ESA's new Envisat satellite is an advanced polar-orbiting Earth observation satellite which will be launched by Ariane 5 at the end of 2001. It carries a package of ten multi-disciplinary instruments to observe the Earth and its atmosphere form space in a synergistic fashion, offering unprecedented opportunities in environmental monitoring and operational Earth observation.
Prior to its launch Envisat had to go through a series of important tests to ensure that everything would operate nominally once in orbit. One of these tests took place on ESA's Hydra vibration platform which simulates the frequency of vibrations that are likely to occure during the launch in order to verify whether the satellite will be able to withstand the launch conditions. The Hydra platform at ESA's ESTEC site in The Netherlands is unique as is able to move in 6 degrees of freedom, 3 transitions and 3 rotations, at one time.
These rushes were filmed during one of these vibration tests on 24 August 2000 and they focus on Envi

01:01:02 CU X-Band antenna
01:14:53 Movment at beginning of vibration test
01:19:00 Vibrations slightly visable
01:20:08 Movement back at end of test
01:34:50 END