ESA Operations Page

A travel in time and space...

Since 1968, ESOC, has been responsible for the operation of thirty five ESA/ESRO satellites, covering a wide range of space research areas. Giotto, ESA's space probe which flew by Halley's Comet in March 1986 is a good example of the type of challenge D/OPS has to face. It was the first deep space mission controlled by the Centre-, the spacecraft was 144 million kilometres from Earth at the time of encounter, more than 700 times further than the previous maximum range at which ESA spacecraft had been operated. The telemetry data rate at encounter was nearly 290 times higher than that used for the control of geostationary communications satellites. These factors, combined with the need to navigate with extreme precision towards a target the orbit of which is constantly perturbed, presented ESOC with a unique challenge to which Giotto responded with outstanding success.