Ground station chillax

in 2015, "11,2 km/s" was selected as the official theme music for ESA's Estrack ground station network. It was composed by Gautier Acher, a 17-year-old student living in Paris, France, and won the 2015 Tracking Station Music Contest, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Estrack network.

Gautier's top-ranked entry was selected from a field 117 submissions received from over a dozen countries.

Gautier wrote: "This track is a triptych that shows space is vast, but is full of interesting things, such as humankind, stars, comets, planets... It describes great achievements, in the past, and in the future."

While only three entrants could win prizes in the music contest, and only 10 could be at the top, the ESA judging panel praised all 117 submissions.

Judges commented that, "We heard some marvellous stuff created by people who are passionate, motivated and imaginative in their pursuit of music that reflects the central themes of exploration into our Universe, technological excellence and the dreams of humanity’s journeys through space."

Congratulations to the top 10 entrants as well as the top three prize winners.

Special congratulations to Gautier Acher 

ESA's tracking station network – Estrack – is a global system of ground stations providing links between satellites in orbit and ESOC, the European Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, Germany. The core Estrack network comprises seven stations in seven countries.

The essential task of all ESA ground tracking stations is to communicate with spacecraft, transmitting commands and receiving scientific data and spacecraft status information.

Our technically advanced stations can track spacecraft almost anywhere – circling Earth, watching the Sun, orbiting at the scientifically crucial Sun-Earth Lagrange points or voyaging deep into our Solar System.