My time in Germany (a story)
History: European Space Agency (ESA)
It is a common misconception that the European Space Agency (ESA) is to the European Union (EU) as NASA is to the United States. In other words, NASA is a federal agency under the direction of the United States executive branch, and many assume ESA is an agency run by the EU governing body. However, this is not the case.
ESA is an intergovernmental organization founded in 1975 through a merger of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) and the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO). The EU, however, is a supranational organization. More simply, the EU is like the United Nations in that it provides a space for discussion and decisions to be made among member and associated countries, but it does not have large-scale organizations under it to direct. Instead, the EU coordinates dealings with independent large-scale organizations and institutions, like ESA. | Nothing says official like a name badge. I just had to trade in my passport for it. |
- The European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), located in Noordwijk, Netherlands, which houses the satellite project teams and testing facilities and is the agency’s main space science and technological research center.
- The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), located in Darmstadt, Germany, which is concerned with satellite control, monitoring, and data retrieval
- The European Space Research Institute (ESRIN), located in Frascati, Italy, which supports the ESA Information Retrieval Service and the Earthnet program, the system by which remote sensing images are retrieved and distributed
- The European Astronaut Centre (EAC), located in Cologne, Germany, which is a training center.
- The European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC), located in Villafranca del Castillo, Madrid, Spain, which holds scientific operations centers as well as archives.
I visited component number two, or the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. During my internship in D.C. this past summer, my roommate met a guy who works as an editor at ESOC, and she connected us via email. He said if I ever happened to be in the area to come for a visit, and since Switzerland is as close as I could hope to be in the foreseeable future, I took the opportunity to grab a train north. The lobby of ESOC headquarters. |
As noted in the above section, the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) is concerned with satellite control, monitoring, and data retrieval. What this means is that while ESOC is responsible for guiding a satellite into orbit and collecting the acquired data, ESOC does not analyze the data; they forward the data to other places that perform the actual analyses.
Currently, ESOC operates 11 satellites, with plans for 11 more missions in the future. It is important to note that just because ESOC directs the launch of a satellite does not necessarily mean they will continue directing the satellite for its entire lifetime. Sometimes after a launch ESOC will hand control over to other organizations, like Eumetsat, another intergovernmental organization.
For those interested in learning all about what ESOC does, look here on the ESA website.
I couldn’t have picked a better time to visit since last week was the launch of a new satellite! Called Sentinel-5P, this satellite is part of a larger project called Copernicus, which is a group of satellites meant to monitor Earth. Sentinel-5P is the first satellite in the project specifically designed to monitor air quality, and will take map the entire planet once every 24 hours.
I arrived in Darmstadt on Thursday, a day before the launch, so my connection could give me a tour of ESOC headquarters and network me with his colleagues. Then, bright and early Friday morning, we began live-tweeting the launch preparations at 7:20 a.m. and at 11:27 a.m. CEST (Central European Summer Time) launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. The reason Sentinel-5P launched from Russia is because they had an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) available to lift the satellite into outer space. | Unfortunately I couldn't be in Mission Control the day of the launch, but hey, it still looks impressive! |
(For those of you wondering why they didn’t do all the configurations on Earth, imagine this: when you take a dress or tux off a hanger at the store it will fit fairly well, but you need to be wearing the outfit before a tailor can fine-tune it to your specifications. Same thing with the satellite needing to be in space for the final configurations to occur).
Though I was unable to go into the Mission Control room during the actual launch, I did get to meet several of the people from the Mission Control team during breakfast!! One of them, Sam Peterson, is from Wisconsin—a fellow US citizen! :) Sam was the Mission Control ground operator for this launch, which means he acted as conductor of the computer symphony to keep everything in tune and flowing smoothly. This is the ninth launch he’s conducted at ESOC.
I also got the opportunity to help tweet from the official ESOC Twitter account, one with a post I wrote and another including a photo I took—exciting times!!
For those keeping track, I actually had one more day in Switzerland following my trip to Germany before I returned to Canada, but I will leave the chocolate tour that occurred for another post since this one is already long enough. So, keep your eyes peeled for chocolate and filmmaking blogs, coming soon!