The past
ESAC was founded in 2004 on the Villafranca site, which officially opened in 1978 as VILSPA, one of ESA's original satellite tracking stations.
VILSPA, operated remotely from the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, has been responsible for providing telemetry, tracking and command support to ESA as well as non-ESA satellites. The ESA satellites have included: the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE), Marecs, the first- and second-generation Meteosats, Hipparcos, ERS-1 and 2, and the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO).
The station has also hosted the Science Operations Centres (SOC) of IUE – which operated for more than 17 years and became the most prolific astronomical satellite yet launched – and ISO, ESA’s first infrared observatory, which made more than 30 000 scientific observations.
Milestones in the history of the Villafranca satellite tracking station
| 1974 | ESRO Council decision to establish VILSPA |
| 1978 | Official opening of the Station Launches of IUE (Moc & Soc at VILSPA) Support during the following 19 years |
| 1978 | Launch of OTS-2. Support during the following 13 years |
| 1979 | Installation of a GOES station and participation in NOAA Global Weather Experiment |
| 1981 | Launch of Marecs-A |
| 1983 | Launch of ECS-1 |
| 1984 | Launch of Marecs-B2 |
| 1984 | Launch of ECS-2 |
| 1987 | Launch of ECS-4 |
| 1988 | Launch of ECS-5 |
| 1989 | Support to Meteosat (MOP-1), Olympus and Hipparcos |
| 1990 | Support to Giotto (comunicaciones NASA/ESOC) |
| 1990 | Support to Italsat-1 |
| 1991 | Support to ERS-1 and MOP-2 |
| 1993 | Support to MOP-3 |
| 1995 | Launch of ISO (MOC and SOC at VILSPA) |
| 1996 | Support to Italsat-2 |
| 1998 | Support during recovery of SOHO |
| 1999 | Launch of XMM-Newton (SOC at VILSPA) |
| 2000 | Launch of Cluster |
| 2001 | Support to EUTELSAT-W3 |
| 2002 | LEOP support to Envisat, EUMESAT MSG-1 and Integral |
| 2003 | Launch of SMART-1 involving station upgrading to support X- and Ka- band transmission/reception |
| 2003 | Support to TC-1 (Double-star programme) |
| 2003 | Support to BIRD of the DLR (German Space Agency) |
| 2004 | Support to TC-2 (Double-star programme) |
| 2005 | LEOP support to EUMESAT MSG-2 |
| 2005 | Cebreros Antenna Validation with satellites Mars Express, SMART-1 and Rosetta |
| 2005 | Launch of Venus Express and support by Cebreros on a routine basis |
