# ESOC, centre d’opérations de l’ESA: The orbit’s lookout

- URL : https://www.inexpeditions.com/en/in100/la-vigie-de-l-orbite
- Language : English
- Publisher : in:Expeditions SAS, 8 rue Lacépède, 75005 Paris, bonjour@inexpeditions.com
- Place : ESOC, centre d’opérations de l’ESA, Darmstadt, Hesse, DE (https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESOC)

> In Darmstadt, ESA’s European Space Operations Centre was inaugurated on 8 September 1967, with 95 staff. Its control rooms fly the Agency’s missions, and…

The orbit’s lookout

## ESOC, centre d’opérations de l’ESA

esa.int

In Darmstadt, ESA’s European Space Operations Centre was inaugurated on 8 September 1967, with 95 staff. Its control rooms fly the Agency’s missions, and its Space Debris Office tracks, object by object, what is cluttering Earth’s orbit.

The office issues collision warnings and predicts re-entries. Its 2025 report counts about 40,000 tracked objects in orbit, of which 11,000 are active satellites, and estimates more than 1.2 million debris objects larger than one centimetre, enough to destroy a satellite. In the control room, a team sees how engineers coordinate decisions that commit missions lasting years, facing a risk shared by every operator.

The guided tour lasts 90 minutes: a short film, then the Main Control Room, the Rosetta engineering model and mission control rooms. A group of up to 20 books it through Darmstadt Marketing, €120 in German or English, €140 in another language, on Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays, from age 10. The list of participants is due five working days ahead.

Photo credits : European Space Agency (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

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