Hipparcos Development Documentation

 

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 will in due time be donated, registered, and made available at the Royal Library in Copenhagen;
  • 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 online:

1981-04-28/29
HST 01 ESTEC		 1981-06-01/02
HST 02 ESTEC		 1982-03-25/26
HST 03 ESTEC
1982-06-29/30
HST 04 ESTEC		 1982-11-09
HST 04 ICM*		 1982-12-02/03
HST 05 ESTEC
1983-03-10/11
HST 06 ESTEC		 1983-06-03
HST 06 ICM*		 1983-07-19/20
HST 07 ESTEC
1983-11-03/04
HST 08 ESTEC 983		 1984-05-23/24
HST 09 ESTEC		 1984-10-02/03
HST 10 ESTEC
1985-03-21/22
HST 11 ESTEC		 1985-09-24/25
HST 12 ESTEC		 1986-03-20/21
HST 13 ESTEC
1986-09-24/25
HST 14 ESTEC		 1987-02-19/20
HST 15 ESOC		 1987-07-14/15
HST 16 ESTEC
1987-11-16/17
HST 17 Torino		 1988-04-21/22
HST 18 ESOC		 1988-10-31 - 1988-11-01
HST 19 ESOC
1989-02- 15/16
HST 20 ESTEC		 1989-08-16
HST 21 ESOC		 1989-09-19
HST 22 ESOC
1989-12-11/12
HST 23 ESOC		 1990-02-21/22
HST 24 ESOC		 1990-05-10/11
HST 25 Genève
1990-10- 25/26
HST 26 RGO Cambridge		 1991-03-07/08
HST 27 CERGA		 1991-06- 24/25
HST 28 Copenhagen
1991-11- 21/22
HST 29 Tübingen		 1992-05- 05/06
HST 30 ESA Paris		 1992-12-02/04
HST 31 ESTEC
1993-07- 13/14
HST 32 ESOC		 1993-10- 28/29
HST 33 Heidelberg		 1994-04-14/15
HST 34 Lund
1994-10-05/06
HST 35 CERGA		 1995-04- 05/06
HST 36 Venice		 1995-09-14/15
HST 37 Obs. de Paris
1995-12-14/15
HST 38 Leiden		 1996-10-09/10
HST 39 ESTEC		  

*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.