A consortia leadered by Telespazio VEGA Deutschland, together with GTD, CGI and Dutch Space will support harmonisation of European Space Mission Infrastructure. This industrial team, has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) to carry out the Phase-B project for the European Ground Systems – Common Core (EGS-CC Phase B). This common core will enable European space agencies, manufacturers and developers to re-use a common infrastructure for building, developing and deploying ground segment systems throughout all mission phases and for all mission types. The EGS-CC project is based on an agreement between ESA, European Primes and National Space Agencies to harmonise the infrastructure approach for future Mission Control Systems (MCS) and Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE). Currently, systems from various players,such as system integrators, operators and subsystem suppliers are generally incompatible, making it a challenge to re-use data or test and validation procedures. The common infrastructure aims therefore at significantly reducing cost and minimizingrisks as well as supporting synergies for both the European institutions and commercial industry partners. By the end of 2012, Phase A had already been completed and a separate activity to select the most suitable technology for the implementation of EGS-CC had been started. Phase B, which will now be carried out by Telespazio VEGA Deutschland and its partners, will include the design of the EGS-CC architecture and its interfaces. The official Kick-Off has already taken place in April 2013 and the final output of the project is planned to be delivered to ESA by May 2014. Sigmar Keller, CEO of Telespazio VEGA Deutschland, highlighted especially the strength of the team that led to the contract win: “Building on our strong know-how, and strengthened by our partnering with CGI, GTD and Dutch Space, we were able to win this contract by presenting the right technical solution and an effective implementation methodology. This contract award underpins nicely our position of a leading partner for ESA for Ground Segment infrastructure development.” This new contract underlines ESA’s confidence in the consortium’s in-depth expertise in Ground Systems and Assembly,Integration &Verification (AIV).
