European Retrievable Carrier

The European Retrievable Carrier (EURECA) was an uncrewed 4.5-tonne satellite with 15 experiments. It was a European Space Agency (ESA) mission and the acronym was derived from Archimedes' bathtub revelation "Eureka!". It was built 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 Space Shuttle Atlantis during STS-46, and placed into an orbit at an altitude of 508 km (316 mi). EURECA was retrieved on 1 July 1993 by Space Shuttle Endeavour during STS-57 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 uncrewed space vehicles that have been returned to the Earth unharmed. It has been on display at the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne since 2000.

Observatory data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).