- Telespazio Germany will cooperatively support space operations of the Copernicus satellite family
- The deal continues Telespazio’s long legacy of providing Operations Engineering Services to the European Space Operation Centre (ESOC)
Telespazio Germany, a subsidiary of Telespazio – a joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%) – has joined forces with Serco, Deimos Spain and CS Communications and Systems Germany, to provide support services and operations of the Copernicus satellites to the European Space Operation Centre (ESOC).
The five-year contract will start with a six-month phase-in followed by 4.5 years of full service provision, which will be funded by the European Commission following the successful implementation of the phase in and confirmation of the European Commission budget availability.
Led by Serco, a team of engineers and technicians will be jointly responsible for the spacecraft operations, from LEOP (Launch and Early Orbit Phase) for upcoming Copernicus launches to routine operations, as well as the maintenance of the mission data systems.
As part of their support, Telespazio operations and software engineers will employ their first-class mission operations expertise to conduct both the operations of the Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-5 mission families and the associated ground data systems management services.
Telespazio’s participation in the COP2 contract builds upon its long-standing partnership with Serco in servicing both ESOC and EUMETSAT missions, in shared prime/contractor roles. The new contract allows the Company to demonstrate the added value of an operations end-to-end service model and is the result of the ESA’s confidence in its trusted industrial suppliers, developed over the past decades.
Remarking on this deal, Koen Geurts, Head of Operations and Engineering at Telespazio Germany, said, “We are very proud of Telespazio Germany’s key role in the Copernicus operations service and are excited about the opportunity to continue exploring future-oriented service models with ESOC and our partners. This is a strategic contract for us and I am thrilled about the role it will play in evolving our offerings, to ESA and other clients”.