On Monday, 20 January, 807 million km away, Rosetta is set to wake up from 31 months of deep-space hibernation. Here on Earth, the mission control team will be waiting to catch its signal in the Main Control Room, at ESOC, ESA’s Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, Germany.
As Europe’s centre of excellence for mission operations, the European Space Operations Centre is home to the engineers that control spacecraft in orbit, manage our global tracking station network and design and build the systems on ground that support missions in space. Since 1967, over 60 satellites belonging both to ESA and the Agency’s partners have been flown from Darmstadt, Germany.
During Rosetta’s hibernation, the ground control system was entirely rebuilt and the flight control team recommissioned the facilities as they would with an entirely new mission.
The greatest adventure in the Rosetta saga is about to begin.
Filed under: Comets
