Alien contact

Mosaic art at ESA’s spacecraft operations centre ESOC in Darmstadt, Germany. French artist Invader is installing his iconic art at ESA establishments all over Europe and even on the International Space Station.

The European Space Operations Centre ensures the smooth working of spacecraft in orbit. Its control rooms, linked to ground stations all over the world, track and control satellites, and carry out payload operations and routine systems monitoring. 

After ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti found a space invader called ‘Space2’ in the Columbus space laboratory, the space-themed art has appeared at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany and at ESA’s Redu Centre in Belgium, where satellites are controlled and tested as part of ESA’s ground station network.

Mission control believes Invader will organise more invasions and activate aliens at other ESA establishments throughout the year. Follow their progress on Twitter via #space2iss and #SpaceInvader.