Telespazio VEGA Deutschland, as one of the few prime contractors covering all service domains for its client the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC/ESA) in Darmstadt, will be supporting the mission in many areas.
In detail, the company is providing expert service to support the ESA Flight Control Team (FCT) at ESOC, for example in Data Handling, as well as in real-time operations. In addition, the FCT has been and will be continuously trained for the mission’s maneuvers throughout its lifetime by an experienced Simulations Officer by Telespazio VEGA Deutschland.
The company’s service teams will support the ESA mission operations teams in the areas of ICT Engineering, Ground Operations as well as Flight Dynamics. The company’s staff is also supporting this ESA mission with experts in Quality Assurance and Administration.
Telespazio VEGA Deutschland has a long record of accomplishment in supporting Earth Observation missions for European clients. Among these success stories are the development of ground segment solutions and operations of satellites in the Meteosat family for the client EUMETSAT, as well as support to the ESOC and EUMETSAT operation teams for the Sentinel satellites within the joint ESA/EU Copernicus programme. The Aeolus mission will add another exciting milestone in the company’s experience in Earth Observation missions.
About Aeolus
ESA's Aeolus mission uses pioneering laser technology to probe the lowermost 30 km of our atmosphere to profile the wind – this is a completely new approach to measuring winds. These near-real-time observations will improve the accuracy of numerical weather and climate prediction and advance our understanding of tropical dynamics and processes relevant to climate variability.
The launch will be live streamed on www.esa.int.
Update 21 August 2018
The launch of Aeolus had to be postponed 24 hours due to strong winds. View the website of Arianespace for latest updates.