Copernicus: Telespazio is placed in charge of the Coordination Desk of the European Earth Observation Programme

02 March 2022 11:30

  • The European Space Agency (ESA) has assigned the coordination of all the Copernicus constellation operations managed by ESA (the Copernicus Coordination Desk) to an international consortium led by Telespazio
  • Telespazio will deliver Copernicus operations monitoring and reporting information
  • Telespazio, one of the leading industrial partners of Copernicus, plays an important role in the programme’s systems, operations, services, and applications

The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded Telespazio, a joint venture between Leonardo (67%) and Thales (33%), the contract for the coordination of all operations concerning the Copernicus Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-5P constellations.

As the leading contractor, Telespazio will be at the head of an international industrial consortium inclusive of its subsidiary Telespazio France, as well as Exprivia (Italy), S&T (Austria), AliaSpace (Italy), Eversis (Poland) and EJR Quartz (Netherlands).

As a result of the new contract, Telespazio will provide end-to-end monitoring of operations ranging from the planning and acquisition of observation data to their effective distribution to the end user in line with specific response times, while also ensuring any correction.

Telespazio will thus serve as a link between all the services deployed by ESA for the acquisition and generation of Earth observation data, as well as conducting regular campaigns to ensure the services’ compliance with the agency’s specific requirements.

The Desk will also ensure the distribution of auxiliary data to support processing and will maintain ESA’s “Sentinel Online” website in operation ensuring publication of all the news items and deriving from the use of Copernicus data.