Curious feelings when I visit the Main Control room at ESA’s Space Operations centre in Darmstadt. Only last weekend, on the occasion of the CryoSat fateful launch, I was watching on television the proceedings in this large room. Flight controllers and systems engineers were in a state of expectancy, perhaps fearing the worst, but trying not to show it. The camera angles were wide shots, but it was relatively easy to discern the ambient unease.
Today, accompanying a Euronews film crew, the MCR is in the throes of a full simulation for the Venus Express launch in less that two weeks. All systems are activated to practice the proceedures on 26 October 2005.
The large wall displays show the computer screens and status panels, for instance the readiness of the tracking stations which will be acquiring the first signals from the satellite once it has been released by the launcher. All those present at their consoles are monitoring their displays and occasionally speaking on their headsets. Everyone looks very busy, it is a moment to make oneself small.
In one corner of the room, I recognise Andrea Accommazzo whom I interviewed a few weeks ago, notably about the way he would be feeling a few hours from launch. Today he’s standing in front of a talkback panel, where there is a apparently a problem.
A phone rings at other console position. Andrea glides quickly back, avoiding the camera crew. I glean snippets of the conversation. “Have you any news about why we cann’t talk with Baïkonur?” He takes another phone and dials a number. There’s laughter with his colleague several thousand kilometers away, situated in a control room at the launch zone. “We’re trying to sort it out,” says Andrea.
This practice run recreates in all respects the operational conditions these enginerers will encounter in the early hours of the 26 October. With an extra dose of spice. In the basement of the same building, in a small room beside the stairs, three other engineers – nicknamed ‘the nasties’ or the ‘bad bodys’ – are feeding a variety of problems into the rehearsals of their colleagues upstairs. The lack of a voice loop with Baïkonour is one of these bugs to test their reactivity, to prepare them for all eventualities.
There is, I reflect, but one thing this reheasal cann’t simulate. That is a launcher anomaly before the spacecraft is released. In those circumstances, others have prepared their alternative scenarios. Including the producers of the television coverage.
[See separate ESA-Euronews article on the trajectory masters]
Updated/maj. 15-10-2005
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