The European Astronaut Centre (EAC) (German: Europäisches Astronautenzentrum, French: Centre des astronautes européens), is an establishment of the
European Space Agency and home of the
European Astronaut Corps
The European Astronaut Corps is a unit of the European Space Agency (ESA) that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members on U.S. and Russian space missions. The corps has 13 active members, able to serve on the International Space St ...
. It is near to
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
, Germany, and is subdivided into six separate arms, these being Astronaut Training, Space Medicine, Astronaut Management, Human Exploration of the Moon as part of the Spaceship EAC initiative
and Communications. It provides training facilities for European and international partner astronauts (including a
neutral buoyancy pool), particularly regarding ESA hardware for the
ISS
The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (J ...
such as
Columbus and formerly the
ATV. The overall European Astronaut Centre organisation is also in charge of the organisation of the training of European astronauts in the centers of other partners, such as the United States (
NASA Johnson Space Center), Russia (
Star City), Canada (
Saint-Hubert) or Japan (
Tsukuba).
The Medical Operations arm (the
Crew Medical Support Office) concentrates on providing health related support to the European astronauts and their families. Astronaut management supports and directs the careers and mission placements of the astronauts, and Education and PR are involved in activities related to education and outreach and the appropriate representation of the European astronauts and their space activities to the public.
See also
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ESA Centre for Earth Observation
The ESA Centre for Earth Observation (also known as the European Space Research Institute or ESRIN) is a research centre belonging to the European Space Agency (ESA), located in Frascati (Rome) Italy. It is dedicated to research involving eart ...
(ESRIN)
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European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications
The European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications or ECSAT is a research center belonging to the European Space Agency (ESA) and located on the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
It was created in ...
(ECSAT)
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European Space Agency (ESA)
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European Space Astronomy Centre
The European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) near Madrid in Spain is the ESA's centre for space science (astronomy, solar system exploration and fundamental physics). It hosts the science operation centres for all ESA astronomy and planetary miss ...
(ESAC)
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European Space Operations Centre
The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) serves as the main mission control centre for the European Space Agency (ESA) and is located in Darmstadt, Germany. ESOC's primary function is the operation of unmanned spacecraft on behalf of ESA and ...
(ESOC)
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European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC)
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European Space Tracking Network (ESTRACK)
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Guiana Space Centre
The Guiana Space Centre (french: links=no, Centre spatial guyanais; CSG), also called Europe's Spaceport, is a European spaceport to the northwest of Kourou in French Guiana, a region of France in South America. Kourou is located approximatel ...
(CSG)
References
External links
ESA EAC siteESA page with information about EACESA Astronauts blog*
European Space Agency
Space technology research institutes
Neutral buoyancy pools
Organisations based in Cologne
Porz
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