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Volker Liebig (H/ESRIN, D-EOP)

Gunther Kohlhammer

Head of Earth Observation Ground Segment & Mission Operations Department

06 November 2012

Introduction to ESRINESA Centre for Earth Observation

Alliance for Permanent Access Conference 2012

www.esa.int/esrin

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Goal: “To provide for and promote, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among European states in space research and technology and their space applications.”

•Over 40 years of experience

•19 Member States

•Five establishments in Europe, about 2200

staff

•4 billion Euro budget (2012)

•Over 70 satellites designed, tested and

operated in flight

•17 scientific satellites in operation

•Celebrated the 200th launch of Ariane in

February 2011

ESA FACTS AND FIGURES

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ESA has 19 Member States: 17 states of the EU (AT, BE, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, IT, GR, IE, LU, NL, PT, RO, SE, UK) plus Norway and Switzerland.

Eight other EU states have Cooperation Agreements with ESA: Estonia, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania and the Slovak Republic. Bulgaria and Malta are negotiating Cooperation Agreements.

Canada takes part in some programmes under a Cooperation Agreement.

19 MEMBER STATES AND GROWING

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• Space science

• Human spaceflight

• Exploration

• Earth observation

• Launchers

ESA is one of the few space agencies in the world to

combine responsibility in nearly all areas of space activity.

ACTIVITIES

• Navigation

• Telecommunications

• Technology

• Operations

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Houston

Washington

Kourou

Moscow

ESA sites/facilities

Offices

ESTEC(Noordwijk)

BrusselsESA HQ(Paris)

Toulouse

ESAC(Madrid) ESRIN

(Rome)

EAC (Cologne)

ESOC(Darmstadt)

ESA’S LOCATIONS

Harwell

Redu

Salmijaervi(Kiruna)

ESA ground stations

New Norcia

Santa Maria

Cebreros,Villafranca

Oberpfaffenhofen

Maspalomas

PerthMalargüe

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Rome and ESRIN

Envisat ASAR image, August 2003

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+ 60 international conferences,

36.000 visitors per year

Personnel on site (Oct 2012): 617

The ESRIN Establishment

221 ESA staff (including YGT, fellows and trainees)

396 contractors

– Earth Observation – Vega Department – Corporate Informatics– Telecommunications– Contracts, Site, Personnel,

Communication– ASI Science Data Centre– ESA Security Office

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Earth Observation functions in ESRIN

EO Payload Operation Management Centre Multi-mission Ground Segment management Earth science & application development GMES Space Office Charter management Earthnet activities management CEOS and GEO activities EO User Helpdesk

Earth Observation in ESRIN

ESA Ground Segment Introduction: Slide 9

Centralised Functions

• Development, Management and Maintenance of a distributed Ground Segment

• User Services• Multi-mission Mission Planning• Instrument Performance

Monitoring, Product Development & QC

• Exploitation Development and Management

• Technology DevelopmentStandardisation and Technology Transfer

• Mission Management, Data Policy

ESA ESRIN Control Centre for Distributed Facilities

25 Expert Support Laboratories

ECMWF & Meteorological Network

Ground & Satellite Data Dissemination Networks and Data Flow

ESA & TPM Satellite Flight Control Centres

28 Foreign Stations worldwide

10 National Ground Stations

10 Processing and Archiving Facilities+ small thematic archives

11000 Science Users

200 VAC and Service Companies

GMES Services

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In Orbit today: ESA Earth Observation satellites

• 4 EO missions in operation– 5 more currently operated by Eumetsat

• 3 historical ESA missions +

• 30 partner missions for which data are

disseminated to European users

• +3800 user projects worldwide– increasing

further

• More than 100 Terabytes/yr of data

• Increase by a factor of 40 in the coming years

Preservation of Space derived data has become an important Issus for ESA

even at the level of CMIN 2012

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The International Charter on Space and Major Disasters- > Data acquisition in case of natural or human-made disasters

- > Data delivery to civil protection agencies, emergency & rescue services

Darfur Crisis 2004

Tsunami Catastrophe 2004/2005

Hurricane Katrina 2005

Sichuan Earthquake 2008

Haiti earthquake 2010

Japan earthquake / tsunami 2011

Fires in Chile (Patagonia) 2011

Feugo Volcano in Guatemala 2012

Examples of activations::

Satellites for emergency relief

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ESRIN is the management centre for the VEGA small launcher programme

VEGA is able to place up to 2000-kg satellites into polar and low-Earth orbits

First VEGA qualification flight successful on 13 February 2012

VEGA Small launcher programme

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Information SystemsInformation Systems

ESRIN is the Host centre of ESA’s

Information Systems:

– Corporate Business Applications

– Corporate Information

Technology Infrastructure

ESA’s Information Systems Department

ensures that ESA runs smoothly.

Informatics

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Virtual Reality Theatre

European Centre for Space Records

Telecommunication Multimedia Infrastructure

ESRIN Telecom Lab

ESA Broadcast Service via Web

Incubators (agreement ESA – BIC Lazio)

ESA Web Portal

Further ESRIN Activities

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Alliance for Permanent Access Conference 2012

Welcome to ESA and ESRIN

Have a good Conference