Spacecraft operations

ESA’s mission control centre is home to the engineering teams that fly spacecraft in orbit, manage our critical infrastructure, and design and build the systems on ground that support ‘first of a kind’ missions in space.

Our operations, astrodynamics and engineering experts enable European industrial development and competitiveness in mission operations. The orbiting testbed satellite OPSSAT enables European industry to boost their global competitiveness and gain flight heritage, while ESA’s world-class ground station expertise is enabling industry to build up Europe’s first commercial deep-space tracking business as part of their global tracking network. Cutting-edge developments in areas such as cybersecurity and automation enable secure, modern operations paradigms.