ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher opens the new Space Safety Centre at ESA's ESOC mission control centre.
Inaugurated on 12 April, the new Space Safety Centre is a dedicated facility for the teams monitoring and responding to space weather. Electromagnetic radiation and charged particles hurled into space by the Sun can disrupt or damage active satellites, human space explorers and infrastructure on Earth such as power grids.
“This new ESA facility demonstrates the ambition of Europe to have its critical missions in orbit and civil infrastructure on ground well protected against hazards from space,” said Josef Aschbacher.
“In close cooperation with its Member States, ESA is contributing to more autonomous and resilient space programmes, today and in the future.”
By monitoring the health of data arriving on Earth from our satellite instruments and from other space weather services, teams at ESA help keep spacecraft and astronauts safe from our star’s unpredictable outbursts, while contributing to the protection of civil infrastructure, like power grids, on ground.