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    ESA > Our Activities > Human Spaceflight > Human Spaceflight Research

    Erasmus User Support and Operations Centre

    Facility Responsible Centre for the European Drawer Rack (EDR) and Stand Alone Columbus payloads.

    USOC name Erasmus USOC
    Address ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, P.O. Box 299, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands
    USOC management Leo.Timmermans@nlr.nl
    Phones +31 71 565 8221 / +31 88 511 4732
    Contact person for EDR Paul.Dujardin@nlr.nl
    Twitter twitter.com/erasmus_usoc

    Tasks and experience

    Erasmus USOC

    The Erasmus User Support & Operations Centre (USOC) located in the Erasmus Building at ESTEC, Noordwijk, is acting as the Facility Responsible Centre (FRC) for the European Drawer Rack (EDR) and acted as FRC for the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF). The USOC is set up by NLR and SAS under ESA contract, supported by the Netherlands and Belgium, and is part of the ESA Decentralised Ground Segment for the ISS operations. Together with the USOCs located elsewhere in Europe, it forms the network involved in conducting decentralised payload operations baselined for the European elements and Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station, ISS.

    The Erasmus USOC is operating EDR specific payloads and several other experiments on the ISS remotely by supporting the "tele-operations", a tele-communication concept developed for ESA to support remote operations of facilities and experiments on-board the ISS. Therefore it is 24/7 connected to the Columbus Control Centre (Munich), which is the gateway for all USOCs to ISS. The Erasmus Operations are being done in conjunction with several Facility Support Centres (FSC) and User Home Bases (UHB) located at Universities and Institutes throughout Europe.

    The operational tasks to be supported from the Erasmus USOC are performed by qualified personnel from both the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory (www.nlr.nl) and the Belgian Space Applications Services (www.spaceapplications.com).

    The main tasks carried out by the Erasmus USOC are:

    • Preparation, planning and coordination of payload flight- and ground operations
    • Continuous round the clock operations, when experiments are ongoing
    • Testing and validating prior to new operations by using simulators and engineering models located at Erasmus
    • Preparation of new experiments/facilities assigned to the Erasmus USOC
    • Providing support and experiment data to the Facility Support Centres (FSC) and User Home Bases(UHB)
    • Operations support training of Operators and Ground Controllers

    Last update: 19 December 2012

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      • Related links
        • European Drawer Rack
          • European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF)
          • ISS: where is it now?

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