The rotunda at the Conference Centre’s entrance

The rotunda at the Conference Centre’s entrance at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. ESOC was founded on September 8, 1967, and has since been serving as ESA’s control centre for the operation of numerous satellites as well as the necessary ground stations and their related communication network. ESOC has controlled over 50 ESA satellites and supported more than 40 satellite missions for other organisations worldwide. The infrastructure of ESOC consists in laboratories, environmental test facilities, ground stations, operational control centres, communication networks, information systems, information technology infrastructure as well as buildings and associated facilities Over the years, these facilities have been made available to the general competitive industry. ESOC’s Main Control Room (MCR) is a core element of ESA’s general-purpose Operations Control Centre (OCC) - the facilities of which provide all the necessary functions to handle spacecraft & ground-segment control, orbit & attitude determination, and data acquisition & processing. The OCC and the MCR have been regularly upgraded to meet the requirements of new and more demanding missions.