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Update from Kourou tracking station
This just in from ESA’s Dieter Amend at Kourou tracking station, our 15m ground station located not too far from the Vega launch pad. In fact, he and the on-site engineering team will shortly leave the...
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Getting to where we want to go: LISA Pathfinder’s journey
Today’s post is contributed by Florian Renk and the Mission Analysis team at ESA’s ESOC operations centre, Darmstadt. Florian did a lot of the planning work to analyse the ‘hows’ and ‘whens’ of LISA...
View ArticleLISA Pathfinder Burn 1 confirmed
This update sent in this morning by LISA Pathfinder Spacecraft Operations Manager Ian Harrison at ESOC: The evaluation of this morning’s main engine burn conducted by LPF – the first of the so-called...
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LISA Pathfinder orbit manoeuvres: so far, so good!
Three done, three to go! These updates were sent in by LISA Pathfinder Spacecraft Operations Manager Ian Harrison Monday evening and this morning, reporting on the results of the Nos. 2 and 3...
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UPDATED – LISA Pathfinder: Big burn burned
[UPDATE 9 DEC 13:00 CET] Report by LISA Pathfinder Spacecraft Operations Manager Ian Harrison The actual performance of the fourth burn – ARM#4 – has been assessed and the result shows a 1.4%...
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Five down, one to go
The crucial series of six major engine burns – needed to get LISA Pathfinder to its final science orbit around L1 – continues to go well. Since the last blog post, the mission control team at ESOC have...
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LISA Pathfinder spotted!
On the evening of 8 December, LISA Pathfinder was spotted in orbit by a team from DEIMOS Space, working at a new observatory located in Spain: ESA’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft seen in orbit 8 December...
View ArticleEn route to nothing
It’s official! LISA Pathfinder is safely en route to a virtual point in space called the Sun-Earth Libration Point 1 (SEL1), 1.5 million km from Earth. A main engine burn during the weekend provided...
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ESA Perth: 30 years of tracking excellence
On 31 December 2015, ESA’s tracking facilities based on a 15 m-diameter full-motion S/X-band tracking antenna and its supporting facilities at Perth, Western Australia, were formally retired after 30...
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How ExoMars/TGO gets to where it’s going
(UPDATE – SEE BELOW) ExoMars, the next departure for the Red Planet, is set to lift off from Baikonur on 14 March 2016, and the teams here at ESOC are in absolute high gear getting ready to go. The...
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Ariane 5 VA229: First operational tracking by new antenna
Ariane 5 flight VA229 lifted off yesterday morning at 05:20 GMT (02:20 local time, 06:20 CET) from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, to deliver a telecom satellite into geostationary orbit....
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Best wishes from Mars Express
A super-nice note and team photo sent in by the Mars Express flight control team at ESOC! This was written by Luke Lucas, on behalf of the team who fly ESA’s venerable Mars mission – now looking...
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Why ExoMars’ ride to space takes the time it does
This blog post was contributed by ESA’s Michael Khan, at ESOC’s Mission Analysis Office with inputs from Marc Toussaint at ESA Launchers directorate. It’s an excellent overview of the how the Proton...
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LIFTOFF!
ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli lifted off this morning at 09:31 GMT from Baikonur on board a Proton rocket. ExoMars liftoff on board a Proton launcher from Baikonur Cosmodrome, 14...
View ArticleExoMars according to Twitter
The ExoMars Twitter collection is an auto-generated archive of the top tweets posted using the #ExoMars hashtag. Enjoy! ExoMars launch
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Behind the scenes at a rocket launch
As the old saying goes, It takes a village… or, rather, it takes an extended network of expert teams on multiple continents to launch a rocket! ESA and industrial support teams were out supporting the...
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ESOC readies for Sentinel-5P
Interview with ESA’s Daniel Mesples, Spacecraft Operations Manager for Sentinel-5P, set for launch on 13 October 2017. Editor’s note: Daniel Mesples took some time from an incredibly busy schedule to...
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Satellite studying Earth’s diminishing ice swerves to avoid collision
CryoSat. Credit: ESA/P. Carril On Monday, 9 July 2018, engineers based at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Germany made the decision to alter the path of the CryoSat satellite, preventing a...
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