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The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) serves as the main mission control centre for the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

(ESA) and is located in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. ESOC's primary function is the operation of unmanned spacecraft on behalf of ESA and the launch and early orbit phases (LEOP) of ESA and third-party missions. The Centre is also responsible for a range of operations-related activities within ESA and in cooperation with ESA's industry and international partners, including ground systems engineering, software development, flight dynamics and navigation, development of mission control tools and techniques and space debris studies. ESOC's current major activities comprise operating planetary and solar missions, such as

Mars Express ''Mars Express'' is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA). The ''Mars Express'' mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. "Express" originally ref ...

and the Trace Gas Orbiter, astronomy & fundamental physics missions, such as

Gaia (spacecraft) ''Gaia'' is a space observatory of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 2013 and expected to operate until 2025. The spacecraft is designed for astrometry: measuring the positions, distances and motions of stars with unprecedented preci ...

and XMM Newton, and Earth observation missions such as CryoSat2 and Swarm (spacecraft). ESOC is responsible for developing, operating and maintaining ESA's ESTRACK network of ground stations. Teams at the Centre are also involved in research and development related to advanced mission control concepts and Space Situational Awareness, and standardisation activities related to frequency management; mission operations; tracking,

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Greek roots ''tele'', "remote", and ' ...

and telecommanding; and space debris.

Missions

ESOC's current missions comprise the following: Planetary and solar missions *

BepiColombo BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to the planet Mercury. The mission comprises two satellites launched together: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and ''Mio'' ...

* Solar Orbiter * ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter * Cluster II Astronomy and fundamental physics missions *

Gaia In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthe ...

INTEGRAL In mathematics, an integral assigns numbers to functions in a way that describes displacement, area, volume, and other concepts that arise by combining infinitesimal data. The process of finding integrals is called integration. Along with ...

XMM-Newton ''XMM-Newton'', also known as the High Throughput X-ray Spectroscopy Mission and the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, is an X-ray space observatory launched by the European Space Agency in December 1999 on an Ariane 5 rocket. It is the second cornerst ...

Earth observation missions * CryoSat-2 *

Swarm Swarm behaviour, or swarming, is a collective behaviour exhibited by entities, particularly animals, of similar size which aggregate together, perhaps milling about the same spot or perhaps moving ''en masse'' or migrating in some direction. ...

* Sentinel-1A * Sentinel-1B * Sentinel-2A * Sentinel-2B *

Sentinel-5 Precursor Sentinel-5 Precursor (Sentinel-5P) is an Earth observation satellite developed by ESA as part of the Copernicus Programme to close the gap in continuity of observations between Envisat and Sentinel-5. Overview Sentinel-5 Precursor is the first ...

* ADM-Aeolus In addition, the

ground segment A ground segment consists of all the ground-based elements of a space system used by operators and support personnel, as opposed to the space segment and user segment. The ground segment enables management of a spacecraft, and distribution of ...

and mission control teams for several missions are in preparation and training, including: *

ExoMars ExoMars (Exobiology on Mars) is an astrobiology programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). The goals of ExoMars are to search for signs of past life on Mars, investigate how the Martian water and geochemical environment varies, investigate ...

* Biomass * EarthCare *

Euclid Euclid (; grc-gre, Εὐκλείδης; BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the ''Elements'' treatise, which established the foundations of ...

* JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) *

PLATO Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institutio ...

* OPS-SAT * the remaining satellites of the Sentinel programme

ESTRACK

ESOC hosts the control centre for the Agency's European Tracking

ESTRACK The European Space Tracking (ESTRACK) network consists of a number of ground-based space-tracking stations belonging to the European Space Agency (ESA), and operated by the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. The station ...

station network. The core network comprises seven stations in seven countries:

Kourou Kourou () is a commune in French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France in South America. Kourou is famous for being the location of the Guiana Space Centre, the main spaceport of France and the European Space Agency (ESA). It ...

(French Guiana), Cebreros (Spain), Redu (Belgium), Santa Maria (Portugal),

Kiruna (; se, Giron ; fi, Kiiruna ) is the northernmost city in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland. It had 17,002 inhabitants in 2016 and is the seat of Kiruna Municipality (population: 23,167 in 2016) in Norrbotten County. The city was ori ...

(Sweden),

Malargüe Malargüe () is a city in the southwest part of province of Mendoza, Argentina, about 370 km south of the provincial capital Mendoza. It is the head town of the Malargüe Department, and it has about 27,000 inhabitants as per the . Overview ...

(Argentina) and New Norcia (Australia). Operators are on duty at ESOC 24 hours/day, year round, to conduct tracking passes, uploading telecommands and downloading telemetry and data.

Activities

European Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt-space telescope

In addition to 'pure' mission operations, a number of other activities take place at the Centre, most of which are directly related to ESA's broader space operations activities. *

Flight dynamics Flight dynamics in aviation and spacecraft, is the study of the performance, stability, and control of vehicles flying through the air or in outer space. It is concerned with how forces acting on the vehicle determine its velocity and attitude ...

: A team is responsible for all orbital calculations and orbit determinations. *

Mission analysis Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion * Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

: Selection and calculation of possible orbits and launch windows * Software development: Mission control systems and spacecraft management tools *

ESA Navigation Support Office , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (1205 ...

: Calculating and predicting GPS and Galileo satellite orbits * Ground station engineering: Developing deep-space tracking technology * Space debris: Coordinating ESA's debris research, provision of conjunction warning services and cooperating with agencies worldwide * Frequency management: Helping manage radio spectrum used by all satellite operators

History

The European Space Operations Centre was formally inaugurated in

, Germany, on 8 September 1967 by the then- Minister of Research of the Federal Republic of Germany, Gerhard Stoltenberg. Its role was to provide satellite control for the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO), which is today known as its successor organisation, the

(ESA). The 90-person ESOC facility was, as it is today, located on the west side of Darmstadt; it employed the staff and resources previously allocated to the European Space Data Centre ( ESDAC), which had been established in 1963 to conduct orbit calculations. These were augmented by mission control staff transferred from

ESTEC The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) is the European Space Agency's main technology development and test centre for spacecraft and space technology. It is situated in Noordwijk, South Holland, in the western Netherlands, altho ...

to operate satellites and manage the

tracking station network. Within just eight months, ESOC, as part of ESRO, was already operating its first mission, ESRO-2B, a scientific research satellite and the first of many operated from ESOC for ESRO, and later ESA. By July 2012, ESOC had operated over 56 missions spanning science, Earth observation, orbiting observatories, meteorology and space physics.

Location and expansion

ESOC is located on the west side of the city of

, some from the main train station, at Robert-Bosch-Straße 5. In 2011, ESA announced the first phase of the ESOC II modernisation and expansion project valued at €60 million. The new construction will be located across Robert-Bosch-Straße, opposite the current centre.

Employees

At ESOC, ESA employs approximately 800, comprising some 250 permanent staff and about 550 contractors. Staff from ESOC are routinely dispatched to work at other ESA establishments,

stations, the

ATV Control Centre The Automated Transfer Vehicle, originally Ariane Transfer Vehicle or ATV, was an expendable cargo spacecraft developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), used for space cargo transport in 2008–2015. The ATV design was launched to orbit fiv ...

(Toulouse), the Columbus Control Centre (Oberpfaffenhofen) and at partner facilities in several countries.

References

External links

European Space Operations Centre website

ESA Operations website

ESTRACK station website

Space Situational Awareness website

ESA Space Debris website
{{Authority control 1967 establishments in West Germany Buildings and structures completed in 1967 Buildings and structures in Darmstadt European Space Agency Organisations based in Hesse Space technology research institutes