ESA/Redu PASTEL Monitoring & Control Room

ESA's ground station at Redu in Belgium is part of the agency's network for controlling satellites, operated by the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. This photograph shows the PASTEL Monitoring & Control Room (PMCR), installed in 1994. PASTEL is an optical terminal mounted on the French Spot-4 Earth resources satellite, designed to communicate optically with the similar OPALE terminal on ESA's Artemis satellite. The PMCR will monitor and control PASTEL via the Spot-4 control centre in Toulouse, France. Telecommands will be routed from Redu to Toulouse, from where they will be routed as part of Spot-4 commanding to the satellite. Telemetry data will flow in the opposite direction. [Image Date: 09-09-98] [98.09.005-126]