On Monday, the Space Applications department along with the Engineering department visited both the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) and EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites).
An early morning start, we began at CROUS (our residence in Strasbourg) for a 3-hour journey to Darmstadt, Germany.
It was a great opportunity to see inside mission control and explore the facilities around the centre.
As we toured the site, I was amazed to see a full-size model of Rosetta – a mission on its way to explore comet 67P. A lander is due to land on the comet next year in 2014.
Around the corner from ESOC is EUMETSAT, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.
EUMETSAT is an intergovernmental organisation created through an international convention agreed by a current total of 27 European Member States: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Romania, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. These States fund the EUMETSAT programmes and are the principal users of the systems. EUMETSAT also has 5 Cooperating States.