ESTEC
Situated in the Netherlands, well connected to motorways and airport, ESTEC is ESA's largest establishment and Europe's principal technical space centre. ESTEC has a workforce of 1140 international ESA staff, supported by some 600 people employed by industrial companies to carry out specific technical and logistic work on site.
ESTEC
ESTEC has a matrix organisation, with about 50% of the staff organised into project teams directly responsible for specific projects; the other 50% have a largely technical support function and are organised in a skill-based structure.
ESTEC's principal activities are:
ESTEC has the largest spacecraft test facilities in Europe, to which were added in recent years the Large European Acoustic Facility (LEAF) and the Compact Payload Test Range (CPTR); a Hydraulic Shaker (HYDRA) is currently being built. Whereas the ESTEC facilities are dimensioned for the testing of full Ariane-4 and Ariane-5 class payloads, the Agency coordinates its test activities with three other test centres in Europe for environmental testing of medium-size satellites and special payloads. These centres are CNES/Intespace in France, IABG in Germany and IAL in Belgium.
The ESA Space Science Department is also located on the ESTEC site. This Department both carries out scientific research and acts as the essential link between ESA's Scientific Programme and the wider European and worldwide scientific communities.
ESTEC maintains close relationships with specialised laboratories and technical facilities in ESA Member States, to which activities of an industrial or routine nature have been transferred as a matter of policy; examples are:
ESTEC also has an important function as a training centre for young graduate engineers from ESA Member States, Eastern Europe and developing countries.
ERS-2 spacecraft in the LEAF
ESTEC's Conference Centre has become increasingly important over the years as a meeting place for space scientists and engineers from all over the world (25 workshops and symposia in 1994 alone with 3800 participants); also ESTEC's Visitor Centre, Noordwijk Space Expo, has developed into an important asset for communicating European space achievements to decision makers and the general public.
The collaboration that can take place at ESTEC between specialists in advanvced space technology, scientific researchers and project teams, in conjunction with a wide range of large-scale test facilities and laboratories, is one of the keys to ESTEC's success, with more than thirty years of development work on European space projects.
Noordwijk Space Expo
The ESTEC Test Centre
ISO spacecraft in the Large Solar Simulator (LSS)
ESA's Space Operations Centre is located in Darmstadt, Germany. It has a workforce of approximately 290 international and 500 contract staff.
ESOC
ESOC's principal tasks are:
ESOC's Operations Control Centre (OCC) includes a Main Control Room and Dedicated Control Rooms, the Flight Dynamics Room and the Project Support Room. From the Main Control Room the critical operations during the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) are carried out. Staff in the Flight Dynamics Room and the Project Control Room provide the necessary support. Later, during the following routine phase, i.e. for the entire duration of the mission, operations are carried out from Dedicated Control Rooms.
ESOC Main Control Room
ESOC's new Flight Dynamics Room
The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) has been responsible for controlling almost all the satellites launched for the European Space Agency (ESRO/ESA) since the Centre became operational in May 1968.
33 satellites have been controlled and watched over day and night by ESOC: 16 scientific, eight telecommunications, six meteorological, two remote sensing spacecraft and one retrievable carrier, with a variety of operational scenarios involved: near-Earth orbits, geosynchronous orbits, highly-eccentric orbits and interplanetary orbits. Support or even full operational control has also been provided for 14 satellites built for other space agencies. At the present time, ESOC controls 12 spacecraft.
One of the highlights among the successfully controlled missions was the 'reviving' of Giotto after four years' 'hibernation', and its redirecting for an encounter with comet Grigg Skjellerup.
But also spectacular rescue operations like the ones for Hipparcos and Olympus must not be forgotten. After the apogee boost motor had failed to transfer Hipparcos into the plannes geosynchronous target orbit, ground support was reconfigured to a new mission scenario, based on an elliptical orbit, in wich Hipparcos went on not only to achieve all the scientific goals foreseen but also exceeded the scheduled mission duration by 18 months.
Even more spectacular - and very little publicised - was the rescue of Olympus. Due to an anomaly, Olympus had automatically reconfigured itself into a back-up mode and drifted slowly from its nominal position. Within days the propellant and the liquids in the batteries were frozen, there was virtually no more telemetry or telecommand capability, and only very marginal, fluctuating power. A mission recovery team of more than 50 enginees was established for the rescue, additional ground stations were drawn in, including support fron NASA and CNES. After transmitting several thousand telecommands, basic control was regained - two months after the failure. Two weeks later Olympus regained the correct orbit and the performance of the satellite was almost as good as before the failure occurred.
To ESA's knowledge, no remote rescue of a crippled spacecraft on such a scale has ever succeeded before.
To carry out its control tasks, ESOC is linked to a worldwide ground station network.
Ground Station Network
It is used to send commands to and to receive data from the satellites in orbit. The network consists of several large European stations and three smaller stations near the equator, mainly used during LEOP, in particular for launches into a geostationary orbit. Five of the eight ground stations are on sites owned by ESA.
Redu Ground Station
The European ESA ground stations are: Odenwald (Germany), Redu (Belgium), Fucino (Italy), Salmijaervi (Sweden), and Villafranca (Spain). The equatorial LEOP stations are: Malindi (Kenya), Perth (Australia) and Kourou (French Guiana).
The number of ground stations and missions running simultaneously has increased steadily, and with this increase has come the need for the rapid exchange of databanks, and all forms of communication. ESOC provides the operational communication network OPSNET linking the ground stations and the control centre, and a general network ESANET linking the ESA establishments to each other and with external sites at science institutes, in industry or other organisations.
Odenwald ground station, Germany
IUE operations room, Villafranca
ESA'S Earth Observation Mission Exploitation Centre is located in Frascati near Rome, Italy. It has a workforce of approximately 150 international staff and around 250 contract staff.
As the title implies, ESRIN's primary objective is the exploitation of remote sensing data from ESA (ERS-1/ERS-2) and non-ESA (Landsat, NOAA-Tiros, MOS, J-ERS, SPOT) Earth Observation missions. The Central Facility at ESRIN manages the ground infrastructure necessary to fulfil its mandate. This infrastructure presently consists of 25 ground stations the world over, four Processing and Archiving Facilities in ESA Member States, and commercial distributors for the dissemination of data to paying users.
The Central Facility at ESRIN comprises various computer installation areas with station-compatible equipment for trouble shooting exercises, and mainframes to support the ESRIN User Services; an ERS Mission Coordination and Product Assurance activity, which goes from background mission planning, satellite and ground station monitoring to quality control of ESA products, monitoring of ESA ground segment software status, debugging and upgrading of algorithms, etc.; and Earth Remote Sensing User Services, which deal with all aspects concerning the large user population.
The ground stations network is composed of the Earthnet stations, i.e. ESA and National primary data-acquisition stations - Kiruna (S), Fucino (I), Maspalomas (E), Gatineau and Prince Albert (CAN), Tromsø (N) - and of other national and foreign stations, the latter running under negotiated Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) to acquire SAR data from the ERS missions, thereby allowing global coverage.
Four Processing and Archiving Facilities (PAFs) are operational (mainly for ERS missions): in Brest (F) for LBR (Low Bit Rate) data processing; in Farnborough (UK) for SAR and LBR products; in Oberpfaffenhofen (D) for SAR, Altimeter and GOME products; and in Matera (I) for SAR and LBR data over the Mediterranean.
ESRIN
ESRIN also supervises the commercial distributor agreements for ESA and non-ESA missions. For the commercialisation of ERS-1 and ERS-2 products, a Consortium was formed, which comprises Eurimage (I), Spotimage (F) and Radarsat (Can). This allows for global coverage with distributors located all over the world. For non-ESA missions, Eurimage, whose shareholders are major European companies operating in the space and remote-sensing sector, provides users with standard and enhanced satellite-data products acquired over Europe and North Africa.
In the framework of the Agency's Earth Observation Programme, ESRIN is responsible for the development and operation of the Payload Data System (PDS) for Envisat-1 on the first ESA Polar Platform mission, due to be launched towards the end of the century. This mission, with its complex and advanced payload, and the enormous amount of data to be transmitted to the ground, gives the execution of this mission a different dimension. For ESRIN, this also means new installations to cater for the Envisat mission. Approval has already been received for a new technical facility, and construction will start in 1996.
ESRIN, furthermore, is the Agency's centre for the development and operation of electronic information systems. The best known of these, ESA-IRS, is the European Space Agency's Information Retrieval Service - a large scientific/technical database with a special accent on aerospace and environmental information. Other electronic data services developed by ESRIN include a database on ESA tendering activities (EMITS), on ESA space law documentation (ESALEX) and official ESA documents (DODIS), on microgravity experiments (Microgravity Database), and the development of a European Space Information System (ESIS) - now being transferred to scientific institutes which will operate the system from 1996 onwards. Part of the software development for ESIS will form the basis of an archival infrastructure for the Agency's Cluster mission. Other systems include Earth Observation user services, with access to satellite information, catalogues, data sets, etc.
Recently, in response to the remarkable evolution of information systems on Internet, ESRIN has established a number of services reachable from the World-Wide-Web. An 'ESA Home Page' was created, carrying institutional details on the Agency and its establishments and pointers to topical information services on site, such as ESA-IRS, ESIS, and the various Earth Remote Sensing User Information Services. Selected ESA publications have recently also become accessible via the ESA Publications Division's 'home page' on a server run by ESRIN.
SAR data processing
European Astronauts Centre
The European Astronauts Centre (EAC) in Cologne, is ESA's youngest establishment. It is part of the Manned Spaceflight and Microgravity Directorate and currently has 23 staff. The EAC was founded in 1990 in preparation for European participation in the International Space Station, especially in view of the Columbus element and related Precursor Missions. The EAC is the home base of ESA astronauts.
Its principal tasks are:
The astronaut selection process is based on criteria geared to the requirements of the various types of mission. Astronauts are preselected in the Member States and finally selected by ESA. Major aspects taken into consideration are psychological suitability, scientific and technical competence, and fulfilment of medical criteria.
The definition, preparation and implementation of training programmes are among the EAC's most important tasks. It will be responsible for the training of ESA astronauts and astronauts of the other Space Station partners on the European elements and payloads of the Space Station. Courses, training methods and facilities will have to be developed, and a team of instructors will be built up.
The three phases of astronaut training are:
The EAC has a variety of training facilities: classrooms with audiovisual equipment, computer-based training hardware and software. Training models of experiment facilities are provided by the investigators. Various aircraft, from single-engine propeller types to fast jets, are used for flight training.
An Astronaut Training Database System has been implemented with support from industry. It handles all relevant training data, from preparation to implementation and evaluation. It can be remotely accessed and in future will be linked to the Space Station partners training database systems.
Computer-based training lectures have been set up with support from industry and universities. Their key advantage is their portability in a worldwide training environment, the Space Station partners having agreed on common standards.
Mission-oriented training may also take place on the facilities of the partner in the mission to which the astronauts have been assigned.
International cooperation is the key to achieving ambitious goals. The EAC cooperates closely with NASA, where ESA astronauts have been trained as Mission Specialists. Recent milestones were the Hubble Space Telescope First Servicing Mission, in which an ESA astronaut played a key role, and the participation in the Atlas-3 mission. In addition, two ESA Mission Specialists are included in the crew of the STS-75 mission scheduled for February 1996.
Since 1991, close cooperation has been established with the Russian Cosmonaut Training Centre at Star City, near Moscow. Afamiliarisation course for ESA astronaut candidates and training personnel in Star City in 1992 provided important new experience which was the first step towards participation in Mir missions. At the beginning of 1993 ESA agreed with the Russian Space Agency and RSC Energia to carry out two missions to the Russian space station Mir in 1994 and in 1995, known as Euromir-94 and Euromir-95.
During the first Euromir mission in October 1994, the ESA astronaut worked as a Research Cosmonaut in space for 31 days. The second Euromir mission (launch beginning September 1995) will last 135 days, with an ESA astronaut working as an Onboard Engineer, and also performing Extra-Vehicular Activities (EVA).
Experiment training at EAC for Euromir-94
The ESA Programmes (BR-114).