), running from 1980-97, form a rather complete record of the development of all aspects of the mission. As well as paper copies in the Paris archive (and elsewhere) they are made available here on-line:
*ICM="Inter-Consortium" Minutes
Phase A Study Reports
ESA's acceptance of the mission in 1980 followed studies which resulted
in the following reports:
Selection of Hipparcos
Some details of the committee procedures involved in the early selection
of the Hipparcos mission by ESA are documented in "A History of the
European Space Agency 1958-1987" by J.Krige, A.Russo and L.Sebasta, ESA
SP-1235 (April 2000), Volume 2, Chapter 4.
Several reports by Erik Høg on the early history of Hipparcos are also
available online.
Hardware
- The full-size engineering model of the complete satellite is on permanent display at the public Space Expo, adjacent to ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands;
- Various other engineering and flight spare hardware, including the main mirrors, the focal plane assembly, and the modulating grid, are also being retained and preserved by the Observatoire de Paris. The complex beam combiner is on indefinite loan from the project scientists to the National Maritime Museum (Greenwich, London), where it is on display in the main observatory building;
- The Hipparcos satellite itself remains in its highly elliptical transfer orbit, and will do so for the next several thousand years, remaining on permanent display for those suitably equipped with a small telescope and appropriate ephemerides.
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