Jupiter Control Room at Kourou

Jupiter Control Room at Kourou - next time, it's for real

It’s a big day at Kourou – and, in fact, on several other continents! The ‘Repetition Generale’ – launch dress rehearsal – gets underway at 14:08 CET. It then runs in ‘real-time’ for 9hrs 30mins up to the actual planned launch time on 15 February (H0 = 23:08 CET) and finishes 3 hrs later, at the end of the Ariane 5 flight.

At various times during the rehearsal, numerous ESA teams will be directly involved, simulating their roles to follow for real in just six days:

  • In Kourou, at Arianespace’s Launcher Control Centre: ESA’s ATV programme head Nico Dettmann and deputy Charlotte Beskow will sit on console in the Jupiter Control Room, from where the flight of Ariane 5 V200 will be controlled.
  • In France, at ATV-CC: Members of the joint ESA/CNES mission operations team will be on console, with ESA’s Jean-Michel Bois in the Mission Director’s chair
  • In the Azores, at ESA’s Santa Maria tracking station: Gerhard Billing, from ESOC’s ESTRACK network engineering team, is on site to oversee the crucial Ariane 5 launcher tracking and receipt of telemetry
  • In Australia, at ESA’s Perth tracking station: Robert Launer, also from the ESTRACK team, is on site to oversee that station’s tracking of Ariane 5

In addition, many more ESA specialists involved with ATV across the Agency will be paying close attention to the rehearsal results. We’ll provide updates later on as we receive news from these locations.