NASA and ESA Extend Ties with Major New Cross-Support Agreement
ESA and NASA managers sign expanded cooperation agreement in Washington DC.
WASHINGTON DC, April 3, 2007 - Satnews Daily - NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed a milestone cross-support agreement covering expanded space tracking, navigation and systems sharing operations.
The "Network and Operations Cross-Support Agreement" includes ongoing missions where no specific Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is in place, typically due to the short-term nature or limited scope of the support. ESA said this type of support has been provided in the past, but was limited only to the sharing of ground tracking stations and had to be arranged for each mission separately through a Letter of Agreement (LoA), a lengthy process.
The first application of the new agreement might be during the critical Launch and Early Orbit Phase (Leop) for NASA's upcoming Dawn and Phoenix missions. ESA will furnish support via its Perth and Kourou 15 meter antenna stations.
ESA's network of tracking stations, or Estrack, is a worldwide system of ground stations providing links between satellites in orbit and the agency's Space Operations Center (ESOC), in Darmstadt, Germany. The core Estrack network comprises 11 terminals sited at eight stations in five countries.
The new agreement was signed here by William Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations, and Gaele Winters, ESA director for operations and infrastructure. The agreement covers cross-support in Bi-directional Telemetry, Tracking and Command (TT&C) services; Space Navigation (including services such as determining spacecraft trajectories and Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) services), Mission Operations and Ground Data Systems services.
"The agreement means ESA and NASA can provide each other network support and space operations services more quickly, and this is becoming very significant. The sharing of resources is a sensible and efficient way to achieve enhanced space science value in an era of tight budgets," said Dr Manfred Warhaut, head of ESA's mission operations department.
The bi-directional sharing of TT&C services will enhance effectiveness and reduce risk for both agencies. This interoperability will benefit both by providing immediate back-up in case a mission's prime ground station is unavailable by ensuring additional station support during critical mission phases such as launch, orbit entry or maneuvers, and by expanding station resources when ground tracking coverage might otherwise be missed.
ESOC's Ground Facilities Control Center VLBI accurately locates spacecraft using highly sophisticated signal processing techniques and is achieved using Delta DOR (Delta Differential One-Way Ranging) technology, used by both NASA and ESA. Since 2005, ESA has installed Delta DOR receivers at both of its 35 meter deep-space antenna stations, DS1 in New Norcia, Australia, and DS2 in Cebreros, Spain.
