Tim's Eurocom locker at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.

Tim’s Eurocom locker at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.

ESA Eurocom Andrea Boyd writes:

“Station Munich Space to Ground 1 for Tim!”

These are the words you’ll be hearing from Eurocom a lot over the next six months as Tim Peake launches today to the International Space Station for his Principia mission. Eurocom is the flight controller who talks to the crew in space from flight control and is the ‘final sanity check’ as Tim himself has said. He should know – Tim was also trained for this alongside astronaut training and is a fully-certified Eurocom!

Serena Bertone

Serena Bertone

Serena Bertone, Eurocom and Astronaut Trainer, is on console this morning for Tim’s launch in the Cologne Eurocom control room. Eurocoms need to be close to the astronauts and share the same home base in Cologne, even though the Flight Directors and other Mission Control are down near Munich. So Eurocoms are based in Cologne and travel between the two sites.

Serena helped train Tim for his mission and says “In all of our Columbus systems lessons Tim was a very curious and attentive student. We’re really looking forward to working with him in space!”

For the first week of Tim’s mission French astronaut Leopold Eyharts, who took part in installing the Columbus space laboratory in 2008, will take over in the Munich control room and be the voice

ESA astronaut and Eurocom Léopold Eyharts commenting Principia launch for ESA television. Credits: ESA–J. Harrod CC BY SA IGO 3.0

ESA astronaut and Eurocom Léopold Eyharts commenting Principia launch for ESA television. Credits: ESA–J. Harrod CC BY SA IGO 3.0

that talks to Tim during his first very busy week of science experiments and adaptation to life in space.

Tim will perform Space Headaches analyses to help the medical team better understand headaches in space, work with measuring the small levels of radiation around the Space Station with DOSIS 3D, turn British children into space biologists with rocket lettuce seeds, load the Electromagnetic Levitator and perform incubator operations with the ESA KUBIK hardware – all in his first three days! In addition to this he will keep fit by exercising for two hours every day.