The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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The Kiruna S- and X-band station supports Envisat and ERS-2, and is scheduled to support CryoSat-2 in 2009. For ESTRACK, Kiruna hosts one 15m and one 13m antenna. Both operate in S-band for uplink and downlink and X-band for downlink. The station is located at Salmijärvi, 38 km east of Kiruna, in northern Sweden. The station is equipped for tracking, telemetry and command operations as well as for reception, recording, processing and dissemination of data from the sensor instruments onboard ERS-2 and Envisat.
The station is connected to the ESTRACK Control Centre (ECC) at ESOC via dedicated voice and data circuits. The station is remotely monitored and controlled from the ECC under nominal operating conditions. A mini control centre is located at the station to provide backup.