In Toulouse, France, at the Airbus Defense & Space facilities engineers and technicians are performing the final tests on Eutelsat’s EB9B telecommunications satellite and its hosted payloads EDRS-A and the Italian space agency ASI’s Opportunity Payload.<br /><br />EDRS stands for European Data Relay System and has been designed to provide Europe with a fast and reliable extension to its telecommunications network.<br /><br />EDRS-A is the first of two EDRS nodes and it will be launched on-board the Eutelsat satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in 2015.<br /><br />This video explains what is EDRS and includes interviews with Magali Vaissiere, Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications, ESA and Michael Wittig, EDRS Project Manager, ESA.
