ANNUAL REPORT 2010

ANNUAL REPORT 2010 SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters LAUNCHERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES EARTH OBSERVATION HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters LAUNCHERS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES EARTH OBSERVATION HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS ANNUAL REPORT 2010 SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT LAUNCHERS LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters EARTH OBSERVATION GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT EARTH OBSERVATION HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES EARTH OBSERVATION HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT LAUNCHERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LAUNCHERS LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT EARTH OBSERVATION TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT LAUNCHERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS ANNUAL REPORT 2010

O E D T S & N S S & ndustrial S L C & ndustrial S S & E S S T D H T atters T & & E S N S O E H S Y atters & S & ndustrial S L C & & S L & E S L N S E T S S L & T S & & & D & S & N N & N 0

ANNUAL REPORT 2010

Earth revolves around the Sun, and a new year has begun. For ESAs space programmes, the year 2010 came, as usual, with its share of challenges, but these would also make it into another markedly successful year for the Agency.
Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General

Earth and Moon, as seen by ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli from the ISS (ESA/NASA)

 CONTENTS

IV Foreword VI VIII Year in Review Highlights of 2010

XI Directors

Summary of achievements
1 9 19 25 35 41 49 55 63 75 Science & Robotic Exploration Earth Observation Telecommunications & Integrated Applications Galileo & Navigation-related Activities Human Spaceflight Technical & Quality Management Operations & Infrastructure Legal Affairs & External Relations Resources Management & Industrial Matters Future & plans

Accounts
84 85 87 88 89 90 Notes to the financial statements Audit report to Council Statement of financial position Statement of financial performance Statement of cash flow Statement of changes in net assets/equity

29 Launchers

Annex
91 92 94 95 Agreements signed in 2010 ESA patent applications filed in 2010 Chairs of Council, Programme Boards and other delegate bodies National delegations to Council

Facilities
78 ESTEC 79 ESOC & the stations 80 ESAC 81 ESRIN 82 EAC 82 Harwell

An ESA Communications Production Copyright 2011 European Space Agency Images copyright ESA unless otherwise stated ISSN 0258-025X
Cover photo credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Vido du CSG; ESA/OSIRIS Team/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA; ESA/NASA; ESA/NASA

Published by ESA Communication Department ESTEC, PO Box 299 2200 AG Noordwijk The Netherlands T +31 71 565 3408 contactesa@esa.int www.esa.int

 FOREWORD
010 was another very busy year for the Agency and the European space sector, and within the period covered by this report a number of important missions took place

at ESA and national level. This has been remarkable in the face of the difficult financial situation in many Member States as they sought to bring down their budget deficits. On 7 February, the flight of STS-130 carrying Node-3 and Cupola marked the completion of the European part of the International Space Station. Then we had the launch of CryoSat-2 from Baikonur on 8 April; the Swedish-led Prisma technology mission orbited by a Dnepr-1 rocket from Yasni, Russia; the French-led microsatellite mission, Picard, on 15 June; and TanDEM-X, a German radar Earth observation satellite launched from Baikonur on 21 June. This will fly in close formation with the TerraSAR-X satellite launched in 2007 to map the surface of Earth in stereo. A Norwegian nanosatellite, AISSat-1, was launched by an Indian PSVL rocket from Sriharikota on 12 July; the Italian Cosmo-Skymed 4 from Vandenberg on 5 November; Hylas 1 (UK) and Intelsat 17 from Kourou on an Ariane 5 in November, which itself marked the 40th consecutive successful launch of an Ariane 5. The final flight of the year was to the ISS from Baikonur, carrying Paolo Nespoli on a long-duration mission starting on 15 December. ESA and the EU made significant progress in the Galileo programme with the signature of four of the six contracts covering the system engineering, space segment, launcher services and Galileo operations. The Galileo ground stations at Esrange and Fucino were inaugurated on 12 and 20 December, respectively. In parallel, the EU adopted, on 22 September, the regulation on the GMES programme and its initial operations, thereby securing funding for the initial operations phase from 201113. Work also started on continuation of geostationary satellites for Eumetsat, with the start of work on the third-generation Meteosat. These achievements show that a huge amount of work has been going on within ESA and its partner organisations and that Europes space industry is asserting itself as a powerful and competitive player on the international space scene. But enough of statistics. On the political front, the entry into force on 1 December 2009 of the Lisbon Treaty grants the EU a shared competence with its Member States on space matters. This is an important milestone in the development of Europes space policy and we are now starting to work out how they will begin implementation in a way that is complementary to the national and ESA programmes. There will no doubt be intense debate before we reach a clear way forward. Turning to the work of the ESA Council, we had a busy schedule of meetings with perhaps the most important discussions of the year being the set-up for future launcher exploitation, funding of the ISS extension and how to better control the cost and calendar of ESA projects. In November, we also had the 7th Space Council at ministerial level in Brussels under Belgian EU and Italian ESA co-chairmanship. This meeting unanimously adopted the resolution entitled Global challenges: taking full benefit of European space systems.

IV

Annual Report 2010

ESA can also take pride in being a driving force and founder member of the International Charter Space and Major Disasters. This enjoyed its tenth birthday in 2010, and provides space-based services for immediate response to major catastrophes and is a prominent example of successful international cooperation. Of course, all these achievements would not be possible without the staff of ESA, and I wish to thank the Director General and all his colleagues for their hard work in 2010. Similarly the national delegates, not just to Council but to all the ESA Boards, make a significant contribution and I would thank them for the constructive spirit and support they showed in Council and Boards. And finally, but not least, I would like to pay tribute and express my thanks to my predecessor, Maurici Lucena from Spain, who chaired Council from July 2008 to June 2010. Looking forward to 2011.

David Williams
Chair of Council

 Year In reVIew
arth revolves around the Sun, and a new year has begun. For ESAs space programmes, the year 2010 came, as usual, with its share of challenges, but these would also make it

into another markedly successful year for the Agency. In space science, we saw an impressive series of new discoveries and mission achievements. In March, Mars Express made its closest approach to the martian moon Phobos during its yby. Two months later, the Herschel infrared observatory (the largest space telescope ever launched) revealed hidden details of star formations. This was followed, in July, by Plancks delivery of its rst all-sky image to tell us more about how the Universe itself came into being after the Big Bang. At about the same time, the Rosetta comet-chaser made a yby of the asteroid Lutetia, taking a series of never-before-seen close-up images of this heavily cratered and intriguing object. Breathtaking views from the farthest reaches of space were delivered by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which celebrated its 20th anniversary. April saw the launch of the Earth observation satellite CryoSat-2, a mission dedicated to studying ice cover on our planet. Thanks to CryoSat-2, SMOS and GOCE (both launched the year before), ESA has become the space agency that devotes the greatest eort to studying climate change. GOCE provided the rst global gravity model in June, while SMOS delivered its rst results on soil moisture and ocean salinity in October. An international cooperation initiative whose importance must not be forgotten is the International Charter Space and Major Disasters, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in October. Providing emergency services and NGOs with the satellite data required for managing the crises arising in the wake of natural disasters, it has become a leading example of space serving people on Earth when they most need it. Towards the end of the year, the green light was given to the start of the Meteosat Third Generation programme following the largest industrial competition of its type (by volume) ever held in Europe. As a result, the operator Eumetsat will, as of 2017, have access to the most innovative system in existence for delivering weather forecasting services. In human spaceflight, the highlight of 2010 came on 15 December when ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli and his crewmates made their way towards the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft following liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This was the start of Paolos almost half-year mission on the ISS serving as a flight engineer. On 25 October, the ISS set a record for being the longest continuously inhabited spacecraft, eclipsing the previous record of 3644 days set by the Russian Mir space station. The ISS was also provided with another two European-built modules Node-3 and Cupola by Space Shuttle Endeavour, launched in February. Down on Earth, but still of relevance for future human spaceight activities, the Mars500 mission simulation in Moscow was launched in June. The crew includes two Europeans: Romain Charles and Diego Urbina. Also, on the political level, the preparations for future exploration continued with the second International Conference on Space Exploration taking place in Brussels in October. In telecommunications, at the end of November, Hylas was launched aboard an Ariane 5. This project represents a breakthrough in the history of ESA, because it is the first concrete, significant publicprivate partnership in which ESA has taken on the risk of developing and testing a new technology, and in which a private operator (in this case Avanti) has taken on the risk of opening up a new market with new technology.

VI

Annual Report 2010

The launch of Hylas was one of six successful Ariane launches from Europes spaceport in Kourou in the year, showing once again the reliability and high launch rate of Europes world-leading launcher. Progress was also made on the coming additions to the European launcher family. In the autumn/winter of 2010, the Vega test campaign was conducted at Europes spaceport (expected to be completed next year, followed by the maiden flight of Europes new small launcher). Also the installation of Soyuz at CSG, the European Spaceport in French Guiana, made progress towards a planned first launch next year, which is thus shaping up 2011 to be a European year of launchers. In the field of navigation, Galileo made important progress with the signature of three Full Operational Capability contracts at ESAs ESTEC in January and the inauguration of ground stations at Redu (Belgium), Kiruna (Sweden) and Fucino (Italy) during the year. Cooperation with the EU also moved forward on the political level. The 7th Space Council meeting was held at the end of November the first since the EUs Lisbon Treaty came into force. Member States praised ESAs good work over many decades, and reiterated the need to support the Agency as a source of European excellence and leadership in space for the benefit of the EU and Member States. A prerequisite for carrying out major international space programmes is sound financial management. In this respect I would like to mention the Financial Management Reform, which required substantial effort in the course of the year. This reform was necessary, so there can be no regrets about the decision to undertake it, although the scale of the reform and the extent of the challenges it would pose turned out to be greater than anticipated. However, at the end of the day, when we have come through the reforms implementation phase and have reached cruising speed, ESA will be more operational than it was before the reform. ESA cannot afford to be complacent, but must remain able to respond to a changing environment and keep moving forward in order to stay at the forefront in the challenging sector that is space. With this in mind it was only natural for ESA to continue expanding its membership, with Council giving its approval by the end of the year to Romanias accession. Romania is expected to officially become the 19th ESA Member State by mid-2011. In addition, a new Cooperation Agreement with Canada was signed in December in Paris, consolidating this very successful cooperation, and a framework cooperation agreement with Israel was approved by Council in December. Earth revolves around the Sun, and another year has passed, filled with scientific discoveries and technological achievements. But before we close the book on 2010, let me say that none of this could have been possible without the expertise and dedication of the ESA workforce, the excellence demonstrated by the European space industry and the strong support of the Member States. It is only thanks to the Member States investments in space that Europe, through ESA, can remain such a sought-after partner in the global endeavour to learn more about our own planet and the wider Universe.

Jean-Jacques Dordain
Director General

VII

 HIGHLIGHTS OF 2010
January Slovenia becomes sixth ESA European Cooperating State February European-built modules Node-3 and Cupola installed on the ISS March Mars Express makes one of its closest flybys of Mars moon Phobos

April CryoSat-2 launched, ESAs first mission dedicated to studying Earths ice

May Slovak Republic signs Cooperation Agreement with ESA

June Mars500, 520-day simulated mission to Mars, begins in Moscow

VIII

Annual Report 2010

July Rosettas spectacular flyby of asteroid Lutetia

August Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer arrives at launch site in Florida

September Vega launcher production contracts signed by ESA, Arianespace and ELV

October A new space policy for Europe at the European Parliament

November Hylas-1 in orbit bringing broadband for Europe from space

December Paolo Nespoli heads to Space Station on MagISStra mission

IX

Annual Report 2010

DIRECTORS

Jean-Jacques Dordain Director General

Daniel Sacotte Director Advisor to the Director General

David Southwood Director of Science and Robotic Exploration

Volker Liebig Director of Earth Observation

Simonetta Di Pippo Director of Human Spaceight

Antonio Fabrizi Director of Launchers

Magali Vaissire Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications

Ren Oosterlinck Director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation-related Activities

Michel Courtois Director of Technical and Quality Management

Gaele Winters Director of Operations and Infrastructure

Ludwig Kronthaler Director of Resources Management & Industrial Matters

Peter Hulsroj Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations

XI

science & robotic exploration

Herschels first science results were presented in May, and Plancks first all-sky image was published in July. Rosetta made history with its flyby of asteroid (21) Lutetia, the largest asteroid yet visited. Approval was given for the extension of operating missions to the end of 2014.

The Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration is responsible for three major activities: the mandatory Science Programme, Robotic Exploration within the Aurora Programme and the PRODEX Programme.

Cosmic Vision
Implementation of the Cosmic Vision plan has progressed significantly in 2010 with a number of milestones being achieved. Early in the year, on the basis of the scientific priorities set by the Space Science Advisory Committee, the Science Programme Committee selected three candidates for the first Medium (M) mission launch opportunities in 2017 and 2018, namely Euclid, PLATO and Solar Orbiter which, therefore, entered the Definition Phase.

Mission proposal
Euclid

Class
M

Comments
Investigation of the nature of dark energy based on the use of weak lensing and baryon acoustic oscillations Detection of exoplanets using transits and characterisation of the parent stars using asteroseismology Solar observatory approaching the Sun as close as Mercury and reaching to high heliospheric latitudes (in cooperation with NASA) Large X-ray observatory based on a deployable optical bench (in cooperation with NASA and JAXA) Mission to the Jupiter system, including a European Ganymede orbiter and a US Europa orbiter (in cooperation with NASA) A three-spacecraft constellation for the detection and characterisation of gravitational waves from astrophysical sources (in cooperation with NASA)

PLATO

Solar Orbiter Asteroid (21) Lutetia as seen by Rosetta in July IXO Table 1: Candidate missions for the first slice of the Cosmic Vision plan. The three M candidates are undergoing Definition Phase activities, with a final selection of two missions planned for 2011. The three L candidates completed their Assessment Phase activities in 2010, with a selection for a Definition Phase planned in mid-2011

Laplace/EJSM

LISA

Science & Robotic Exploration

Assessment Phase activities for the three Large (L) mission candidates (Laplace/EJSM, IXO and LISA) were essentially finished at the end of the year. All three candidates have been studied as large-scale international partnerships, with NASA having a key role in all three, and ISAS/JAXA with a key role in IXO. The ambitious mission profiles defined transcend the programmatic capability of any single space agency, and can therefore only be carried out as partnerships. Next phase will be a public presentation of the outcome of the studies, followed by a confirmation of international partnership, a prerequisite for starting the Definition Phase of candidate missions. Definition of future phases of the Cosmic Vision plan proceeded with the release of a new Call for Missions in July, soliciting proposals for an M mission for a launch in 2022. With 47 proposals received, this was the largest oversubscription factor in the history of the ESA Science Programme. A number of missions (typically four) will be chosen in early 2011 to enter an Assessment Phase.

The Herschel far-infrared observatory and Planck cosmic microwave background surveyor continued to deliver excellent data following their launch in 2009. First Herschel science results were presented at the ESLAB 2010 conference at ESTEC in May, while Plancks first all-sky image was published in July. The most significant Solar System event was Rosettas 10 July flyby of (21) Lutetia, the largest asteroid yet visited. High-resolution images were released and new scientific findings on its composition and internal structure have been made. Other highlights included: Hubble celebrated its 20th anniversary and continued to make breakthrough discoveries thanks to its newly refurbished instruments. A scientific conference and public exhibition covering the telescopes past, present and future were held in Venice. SOHO measured, for the first time, long-period variations in the Suns meridional flow, challenging existing models of the solar dynamo that drives the 11-year sunspot cycle. CassiniHuygens found that a prominent topographic feature on Titan, named Sotra Facula, is likely to be a cryo-volcano. Peaks over 1000 m high surround a 1500 m-deep crater, from which flows of slushy water ice mixed with ammonia and a variety of complex hydrocarbons are thought to emerge. A new XMM-Newton observing mode, allowing large areas of sky to be surveyed with high efficiency, has been used to confirm two massive clusters of galaxies discovered via their imprint on the cosmic microwave background using a telescope at the South Pole. The four Cluster satellites completed ten successful years of operations. The mission has uncovered the long journey that

Missions in operation
There were 16 missions in operation in 2010, including astrophysical observatories, missions to planets and minor bodies in the inner and outer Solar System, and spacecraft studying the Sun and the SunEarth connection. Space scientists in Europe and around the world continue to make exciting discoveries utilising these missions operated by ESA and its international partners. These included XMM-Newton, Integral, the Hubble Space Telescope with NASA, Herschel, Planck, CassiniHuygens with NASA, Mars Express, Rosetta, Venus Express, SOHO with NASA, Proba-2 and Cluster. Significant results were also obtained from missions with minor ESA contributions, namely Akari, Hinode and Suzaku (all with Japan), and COROT (with France).

The microwave sky as seen by Planck (ESA/LFI & HFI Consortia)

Annual Report 2010

oxygen ions undergo during geomagnetic storms and how they ultimately precipitate into Earths atmosphere to create auroras. Such precipitation affects the composition of the ionosphere, preventing GPS and communications satellites from operating correctly. Integral traced the history of massive star formation in the Milky Way by measuring the distribution of gamma-ray emission from radioactive aluminium-26, released when massive stars explode as supernovas. Mars Express and NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter combined to find evidence for water extending over the whole planet some four billion years ago, while the Mars Express radar also identified some one million cubic kilometres of water ice locked below the surface today. The spacecraft also made its closest ever flyby of the moon Phobos at an altitude of 67 km. On 12 July, Rosetta entered the record books as the most distant spacecraft from the Sun to be operated under solar power. It is now being prepared for hibernation prior to its 2014 rendezvous with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Venus Express discovered indications that volcanic activity has occurred within the past 250 000 years and may continue today, by combining VIRTIS infrared data with archival NASA Magellan radar imaging.

Mars Express is the only spacecraft currently in orbit around Mars whose orbit reaches far enough to provide close-up views of Phobos. This image was taken on 7 March 2010 (ESA/DLR/FU Berlin)

A Mars Express image showing an old impact crater with a well-worn rim, eroded mostly by flowing water. It is likely that the entire region experienced tectonic stresses as well as subrosion a process where subsurface rocks are dissolved and removed by water causing overlying strata to collapse partially and form chaotic terrain (ESA/DLR/FU Berlin)

Herschel is showing galactic star formation to be associated with ubiquitous filaments of gas and dust, typically 0.3 light-years wide. The relative constancy of this value across a number of clouds suggests that supersonic interstellar turbulence dominates the formation of these filaments and the young stars found in them. Proba-2 started operations in early 2010 and immediately registered the first solar flares of Cycle 24. While people on Earth marvelled at the annular and total eclipses on 15 January and 11 July, Proba-2 recorded the events from orbit.

This colour-composite image from Herschel of IC 5146 shows the extended filamentary structure of this star-forming cloud (ESA/Herschel/SPIRE/PACS/D. Arzoumanian, CEA Saclay)

Science & Robotic Exploration

Science archives

The first public releases of the Planck, Herschel, SMART-1 and Rosetta archives were carried out in 2010. Consolidation of the ESA Science Archives at ESAC continues for astronomy (ISO, XMMNewton, Integral), planetary (Giotto, Mars Express, Venus Express, CassiniHuygens) and solar/heliospheric missions (SOHO).

Projects under denition and under development

LISA Pathfinder
Launch: early 2014 LISA Pathfinder will make an in-flight demonstration of the key technologies needed for detecting gravitational waves. During 2010, all the spacecraft flight units were delivered and integrated into the Science Module (SM) and the Propulsion Module (PM). A thermal test simulating the transfer orbit was performed involving the flight model of the PM and the SM structural/thermal model. In parallel to the flight model integration and test activities, the electrical real-time bench tests were performed and the software validation initiated. The US-provided Disturbance Reduction System payload was delivered and integrated in the SM flight model. All the European LISA Technology Package payload electronic units were delivered, tested and being integrated in the SM. Some difficulties still exist with the most critical technologies, namely the micropropulsion system and the inertial sensor caging mechanism and vacuum enclosure, which are presently driving the project schedule.

Research activities

Areas of research addressed in 2010 ranged from the magnetospheres of Earth and the outer planets through the Solar System, the formation and evolution of planets, stars and galaxies to dark energy, fundamental physics, and cosmology. Novel visualisation software that enables anyone to explore the Sun, JHelioviewer, is now available. Users can call up images of the Sun from the past 15 years. More than a million images from SOHO are already accessible and 26 000 new images from NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory are added daily. Using the publicly available open source code, spin-offs, including analysis of high-resolution planetary data and medical research applications are possible.

Gaia

Launch: May 2013 Gaia will produce the most precise three-dimensional map of our galaxy by cataloguing the precise positions, distances and velocities of an unprecedented number of stars, more than a thousand million. The mechanical tests of the Focal Plane Assembly (FPA) structural model and the electrical and functional tests of the FPA engineering model were completed in 2010 thereby concluding the relevant development phase. All flight models CCDs were produced and the work on the FPA flight model initiated. The integration of the Payload Module flight model progressed well at Astrium SAS, Toulouse. Nine out of ten flight mirrors were manufactured and delivered. The assembly, integration and test of the Service Module flight model started in June and the propulsion elements, star and Sun sensors, gyros and some of the electronic units were installed by the end of the year. After a difficult development, the manufacturing of the most critical flight model, the large Deployable Sun Shield, is now completed. The activities with Arianespace for the procurement of the Soyuz launcher progressed as planned and the first discussions on the preparation of the launch campaign took place. Science operations advanced with a successful first set of end-toend tests and a confirmation of the suitability of the Global Astrometric Iterative Solution (AGIS) to generate astrometric parameters for large numbers of stars.

Gaias Payload Module during integration

James Webb Space Telescope

Launch: 2018 The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to Hubble. It will search for light from the first objects that formed in the Universe following the Big Bang, and will probe the early phases of star and planet formation in the Milky Way.

The MIRI structural/thermal model at NASAs Goddard Spaceflight Center

Annual Report 2010

The NIRSpec and MIRI flight instruments have both been fully integrated and vibration-tested. The cryo-test campaigns for both instruments are planned in 2011 to finally demonstrate the flight instruments end-to-end performance. The delivery of the instruments to NASA after completion of the tests is planned for the second half of 2011. The detectors for the NIRSpec instrument, now equipped with earlier versions, will be exchanged before the final cryo-test in order to use the best detectors available. The JWST programme on the NASA side has faced severe budgetary problems that will lead to an extension of the development phase with a launch date not before 2018.

were delivered. The Japanese MMO completed its mechanical and thermal tests, including the 10 SC test at ESTEC. The preliminary mission analysis review and coupled load analysis for the Ariane 5 launch vehicle were concluded with good results. The mission control system requirements review was completed and demonstrated the good development status of the ground segment.

BepiColombo

Launch: mid-2014 BepiColombo will help us understand the composition, geophysics, atmosphere, magnetosphere and history of Mercury, the least explored planet in the inner Solar System. The manufacturing of the equipment structural/thermal models (STMs) and engineering models (EMs) made good progress in 2010. The Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter STM structure was delivered well within its allocated mass, a critical parameter for the mission and spacecraft integration started in Turin. The structure of the Mercury Transfer Module completed its static load test. The Sunshield completed its thermal test at 10 solar constants (SC), demonstrating adequate performance for the protection of the Japanese-provided Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) during cruise. The solar cell qualification test programme, a critical technical development, started with a robust design solution for high temperature and high solar intensity. The electric propulsion twin-engine firing test was concluded, demonstrating correct operation of a single neutraliser. Almost 60 units of the MPO scientific instruments (STMs and EMs) are already manufactured. All STMs as well as some EMs

The Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) and its sunshield during its thermal test in the Large Space Simulator at ESTEC

ESAs Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), together with a second spacecraft, the Japanese Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), comprises the BepiColombo mission at Mercury

Science & Robotic Exploration

Robotic exploration
Following the approval of the revised ESA/NASA joint ExoMars Programme by the ESA Council in December 2009, an Announcement of Opportunity for scientific instruments on the Trace Gas Orbiter was issued in January. In August, five instruments were selected: four are NASA-funded and the European instrument is led by Belgium. In April, the programme entered into the second extension of Phase-B2 to undergo the System Preliminary Design Review (PDR) in October. The System PDR concluded in December that the programme could proceed with the evaluation of the industrial proposal for Phase-C/D and start the construction and development phase in April 2011. In November, an Announcement of Opportunity for science sensors on the Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module was issued.

In addition, preparatory activities have started to support projects within the two new Participating States in the PRODEX Programme, the Czech Republic and Greece.

Major reviews, hardware completion and own experiments

Major project reviews
BepiColombo Laser Altimeter (BELA) subsystem reviews were conducted: Critical Design Reviews for the Analogue Electronics Unit (AEU), Back-End Optics and Avalanche Photodiodes; Technology Readiness Reviews (TRR) for the AEU and Rangefinder Electronics Module. The PADIAC (Pathway Different Activators) experiment completed its Flight Acceptance Review. The Input Optics and Calibration system for the JWST MidInfrared Instrument (MIRI) completed the Qualification Review and Delivery Review Board for the Proto-Flight Model hardware. The Airborne Prism Experiment (APEX) completed its Flight Readiness Review and Acceptance Flight. The Electron Drift Instrument (EDI) electronics completed both its TRR and its CRR, while the instrument completed its CDR. The Active Spacecraft Potential Control (ASPOC) electronics completed both its TRR and its CRR, while the instrument completed its CDR.

PRODEX
During 2010, the PRODEX (Programme de Dveloppement dExpriences Scientifiques) office supported activities that accomplished six major project reviews and the completion of seven items of hardware. Five PRODEX-supported experiments were flown and, in addition, PRODEX supported the mission operations for the Picard microsatellite carrying the PRODEXfunded instruments SOVAP (BE) and PREMOS-2 (CH) as well as supporting the operational phase of Picard through the Belgian User Support and Operation Centre (BUSOC) in Brussels. The number of projects supported through PRODEX in 2010 is higher than in 2009 due to Cosmic Vision activities. Of the 152 projects managed through PRODEX, 50 included hardware activities.

SWITZERLAND financed 28 projects: 6 Microgravity, 2 EO, 17 SS, 3 Exploration

AUSTRIA financed 4 projects: 1 Earth Observation, 3 Space Science

TOTAL
Projects
NORWAY financed 24 projects: 6 Microgravity, 14 EO, 2 SS, 2 Exploration

152

BELGIUM financed 84 projects: 36 Microgravity, 11 EO, 36 SS, 1 Exploration

IRELAND financed 9 projects: 3 Microgravity, 6 SS

DENMARK financed 3 projects: 2 SS, 1 Exploration

Number of PRODEX projects financed by country

Annual Report 2010

Hardware completion
Instrument
HARPS-N (Phase-1) vacuum system and objective PADIAC MIRI IOC EDI electronics ASPOC electronics MIPA various elements APEX

Mission

Country
CH

Model
Phase-1 Model

ISS JWST MMS MMS BepiColombo

CH BE AT AT CH CH/BE

Flight Models PFM QM QM EQM, FM, FS Flight Model

Flown Experiments
Experiment
PREMOS-2 SOVAP Picard operations IMPRESS

Mission
Picard Picard Picard Maxus-8

Country
CH BE BE IE

PI
Schmutz (PMOD) Dewitte (RMIB) BUSOC Browne (UCD) McFadden (DTI) Van Vaerenbergh (ULB) Egli (ETHZ)

SoDiumSODI PADIAC

ISS ISS

BE CH

earth observation
The International Charter Space and Major Disasters was activated a record 50 times this year, its tenth anniversary; the GMES Earth observation programme was identified as a priority for the EU in space; and GOCEs gravity field products showed that the mission is delivering on its promises.

International Charter Space and Major Disasters

The International Charter Space and Major Disasters continued to provide rapid access to Earth observation data in support of worldwide relief after natural disasters. The Charter was activated a record 50 times in 2010. This included major disasters such as the Haiti earthquake and the flooding in Pakistan. Four new agencies joined the Charter: Brazils National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the German Space Agency (DLR), the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). The Charter further improved access to data by formalising cooperation with the Sentinel Asia group and extending collaboration with the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observation (GEO). New arrangements between European Charter members (CNES, ESA, UK Space Agency) and the GMES Emergency Response Service (SAFER project) enabled GMES Charter users to benefit from GMES value-adding services. The Charters tenth anniversary was honoured at the ESA Council in Paris in October and presented at numerous international exhibitions. Charter board members reaffirmed their cooperation and look forward to building on the success of the last ten years.

Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES)

GMES is the most complex and ambitious Earth observation programme to date with the goal of delivering operational information services for environment and security in five main areas: land, marine, atmosphere, emergency response and security. The overall programme and the Services Component are led by the European Commission, while ESA has the role of coordinating the GMES Space Component. In November, the Seventh Space Council unanimously adopted the Resolution Global Challenges: Taking full benefit of European space systems, which identified GMES as a priority for the EU in

The International Charter Space and Major Disasters was activated in April 2010 after the eruption of the Eyjafjallajkull volcano in Iceland. 700 people were evacuated from the area, and most of the European airspace was progressively closed

Earth Observation

space. The Regulation on GMES and its initial operations (201113) entered into force at the end of 2010, leading to the preparation of the programmes operational phase as detailed in the second amendment to the ESA/Commission Agreement on the Implementation of the GMES Space Component. Consultations were carried out with EU and ESA Member States owning space infrastructure to discuss long-term data procurement and financial aspects related to data access. The security part of GMES continued, through dedicated studies, to assess potential space infrastructure needs and the relevant operation concepts based on existing EU policy documents.

Sentinel-2

Sentinel-2 is an optical multispectral mission based on two satellites flying in the same Sun-synchronous orbit with a separation of 180 degrees. This orbital configuration combined with the very wide ground swath (290 km) provides a 5-day revisit time. The payload instrument has a versatile set of 13 spectral bands ranging from VNIR to SWIR with a range of spatial resolutions between 10 m and 60 m. The launch of the first satellite, Sentinel-2A, is planned for the end of 2013.

Sentinel-1

Sentinel-1 is a two-satellite system, each carrying a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) in C-band to ensure continuity of radar observation with ERS-1/2 and Envisat ASAR. Weighing about 2.3 tonnes, the first spacecraft (Sentinel-1A) is scheduled for launch in 2013 and is designed for a seven-year lifetime with consumables for 12 years of operation. The bottom-up Critical Design Review (CDR) process in preparation for the System CDR was completed and featured the following key points: Completion of the System CDR in May/June, closed out in December. Contract signature and kick-off for the Sentinel-1A launcher services for a Soyuz launcher from CSG in December. An interface review of the laser communication terminal, a DLR in-kind provision. The Engineering Model campaigns for the critical development obtained good results, providing a high level of confidence that the demanding radiometric performance required for the mission will be achieved.

Sentinel-2 will provide multispectral Earth observation

Sentinel-1 will ensure continuity of radar observations

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Annual Report 2010

Sentinel-3 will provide ocean, ice and land monitoring

The project started its Assembly, Integration and Test phase at payload instrument level. Activities culminated in October with the Multispectral Instrument CDR, followed in December by the Satellite System CDR, both judged successful. Cooperation with CNES (for image quality) and DLR (for delivery of an optical communication payload with EDRS) went well. The Ground Segment Preliminary Design Review (PDR) was also closed, making it possible to initiate the specifications for the Flight Operations and Payload Data Ground Segment. In 2011, project integration is set to intensify.

end of the year the Platform and SRAL CDRs were completed. The Sentinel-3 Ground Segment PDR, covering both the Flight Operation Segment and the Payload Data Ground Segment, was held, opening the way for placement of the Core Payload Data Ground System (PDGS) contract in September.

Sentinel-4

Sentinel-3

Sentinel-3 will provide global, frequent and near-realtime ocean, ice and land monitoring as well as enhanced continuity with Envisat in these areas. Two operational satellites are envisaged in-orbit to provide a one-day (land) and two-day (ocean) revisit time. Each satellite will carry an optical payload made up of the Ocean and Land Colour Instrument (OLCI), the Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer (SLSTR) and a microwave payload including a SAR Radar Altimeter (SRAL) and a twofrequency Microwave Radiometer (MWR). In addition, there will be a Precise Orbit Determination (POD) package on board including a GNSS receiver, a laser tracking mirror and a DORIS receiver. The planned launch of Sentinel-3A is mid-2013. Following completion of the Sentinel-3 industrial team build-up, activities encompassed execution of the lower-level (equipment) CDRs, manufacturing of the first STM and/or EM models and execution of the first tests required to validate the design assumptions. The higher-level CDRs were started and by the

Sentinel-4 will be dedicated to monitoring the composition of the atmosphere for GMES Atmosphere Services and operated by Eumetsat. To be carried on the geostationary Meteosat Third Generation satellites, the Sentinel-4 mission comprises an ultraviolet visible near-infrared (UVN) spectrometer and data from Eumetsats thermal infrared sounder (IRS). The Sentinel-4 Phase-B1 studies were concluded in July with an Intermediate System Requirements Review (ISRR). At the ISRR both industrial consortiums presented their latest instrument design evolutions and demonstrated their compliance with the extended geographical coverage area requirements, satisfying the need to cover southeast Turkey. Both design concepts were deemed satisfactory with respect to the Sentinel-4/ UVN instrument specification. The Sentinel-4 ITT package (for Phases-B2, C/D, and support to E1) was subsequently released in August, and the industrial offers were received by end of October.

Sentinel-5 Precursor

The Sentinel-5 Precursor mission provides continuity for the atmospheric chemistry mission on Envisat, in the period up to the entry into service of the Sentinel-5 operational instrument to be

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Earth Observation

flown on the next-generation MetOp satellites. It is implemented in cooperation between ESA and the Netherlands. The TROPOMI payload, provided as a national contribution by the Netherlands Space Office will measure the main tropospheric pollutants (O3, NO2, CO, formaldehyde and SO2) and two major climate gases (tropospheric O3 and methane). It will also measure important aerosol parameters. The launch of Sentinel-5 Precursor is planned for 2014. For Sentinel-5 Precursor, 2010 saw the start of competitive Satellite/System Phase-A/B1 studies. In addition, the PhaseB/C/D contract between ESA and Dutch Space for TROPOMI was concluded and procurements of ESA-provided TROPOMI payload elements began in earnest. Current objectives include the selection of the prime contractor for the remaining Phase-

Envisat

Envisat was placed in a different orbit in October. This major change, after eight years of operations, was needed to enable the satellite to continue operating for another three years, well beyond its originally planned five-year lifetime. The new orbit configuration includes a lower altitude and a slow inclination drift towards the poles. These actions will substantially reduce hydrazine consumption, making it possible to operate the mission probably until mid-2014. As expected, all applications previously possible under the Envisat mission are maintained in the new orbit configuration with the exception of SAR interferometry, now possible only within a geographical band positioned around 38 degrees latitude, where nevertheless many tectonic and volcanic areas are located. In 2010, Envisat experienced an increasing number of collision warnings with

Envisat is expected to continue operating until 2014

B2/C/D/E1 Satellite/System programme following a System Requirements Review (SRR) and updated Tender Evaluation Process, the conclusion of TROPOMI procurements by ESA and the placement of the NSO/Dutch Space contract for the remainder of the TROPOMI programme.

space debris and several avoidance manoeuvres had to be performed. The Envisat mission continued to contribute to a better understanding of our planet, observing the Haiti earthquake in January, the Eyjafjallajkull eruption in Iceland in April, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in May and the very low Arctic sea-ice coverage in September.

Remote sensing missions in operation

The data policy for the Envisat, ERS and Earth Explorer missions was revised by ESA Member States in 2010 in order to align it with the free and open access Sentinel data policy guidelines established in 2009.

ERS-2

Considering its advanced age (after 15 years of operations) the ERS-2 satellite performed well with all instruments, barring ATSR-2, working within specifications. ERS-2 had to perform several collision avoidance manoeuvres. A specific data acquisition campaign with ERS-2 and Envisat SAR flying

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Annual Report 2010

Launched Earth Explorers missions

GOCE
The Gravity Field and Steady State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission is the first of the Earth Explorer Core Missions to be carried out under the Agencys Earth Observation Envelope Programme (EOEP). It provides unique models of Earths gravity field and of the geoid on a global scale and with unprecedented accuracy and spatial resolution. The first set of gravity field products from the GOCE mission was released in June. These new models of the gravity field, gravity anomalies and the geoid, which provide key references and input for a wide spectrum of Earth sciences, clearly demonstrated that the mission is delivering on its promises. GOCE has already changed our understanding of the high spatial resolution structure of Earths gravity field. Second, by combining the new GOCE-based geoid with a mean sea surface based on multi-satellite altimetry, groundbreaking new views of the oceans mean dynamic topography and geostrophic current structure have been obtained. Because of the excellent achievements of the mission so far, and the good health and abundant resources on board the satellite, its orbital lifetime has been extended until the end of 2012.

ERS-2 is expected to be retired in 2011

in tandem mode took place over Antarctica during the first part of 2010. It was followed by the last tandem campaign opportunity, over the Northern Hemisphere, from July to October 2010, before Envisats orbit change. The deorbiting procedures were reviewed in order to perform ERS-2 satellite deorbiting immediately after the end of operations planned for mid-2011.

90 60 30 0 -30 -60 -180 -120 -60 0 60 120 180 -90

-100 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 GOCE is providing unique models of Earth's gravity field

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Earth Observation

SMOS

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission observes two key variables of the Earth system from space, namely soil moisture content over land surfaces and the amount of salt dissolved in the ocean. SMOS is a cooperative project between ESA, CNES (France) and CDTI (Spain). Following the SMOS launch in November 2009, the commissioning phase was completed in May with verification of the excellent performance of the MIRAS instrument. After initial analysis by the calibration/validation teams, the SMOS Level 1 data products were released in July. The first release of the Level 2 products (soil moisture and ocean salinity) in October made it possible to demonstrate the capabilities of the SMOS mission, though improvements are planned for ocean salinity retrieval, which requires very demanding radiometric accuracy and correct handling of factors such as seasurface roughness. During the year, a considerable effort was made by ESA Member States to reduce the impact of on-ground radio frequency interference on SMOS data measurements.

Meteorological missions in operation

MetOp
The three ESA-developed MetOp polar-orbiting meteorological satellites constitute the space segment of the Eumetsat Polar System. Eumetsat is responsible for the ground segment development and system operations. It represents the European contribution to a cooperative venture with the USA aimed at improving weather forecasting and monitoring our climate. MetOp-A completed its fourth year of operations with data from 11 instruments offering unprecedented accuracy and resolution of different variables such as temperature and humidity, wind speed, ozone and measurements of trace gases. Eumetsat discontinued the Low Rate Picture Transmission services and High Rate Picture Transmission is now operated using a restricted, zone-based scenario, avoiding high ion and proton fluxes. The satellite is in very good health and instrument performance is excellent; consequently, the MetOp-B launch could be postponed. The launch of MetOp-B is planned for April 2012. MetOp-C launch is scheduled for 2017.

MSG

Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) is a continuation and substantial enhancement of the previous Meteosat system. It consists of a series of four geostationary meteorological satellites (MSG-1 to MSG-4), to be operated until at least 2021 under Eumetsat responsibility, providing continuous imagery of Earths atmosphere, clouds and surface to aid weather forecasting in Europe, Africa and neighbouring countries. It also provides valuable data for climate monitoring. At the end of 2010, MSG-1 (Meteosat-8) had been in orbit for eight years and four months. In October, the last nominal NSSK (north-south station-keeping) manoeuvre was performed with minimal fuel now available. The satellite will continue to work at full performance up to at least 60 inclination. Beyond that the performance may slowly degrade due to the changing viewing geometry. Meteosat-8 continues to perform Rapid Scan Services (one image over a reduced area every five minutes). Image data remain of excellent quality, with a very high availability. Launched at the end of December 2005, MSG-2 (Meteosat-9) completed its fifth year in orbit (out of a design life of seven years). It is Europes operational meteorological satellite, performing the full-disc imaging mission (one picture every 15 minutes in 12 spectral channels), the data collection mission and Low Rate Image Transmission. The satellite is in very good health, and instrument performance and availability remains excellent including the secondary instrument GERB (Global Earth Radiation Budget). The launch of MSG-3 is planned for summer 2012. The satellite has been removed from storage; health and performance tests are being performed at the premises of the prime contractor Thales Alenia Space France. MSG-4 remains in storage. In light of the good status of the satellites in orbit, the launch date, set for 2014, may be postponed.

Launch of CryoSat, April 2010

CryoSat

CryoSat is Europes ice mission, providing multi-year elevation data at latitudes never reached before by a satellite altimeter. It measures changes at the edges of the vast ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica and marine ice floating in the polar oceans. By accurately measuring thickness changes in both ice types, CryoSat provides information that will lead to a better understanding of the role that ice plays in the Earth system and further our understanding of global climate change. CryoSat-2 was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 8 April. Following a very accurate satellite injection and separation, control was assumed by ESAs European Space Operations Centre 17 minutes after liftoff. The launch and early orbit phase was flawless and led to the start of the commissioning phase during which all space and ground systems were tested. In July, three months after liftoff, the first data were released to the calibration/validation teams, which are contributing significantly to improving the data quality. Science operations started after the end of the commissioning phase in November.

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Annual Report 2010

Earth Explorer missions in preparation

Swarm
Swarm is designed to provide the best ever survey of the geomagnetic field and its temporal evolution, improving our understanding of Earths interior and its effect on geospace, the vast region around Earth where electrodynamics processes are influenced by the planets magnetic field. Phase-C/D of the three satellites is well under way with the completion of the qualification review at system level, the test of the first and second satellite and delivery of the instruments. Launcher activity with Eurockot is ongoing with the design and manufacturing of the complex dispenser needed to adapt the three satellites for a single rocket. The next major step for the Swarm programme will be the start of environmental testing on the second and third satellite. The launch is planned for mid-2012.

Swarm will survey Earth's magnetic field

ADM-Aeolus

ADM-Aeolus will provide the first measurements of vertical wind profiles from space. These data are expected to substantially advance numerical weather prediction, especially when applied to extreme weather events. A review of the laser transmitter design was conducted by independent experts in order to understand and mitigate the lasers thermomechanical sensitivity. Consequently, some significant design modifications have been implemented, most noticeably changing the operational mode of the instrument from burst laser pulse sequences into continuous laser pulsing at half the frequency. In parallel, a deeper understanding of the master oscillator performance has been obtained, compatibility tests of the laser with the rest of the flight hardware of the instrument have been conducted and the qualification of the special optical coatings against laser-induced contamination (LIC) was completed for the majority of the approximately 100 various optical assemblies. The detailed design of the newly introduced In-Situ Cleaning Subsystem, required to solve the LIC phenomena in vacuum, was completed and the corresponding equipment procurement has been formally started. The planned launch of ADM is in 2013.

ADM-Aeolus will provide the first measurements of vertical wind profiles from space

EarthCARE

EarthCARE, ESAs cloud, aerosol and radiation explorer, is a joint mission in collaboration with JAXA. The satellite will carry a payload of four instruments: an atmospheric lidar (ATLID), a JAXA-provided cloudprofiling radar (CPR), a multispectral imager (MSI) and a broadband radiometer (BBR). The mission will provide a better understanding of clouds and aerosols and their impact on Earths climatology. Development of both the BBR and the MSI progressed nominally. For ATLID, the new instrument bistatic design developed to overcome the problem of the laser-induced contamination encountered with ADM-Aeolus was reviewed at the PDR. The review confirmed the feasibility of most aspects of the updated instrument design. Procurement of most of the spacecraft equipment has been initiated in accordance with ESA best practices. The Interface Control Document for CPR from JAXA was formally approved by all parties. Mechanical testing of the CPR Structural Model has started. When this is complete, it will be sent to Europe for integration and testing at system level. Launch is planned for 2015.

EarthCARE is ESA's cloud, aerosol and radiation explorer

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Earth Observation

Seventh Earth Explorer mission

The Phase-A system studies for the three candidate Earth Explorer Core Mission candidates, BIOMASS, CoReH20 and PREMIER, were kicked off during the first half of the year. For PREMIER, a Coordination Agreement with the Swedish Space Corporation responsible for the preparatory activities of the STEAMR microwave limb sounder, to be provided as a Swedish national contribution to the mission, was finalised and implemented. The first part of the Phase-A system studies were concluded with the Preliminary Concept Reviews in the second half of the year. Thereafter, a baseline implementation concept was selected for detailed analysis. The procurement of end-to-end mission performance simulators for the three candidate missions was initiated.

Post-EPS

Activities are ongoing for the definition of the follow-on Eumetsat Polar System, to replace the current satellite system in the 2020s and contribute to the Joint Polar System to be set up with NOAA. The satellites will fly, like MetOp, in a Sun-synchronous, low Earth orbit at 817 km altitude and 09:30 local time of the descending node, providing observations over the full globe with revisit times of 12 to 24 hours, depending on instruments. 2010 saw the initiation of the Post-EPS Phase-A/B1 system studies. The Phase-0 studies resulted in a consolidated payload complement comprising a set of up to 14 instruments, of which up to eight may be provided as contributions in-kind or exchange items by other agencies via Eumetsat. For the system architecture, two possible concepts have been identified: either a single satellite carrying all the instruments or a dual configuration. In Phase-A/B1, ESA is responsible for the industrial activities on the satellite side (space segment), whereas Eumetsat is taking care of the ground segment and the end-to-end system aspects.

Eighth Earth Explorer mission

Following the release of the Call for Proposals for the Earth Explorer Opportunity Mission in October 2009, 31 proposals were received in June and evaluated by four scientific evaluation panels covering the relevant scientific/application domains, with the support of ESA for the technical and programmatic aspects. The panels evaluations were submitted to the Earth Science Advisory Committee (ESAC), who recommended two candidate missions for detailed assessment at Phase-A/B1 level: CarbonSat: a carbon monitoring mission to quantify natural and anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission; FLEX: a vegetation fluorescence monitoring mission to estimate bioactivity and constrain the corresponding Gross Primary Production. The selection process was concluded with EO Programme Board endorsement of the ESAC recommendation in November. The procurement process for the Phase-A/B1 system studies was started with a view to releasing the ITTs in 2011.

SEOSAT/Ingenio

Seosat/Ingenio is a Spanish national mission devoted to providing high-resolution multispectral land optical images (2.5 m for the PAN channel and 10 m for the multispectral channels). ESA is in charge of the development and procurement of SEOSAT/Ingenio, of the ground segment up to level 1 product generation and of the launch and early orbit phase activities. In 2010, the satellite and primary payload PDRs were completed, all critical equipment procurements were started and various equipment engineering and qualification models manufactured. The satellite structural model and avionics validation bench programmes are under way. The launch of the satellite is planned for August 2014.

Meteorological missions in preparation

MTG
The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellites, developed in cooperation with Eumetsat, will ensure continuity of operational meteorological and climate data from geostationary orbit after completion of the ongoing MSG missions. MTG-I (imager) provides enhanced visible and near-infrared imagery and a new lightning imager; MTG-S (sounder) provides a new infrared sounding capability from geostationary orbit and will also accommodate the Sentinel-4 UVN spectrometer. Unlike their predecessors, the MTG satellites are based on a common three-axis stabilised platform. The evaluation of industrial bids for MTG Phases-B2, C/D and support to E1 concluded in March, and following pre-negotiations with the winning consortium (led by Thales Alenia Space France), the contract proposal was submitted and approved by the June IPC. Further detailed negotiations followed, particularly with respect to the introduction of Astrium (Germany) participation to the core team. This was concluded in October allowing a formal kick-off of Phase-B2 activities in November. Since kick-off, activities have focused on two main areas: consolidation of the industrial baseline and preparation and start of Best Practice Procurements. The first launch of MTG (MTG-I-1) is planned for 2017.

Earthnet

The Earthnet programme has, for over 32 years, provided longterm sustainability beyond normal programmatic funding periods. Through Earthnet, ESA manages access to Earth observation data from around 30 different non-ESA missions and instruments. ESA, acting as the ALOS Data European Node (ADEN) for the Japanese ALOS mission, increased throughout the year the number of scientific user projects to more than 400. New Third Party Missions (TPMs) were approved, notably support to the continued operations of GRACE, extended access to Formosat-2 and Spot-5, while an agreement with Eumetsat was signed for Jason-2/-3. Further agreements and improvements of access to the Third Party Missions (for example, by means of an updated illustrated TPM Data Access Guide) were made in 2010. The agreements with Spot Image for the SPOT satellites and with the Swedish Space Corporation for the Odin satellite were extended to provide research users continued access to a variety of Earth observation data. As part of the Earthnet programme, Proba-1 has entered its tenth operational year and is running successfully, having served through the years over 350 Principal Investigator projects.

Climate Change Initiative

The ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) launched ten new projects, each bringing expert teams of European Earth observation and

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Annual Report 2010

climate scientists together for the next three years to produce 20-year observation records of ten essential climate variables. These are needed by the Global Climate Observing System and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The ten teams are all interacting with a Climate Modelling User Group linking them to the leading climate modelling centres in Europe and worldwide. In December, ESA participated in UNFCC COP16 in Cancun, Mexico, to increase awareness of satellite observations for climate. Conference participants and negotiators at the ESA booth and side event all affirmed the importance to climate science and climate policy of continuous global observations and a free and open data policy. The conference learned that space agencies are making significant progress with the satellite component of the Global Climate Observing System, and the ESA CCI was cited as an exemplary case. The representative of the Belgian EU presidency highlighted the major contribution Europe is making to global climate observations via GMES.

International cooperation, education and outreach

The CEOS TIGER initiative was consolidated through the establishment of the TIGER Capacity Building Facility, providing training and capacity-building to 20 African projects across 14 different countries aimed at improving water management in Africa by exploiting Earth observation technology. In 2010 two major training events were organised in Africa and almost 20 African experts invited to participate in research stages and courses in leading-edge research centres in Europe as part of their training. The Dragon 2 programme (launched in 2008 for four years to conduct land, ocean and atmospheric investigations using ESA, third-party missions and Chinese Earth observation data) continued successfully. Over 400 scientists from 165 European/Chinese research institutes are involved in the 25 joint research projects. The Dragon 2 symposium 2010 highlighted the results and scientific achievements at the mid-term stage of the cooperation programme. In the area of education, the Eduspace tool was enhanced to include new modules. The associated educational optical and radar processing open-source software for schools, LEOWorks 4, was further developed. The teachers kit for remote sensing for secondary schools was updated, translated into various languages and became a major success. In the area of international cooperation on education, training and capacitybuilding, ESA contributed to events such as the 2010 Geoscience Information For Teachers (GIFT) Workshop at EGU Vienna, the 2010 SELPER (Latin American Society for Remote Sensing and Space Information Systems) XIV Symposium in Mexico, or the Space Studies Programme of ISU 2010. In addition, ESA organised several training sessions in optical and SAR remote sensing following on from the training series in PECS countries and actively contributed to a series of UNOOSA/ESA Workshops. Finally, several national projects in Earth observation education in the newer ESA Member States are now being supported.

Services and application development

In the context of Support to Science and Exploitation (STSE), scientific support activities were extended and consolidated during 2010. In particular, new projects were launched to further promote innovative exploitation of the new Earth Explorer missions, with activities dedicated to investigating and developing innovative products and new scientific applications to ensure maximum scientific return from these missions. ESA also continued its efforts to develop or deepen partnerships with major international scientific programmes. One notable example, the ESA-iLEAPS-EGU joint conference on Earth observation for Land-Atmosphere Interaction Science organised in ESRIN in November, was attended by almost 200 scientists. In addition, the Data User Element (DUE) and Value Adding Element (VAE) successfully oversaw a multitude of projects and contributed, together with partner entities, to the establishment of new initiatives. Highlights of DUE achievements include the provision of NRT services under the Urban Heat Island project to several European cities during the summer, the finalisation of the GlobGlacier project, the publication of the most modern and accurate global land cover map or the assessment of the impact of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on the ecosystem and marine habitats, delivering important results to the UNCBD COP10 in Nagoya. New opportunities and application fields were explored within VAE such as, in the oil and gas field, green businesses and services, the use of Earth observation in legal processes or geomarketing services. Finally, an interesting new avenue of cooperation was opened up with the World Bank.

Living Planet Symposium 2010

The largest science conference of the year, the ESA 2010 Living Planet Symposium took place in June in Bergen, Norway, with the support of the Norwegian Space Centre. The symposium was a success, both in terms of attendance (1250 participants) and in content. The first GOCE, SMOS and CryoSat mission results were presented and discussed. The majority of presentations dealt with Envisat and ERS mission data, showing the impact of those missions in Earth sciences and operational applications.

The Living Planet Symposium attracted 1250 participants

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telecommunications & integrated applications

The European satcom industry is fundamental to sustaining a healthy European space industry and independent access to space. More than half of European industry turnover is derived from producing or launching telecommunications satellites. Customer purchases are limited to telecommunications systems and launches and exports are almost exclusively composed of telecommunications systems.

In spite of the deepening global economic crisis, 2010 was a good year for satcom services and the satcom manufacturing sector. Operators continue to post excellent figures. A total of 26 geostationary satellite orders were placed in 2010, five of which were with European suppliers, plus 81 units order for Iridium next placed with Thales. However, the 2010 wave of orders is considered the end of the fourth cycle in the satcom sector, as major operators have placed large orders in the last two years and some operators have announced their intention to reduce capital expenditures. Projections for the years 201115 are below 20 satellite orders per year. The introduction of HDTV and 3DTV, and further infrastructure development in emerging countries requiring more sophisticated services, will be factors in the future demand for high-capacity satellites.

Market and industry overview

Broadcasting continues to be the driving force behind the demand for satellites. Growth of the industry is expected to occur at the service level, while actual manufacturing of the satellites and terminals remains a stable business. The European satellite industry is well positioned for satellite delivery, but competition from emerging countries, such as Russia, China and India, should not be dismissed. The European satellite industrys involvement in the broadband market appears to be solid, but user terminal suppliers still do not hold a leadership position. Cooperation between satellite and terminal manufactures should be encouraged in Europe. Success of satellite services in the broadband market will depend on user needs, including ease of access and higher performance, as well as the lower level of capital and operating expenditures for the user. The vertical consolidation of US suppliers will have an impact in global markets.

Ariane 5 flight V198 lifts off 26 November 2010 from Europes Spaceport in French Guiana carrying the Hylas-1 and Intelsat 17 telecommunications satellites (ESA/CNES/Arianespace-Optique Video CSG)

Telecommunications & Integrated Applications

The European satcom industry holds a stable position in the developing defence and security market. There will be a need for more and more bandwidth, such as in the case of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). There is an opportunity for Europe to become more competitive in digital processing technologies, currently dominated by the US. With Inmarsats decision to use Ka-band for aeronautical and maritime markets, and Iridiums order with Thales going ahead, the mobile and machine-to-machine markets are emerging for satcom user terminals and services.

that ESA will pursue in telecoms. Two similar initiatives in partnership with satellite operators, Inmarsat for Alphasat and Hispasat for AG-1, foster the development of state-of-the-art technologies to serve the new needs of the worldwide market and Europes citizens. Through innovative PPPs, ESA is supporting the development and deployment of new satellite systems and services, making the most efficient use of public investment: teaming together with operators and industry in developing operational missions, sharing risk, expertise, management and funds offers a creative fast track for demonstrating and reaping the benefits of high satellite technology.

Advanced Research in Telecommunication Systems (ARTES)

ESAs ARTES programme supports the competitiveness of European industry on the world stage by stimulating the research and development of a wide range of new technologies, innovative systems, products and services and their qualification and demonstration. Telecommunications and Integrated Applications contracts and contract change notices with a total value of 148.2 million were placed in 2010, including 103 new contracts. 2010 also saw the launch of Hylas-1, with ESAs cooperation with Avanti Communications plc (UK) being a prime example of a publicprivate partnership (PPP), the new way of working

Highlights
Technology
ESA support for the various areas of technological development in satellite communication systems has continued. This has addressed all aspects, notably payload development, in particular on flexible payload and advanced processor systems, platform development for a wide range of product lines, and various ground segment products. Equipment development contracts accounting for 28.9 million were placed under ARTES 3-4 and under ARTES 5.1 and 5.2 for a value of 22.7 million.

Hylas-1 was ESA's first PPP in a full satellite system

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Annual Report 2010

Alphasat I-XL will provide advanced geomobile L-band services across Europe, Africa and the Middle East

Hylas-1

ESAs first publicprivate partnership in a full satellite system, Hylas-1, was launched on 26 November. The satellite was released into its transfer orbit after launch by an Ariane 5 vehicle from Europes Spaceport in French Guiana. Owned and operated by Avanti Communications, and with its key payload constituents developed by EADS Astrium in the framework of ESAs ARTES programme, the Hylas-1 communication satellite, located at 33.5W, will demonstrate advanced high-speed technologies and provide innovative broadband services across Europe. ESAs involvement focuses on the missions most inventive element its highly adaptable payload. The satellites flexible technology means that it can modify its data throughput across the European regions it serves, keeping pace with market demand.

services across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It also hosts four technology demonstration payloads developed through ESAs telecommunications and national programmes. A shipment review was held mid-January to authorise the delivery of the Alphabus Service Module from Thales Alenia Space, Cannes, to Astrium, Toulouse.

Iris

Alphabus/Alphasat

Alphabus is the ESA programme to develop the next generation of large platforms for telecommunications satellites. Alphabus development is complemented by the Alphasat programme. Alphasat, developed in partnership with European operator Inmarsat, is the first satellite to be launched using the new European high-power Alphabus telecommunications platform developed by Astrium and Thales Alenia Space under an ESA/ CNES cooperation programme. Alphasat I-XL, planned for launch in early 2013, carries a new generation of advanced geomobile L-band communications

The future European Air Traffic Management (ATM) system is currently being defined by the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) programme. Iris, Element 10 of the ARTES Programme, is dedicated to developing a new air-to-ground communication system for Air Traffic Management as the satellite-based communication solution for the SESAR programme. By 2020 Iris will contribute to the modernisation of air traffic management by providing digital datalinks to cockpit crews in continental and oceanic airspace. The official System Requirement Review (SRR) of the Iris ANTARES Phase-B design study was under way in November 2010. The Review Board has been scrutinising the designs proposed by the ANTARES team and their maturity for starting detailed design of the communication protocols and the associated verification testbed on one hand, and on the other the satellite system infrastructure, including the ground and space segments and user terminals to be used on board aircraft.

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Telecommunications & Integrated Applications

Iris is developing an air-to-ground communication system for air traffic management

EDRS

The European Data Relay System (EDRS) will reduce time delays by providing high-quality, quasi-realtime communication capability to low-Earth orbit satellites in the transmission of large data quantities. To add to Europes independence, EDRS will fill the gap of an independent European telecom network that is fast, reliable and seamless. It will make on-demand data available at the right place at the right time. EDRS will be built through a PPP between ESA and Astrium GmbH (Business Unit Services), and will consist of two geostationary payloads called EDRS-A and EDRS-C and a ground system. User data will be transmitted from low-Earth orbit user satellites to either of the EDRS payloads via optical laser links and relayed to the ground. The EDRS-A payload will be flown on a host satellite operated by Eutelsat. The EDRS-C payload will be flown on an evolution of the SmallGEO platform. SmallGEO is under development through a PPP between OHB and ESA.

EDRS will provide data relay for satellites in low-Earth orbits

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Annual Report 2010

Integrated Applications Promotion (IAP)

The IAP programme develops applications utilising different space assets in partnership with stakeholders and user communities on a regional, national or international scale. The IAP programme includes activities in the areas of health, safety, transport and energy development. The FlySafe project aimed at improving and harmonising national bird warning systems into an extended and standardised System of Systems to improve flight safety in northwest Europe for air force operations, is an illustration of this. ESA and the European Commission initiated satellite-based Automatic Identification System (SAT-AIS) system studies. AIS provides identification and location information to vessels and shore stations for collision avoidance and ship-monitoring services. With SAT-AIS data, the European Maritime Safety Agency will be able to enhance the services currently provided to the community.

Space for health Space for safety Space for you

Awareness activities

Feasibility studies

Demonstration projects

Operations

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galileo & navigation-related activities

Navigation made substantial progress this year: GIOVE-A and -B completed another year of operations. Development of the Galileo ground and satellite infrastructure advanced, with a first launch expected in 2011. EGNOS exploitation proceeded and preparation of future navigation systems and technologies progressed in the GNSS Evolution programme.

Galileo GIOVE-A and -B

GIOVE-A completed four years of signal transmission on 12 January, while GIOVE-B completed two years of signal transmission on 7 May. Steady operations of both satellites beyond their expected lifetime allow ESA to collect data and undertake in-orbit experiments used in the preparation of Galileo operations. The Agency is planning an extension of the operations of both satellites in order to secure continuity of signal transmission until steady IOV operations.

Galileo In-Orbit Validation (IOV) Phase

The IOV Programme has entered a phase of activities heading towards a first IOV launch in 2011. 2010 has been an intense year of deliveries, qualifications and validation tests at system and segment level. The Ground Mission Segment activities were focused on segment-level factory assembly, integration and validation activities. For the Ground Control Segment, the main area of work has been the preparation and execution of tests required before handing over the infrastructure to the Operations team to support the system compatibility test campaign. The deployment of the Ground Infrastructure (control centres and remote stations) has progressed, in particular with the deployment of the operational facilities in the Galileo control centres in Fucino and Oberpfaffenhofen and the deployment of the stations in Kiruna, Kourou, Redu, Papeete La Runion, Nouma, Troll and Svalbard. Satellite activities progressed with the engineering model and four flight models under integration and testing, at various stages. The dedicated Soyuz dispenser designed to accommodate dual launch of Galileo satellites completed its qualification tests.

Artist's impression of the two Galileo In-Orbit Validation satellites due for launch in 2011

Galileo & Navigation-related Activities

The Fregat-MT dedicated upper stage of the Soyuz launcher completed its qualification review. The two Soyuz ST-B launcher vehicles for the first and second Galileo missions are ready for shipment to Kourou.

Full Operational Capability (FOC)

The Galileo FOC phase proceeded under EC/ESA Delegation Agreement with procurement of the major elements. Four major work packages were contracted in 2010: System Support, Satellites, Launch services and Operations. The contracts for the two remaining work packages concerning the Galileo Control Segment and the Galileo Mission Segment were under preparation for a planned signature in 2011.

EGNOS Exploitation phase

ESA, under the Delegation Agreement with the EC, acts as design agent for EGNOS and is responsible for the management
The Kiruna Telemetry, Tracking and Command (TT&C) antenna inaugurated in December 2010 at Swedish Space Corporations Esrange Space Centre (SSC)

The Fucino Galileo Control Centre, 130 km east of Rome, was inaugurated on 20 December by Antonio Tajani, Vice President of the European Commission for Industry and Entrepreneurship; Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General; Gianni Letta, Undersecretary of State of Italy; Jan Woerner, DLR Executive chairman; Enrico Saggese, ASI Chairman; Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, Finmeccanica Chairman and CEO; and, Carlo Gualdaroni, Telespazio CEO (Telespazio)

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Annual Report 2010

of the obsolescence and evolutions of the EGNOS Infrastructure. In 2010, the first-phase activities were completed, with the system qualification review of a new release of the EGNOS system V2.3.1.

GNSS Evolution Programme

In 2010 a series of system studies was undertaken in particular related to the use of EGNOS in an urban environment, and the investigation of techniques to mitigate multipath errors. In the field of technology activities, the studies focused on the design of advanced payloads and on the development of a new generation of atomic clocks.

The qualification model of the Soyuz Galileo dispenser, fitted with one Galileo engineering model on each side, during testing on the QUAD shaker at ESTECs Test Centre

The sixth Galileo Work Package, covering operations services, being signed in Brussels on 25 October. Left to right: Franceso DAmore and Hubertus Wanke, Managing Directors of Spaceopal, Diego Canga Fano, Deputy Head of Cabinet to EC Vice President Antonio Tajani, Ren Oosterlinck, ESA Director of the Galileo Programme and Navigation-related activities

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launchers
While six successful Ariane 5 launches highlighted the reliability of this launcher in exploitation, progress was made towards the first flights of Vega and Soyuz from Europes Spaceport in French Guiana, with future launchers and Ariane 5 Post-ECA also achieving significant milestones in 2010.

Ariane
This year, six Ariane 5 ECA launches carried a total of 12 satellites into orbit, Astra 3B and COMSATBw-2 on 21 May, Arabsat-5A and COMS on 26 June, Nilesat-201 and RascomQAF1R on 4 August and W3B and BSAT-3b on 28 October. The highlight of the year for ESA was the launch into space on 26 November together with Intelsat 17 of Hylas-1, the Agencys first publicprivate partnership in a full satellite system, followed by the launch of Hispasat-1E and Koreasat-6, on 20 December, which ended a busy year. Within the ACEP programme, the Ariane 5 ECA Performance Improvement activities for Ariane 5 ECA were reviewed and confirmed that a mass performance improvement of 400 kg for geostationary transfer orbit (compared to 9565 kg today) is feasible by 2011. As part of the Ariane 5 Mid-life Evolution (ME) Development Programme, major steps were achieved with the conclusion of the Launch System Concept Review, the Complementary Vinci PDR and the Avionics Concept Review. The Vinci M3 firing test campaign continued at the DLR Lampoldshausen P4.1 facilities. Firing test M3#9 closed the year in a nozzle extension configuration and lasted 700 seconds. Two M3 tests are still planned to close the M3 campaign before the initiation of the M4 Vinci campaign in 2011. Test activities also continued at engine and thrust chamber level. Technology maturation activities on potential hybrid rocket engine applications for Ariane 5 ME took place in the last quarter of 2010 with the firing of 22 rocket engines within eight days.
The last Ariane launch of 2010, on 29 December flight V199 lifted off from Europes Spaceport in French Guiana on a journey to place two telecommunications satellites into orbit (ESA/CNES/Arianespace/ Photo Optique Vido du CSG)

The ARTA Programme, which contributes to maintaining the qualification status of the Ariane 5 launch system during the exploitation phase, continued to carry out its activities during the year with detailed analyses of flight data, improvement of the understanding of critical technical issues (booster pressure

Launchers

oscillations, Vulcain 2 ignition loads, etc.), redesign of avionics and other obsolete launcher equipment, preparation of the next major engine tests campaigns (Aestus 2011, Vulcain 2 ARTA9, HM7B M1226), and maintenance and renewal of ESA engine test facilities. In addition, the launch system qualification monitoring and verification for each Ariane 5 launch of the year was performed with the direct involvement of the ESA Ariane Programme Team in the approval of modification proposals and the acceptance of requests for waivers.

Transfer of the mockup of Vegas first stage from the Booster Integration Building to the Vega Launch Zone

Vega
All through the year, launcher qualification proceeded with the successful qualification of many subsystems including the inter-stage 2/3, the AVUM propellant tanks, the Liquid Propulsion System and the Multifunctional Unit, the Payload Adaptator, the AVUM and Zefiro 9 and 23 Thrust Vector Control Systems and the onboard battery. In terms of activities related to the P80, the Thrust Vector Control qualification test campaign was completed in June.

The highlight of the year for ESA was the launch of Hylas-1, together with Intelsat 17, on 26 November

Liftoff of Ariane 5 flight V195, in June on its mission to place the Arabsat-5A telecommunications satellite and the multi-mission COMS satellite into their planned transfer orbits (ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Photo Optique Vido du CSG)

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Annual Report 2010

In parallel, the AVUM System firing test campaign was completed. In May, as part of the Verta programme, the Zefiro 9A with the new igniter was tested. The P80 flight unit is now complete and stored in the Booster Integration Building until integration, which will start in 2011. The P80 Loaded Motor Case First Article Configuration Review was also performed. Concerning the Ground segment, the first part of the Launch System Ground Qualification Review was completed in July, following which the combined test campaign started with the transfer of the mock-up of the launcher first stage from the Booster Integration Building to the Vega Launch Zone. The validation of first stage transfer from Booster Integration Building to Mobile Gantry was performed, involving the mechanical validation of several elements of the launch vehicle and the ground segment. In September, ESA and Arianespace signed the work order for the production of the first Vega launcher, after qualification, as part of the Vega flexibility demonstration flights frame contract signed in December 2009. In parallel, Arianespace and ELV (the European Launch Vehicle company, established by Avio and ASI) concluded a frame contract for five launch vehicles with a firm order for one.

SOYUZ AT CSG
Activities were focused on the finalisation of the Russian system site acceptance tests and the completion of the Mobile Gantry, which were conducted according to planning. The Mobile Gantry structures were fully integrated in May and delivered to the European party early June, thus allowing the

View from inside the Vega mobile gantry, looking down to the first stage mockup

The Soyuz Launch Zone during the first complete translation test of the Mobile Gantry

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Launchers

installation of all functional equipment. The first complete translation test of the Mobile Gantry to Launch Zone was performed in November. Regarding ELS integration activities, infrastructure and energy acceptance reviews of the launcher storage area, extension of the kerosene storage area and extension of kerosene fuelling area were held on 30 July. All remaining activities regarding equipment and system site acceptance test were performed allowing the start of the QT test phase in December. The Payload Integration Facility (S3B) qualification tests started in May with the mock-up filling campaign in June and July, after which the S3B was declared operational. Maintenance of the first Soyuz launcher in the MIK integration facility was completed in May, and the launcher is now fully integrated and stored in the MIK. Qualification of the Launcher System was performed in October in Samara while the Steering Committee is planned for 2011. The Steering Committee of the close-out of the Critical Design Review at Soyuz Launch System level was held in November.
The Soyuz Consultation Committee confirmed that the inaugural launch of Soyuz from the Guiana Space Centre would take place during the fourth quarter of 2010

The first Soyuz launcher seen fully integrated and stored in the MIK integration facility at Europes Spaceport in French Guiana

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Annual Report 2010

FLPP
Development of the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV)
In 2010, the IXV project underwent the completion of its design consolidation phase, following the significant changes in the industrial organisation. On 15 September, the IXV Industrial Workshop took place as part of a yearly series envisaged up to flight in 2013. The main objective was to share the IXV technical and programmatic achievements, provide the opportunity for industry to show the hardware development activities already undertaken to support the detailed design solutions proposed, and discuss short and long-term perspectives up to the vehicles mission into space and future applications. In addition, all subsystem-level Critical Design Reviews were completed; the Phase-C activities are now heading toward the system-level CDR. In parallel, the Request for Quotation for the Phase-D activities was issued to industry, to guarantee the continuity of the industrial activities up to the full vehicle manufacturing.

industrial workshops were organised in September. Addressing the Upper Composite and Lower Composite respectively, these workshops resulted in the identification of interesting technologies and subsystem architectures that could be traded and injected later on in the design of the launch vehicles under consideration. As part of the High Thrust Engine Demonstrator activities, in parallel to the activities at technology level, the Preliminary Requirement Review of the High Thrust Engine Demonstrator was completed in March. A High Thrust Engine industrial day, hosted by DLR Lampoldhausen, took place in February, giving the opportunity to share with industrial partners and FLPP participating states the achievements of and outlook for the High Thrust Engine demonstrator. In July, the High Thrust Engine demonstrator was given the name of SCORE-D, standing for Stage Combustion Rocket Engine Demonstrator. In cryogenic upper stage technologies, industrial activities are progressing with the Preliminary Design Review for the technologies concerned. The Critical Design Review for the Propellant Management Device inflight experiment to be flown on Texus sounding rocket began. In the area of Materials and Structures, advanced technologies are progressing towards sample tests and preparation of subscale demonstrators.

Preparation of the Next Generation Launcher (NGL)

Regarding system activities, a Frame Contract was signed in July to cover system studies, technology development as well as stage/system support for technology development of the down-selected concepts for the NGL. As a first milestone, two

ESA's IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle

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human spaceflight
In another landmark year for ESA and the International Space Station (ISS), two European-built modules (Node-3 and Cupola) were installed on the ISS, ESAs third long-duration mission to the ISS began in December and final preparations were made for the launch of ESAs second Automated Transfer Vehicle in 2011.

With the installation of Node-3 Tranquility and Cupola in February, more than a third of the Stations pressurised elements have now been designed and built in Europe. The European Robotic Arm (ERA) elbow flight spare was launched to the ISS in May. On 2 November, the ISS partners celebrated a historic achievement: ten years of humans living and working continuously aboard the ISS. On 25 October, the ISS also set a record for being the longest continuously habited spacecraft, eclipsing the previous record of 3644 days set by the Russian Mir space station. Since the first Expedition crew boarded the ISS in 1999, more than 196 people have visited the complex, and over 600 different research and technology development experiments have been conducted, many of which have produced advances in medicine, cell and plant biology, novel materials, fluidic processes, space technology, recycling systems and a fundamental understanding of the Universe. Europe also took a step closer to landing on the Moon with the signature of the Lunar Lander Phase-B1 contract with EADS Astrium in Berlin on 16 September, in the presence of Dr Peter Hintze, the Parliamentary State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. European human spaceflight activities can, moreover, look forward to a bright future following the completion of basic training in November of Europes six new astronauts who were selected in 2009: Samantha Cristoforetti (IT), Alexander Gerst (DE), Andreas Mogensen (DK), Luca Parmitano (IT), Timothy Peake (GB) and Thomas Pesquet (FR). Europe already has four future long-duration flight opportunities to the ISS before 2015, so at least half of the new astronauts will have an opportunity to fly into space very soon, the first heading into orbit in 2013. Training meanwhile continued for ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori (IT) who has been assigned, on an ASI flight opportunity, as a Mission Specialist

View of ISS from Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-130 in February, with the newly installed Node-3 Tranquility and Cupola visible at upper left

Human Spaceflight

on Space Shuttle mission STS-134, to be launched to the ISS in 2011. Training also continued for ESA astronaut Andr Kuipers (NL), who will fly to the ISS at the end of 2011 as the European crewmember of Expedition 30/31.

European participation in the ISS Exploitation Programme

With regard to securing the long-term future of human spaceflight, steps are being taken to pave the way for a positive decision on the proposal to extend the operational lifetime and thereby exploitation of the ISS until 2020 to be taken at the ESA Council meeting in March 2011, following the many discussions held during the year with ISS International Partners and ESA Member States participating in the ISS Exploitation Programme. At the ISS Multilateral Coordination Board (MCB) in June, Programme Directors from the five ISS cooperating agencies unanimously reaffirmed their determination to maximise the benefits from utilisation of the ISS while reducing operations costs. Japan approved the continuation of ISS operations beyond 2016. Coupled with the approval of the government of the Russian Federation for continuation to 2020, this progress is indicative of the strength of the ISS partnership and the successful use of the ISS. CSA and ESA worked with their respective governments to reach consensus on the continuation of the ISS, while NASA worked with the US Congress to complete the necessary procedures to extend ISS operations consistent with the presidential budget request.

The completion of basic training in November of Europes six new astronauts was celebrated at an event at EAC, Cologne

Consolidation of global exploration scenarios

This year also saw a further consolidation, on a global level, of the space exploration scenarios under assessment for the future. The Space Exploration Scenario Studies contracts with EADS Astrium and Thales Alenia Space as prime contractors were signed in August. Participants in the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) endorsed the content and development plan for the first version of the Global Exploration Roadmap in November, and also took note of ISECGs plans to organise, in partnership with IAC, AIAA and possibly COSPAR, a Global Space Exploration Conference in 2011. At the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Heads of Space Agencies Summit in Washington DC on 17 November, all agency heads welcomed the IAA Summit Declaration which with respect to human spaceflight underlined that human missions to the surface of Mars are the long-term goal of space exploration in view of the scientific interest and strategic prospects for humankind. European Ministers in charge of space matters, space agency heads, representatives from European Member States and international delegations also gathered in Brussels for the 2nd International Conference on Space Exploration on 21 October.

NASA astronaut George Zamka, STS-130 commander, is pictured in a window of the newly installed Cupola on the ISS

Training continued for ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori who has been assigned to fly on Space Shuttle mission STS-134 in 2011

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Annual Report 2010

Reentry Vehicle (ARV) main contract with Astrium GmbH was signed on 17 March. Following the Preliminary Requirements Review, the industrial activities have been focused on an agreed three-module configuration that provides added flexibility and operational capability. While the ARV vehicle concept is being developed, the interface aspects and the mission requirements are being matured. Further interactions have taken place with the ISS partners for a more detailed assessment of the ISS needs between 201620, with the aim of establishing a Common Transportation Policy (CTP) with the ISS International Partners. On 21 September, the MCB approved for public release in October an International Docking System Standard (IDSS), which contains the information necessary to describe the physical features and design loads of a standard docking interface. Well in line with the IBDM system developed in Europe, the IDSS is an outstanding example of international collaboration that will help towards a truly global exploration endeavour. The industrial proposal for the IBDM development for the ISS Advanced Tasks, funded via the Transportation Early Activities, has been received and negotiated with Qinetiq Space, with the related activities to start in 2011. Expert vehicle integration at Thales Alenia Space in Turin, Italy, is progressing as planned with the main structure delivered by SONACA. All flight models of the experiments were delivered by the responsible research institutes. The metallic hot structure has also been delivered to Turin after the completion of the final tests at Dutch Space. Agreements to finance the European industrial subcontractors have been confirmed by Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Participants in the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) in November

The Conference unanimously concluded that action is needed now to ensure that Europe has a significant role in future space exploration. It confirmed that space exploration is a driver for innovation, developing new technologies and making scientific discoveries, but also a political and global endeavour. In line with this strategy, ESA issued a Call for Ideas: ISS for Exploration. By the deadline of 10 December, ESA had received a very encouraging response of more than 180 proposals that are now subject to screening and evaluation.

Transportation and Human Exploration Preparatory Activities

The Lunar Lander Phase B1 industrial activities are progressing in consolidating the baseline mission design while at the same time an extensive programme of breadboarding activities covering the most critical technologies (Guidance, Navigation & Control, Hazard Avoidance, and Propulsion) has been initiated. In parallel a contract has been placed with Arianespace to consolidate the mission analysis and confirm the Soyuz launchers performance for the lunar transfer trajectory. On the programmatic side, the mission has seen a steady increase in interest, particularly in areas where advanced technology is being developed. Additional contributions have been made available from Canada and Spain that will allow the project to benefit from the technologies already developed in these countries in the Aurora programme. The Advanced

ESAs Lunar Lander concept, a mission to land in the mountainous and heavily cratered terrain of the lunar south pole

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Human Spaceflight

Utilisation: achievements
The implementation of the wide range of ELIPS (European Programme for Life and Physical Sciences and Applications in Space) activities progressed normally, with a continuous series of experiments in ground-based facilities, drop tower, parabolic flights, sounding rockets and the ISS with a focus on utilising the Columbus laboratory. The implementation of the ISS Expedition 22, 23, 24 and 25 experimental programmes, with more than 50 ESA experiments, was completed. The implementation of Expedition 26 began with the arrival of the Soyuz 25 crew and Expeditions 26/27 will run until March 2011. It will encompass the largest part of the science programme planned for Paolo Nespolis MagISStra mission. ESA has performed almost 100 experiments on the ISS since the Columbus launch in February 2008. The first full-length 520-day simulated mission to Mars started on 3 June, when ESA crew members Romain Charles (FR) and Diego Urbina (IT/Colombia) together with one Chinese and three Russian participants closed the hatch of their spacecraft at the IBMP premises in Moscow. On 15 September, the crew passed the 105 days in isolation endured by the previous crew involved in the precursor study performed in 2009. The next major milestone will be a landing on Mars planned for February 2011, with the return to Earth expected in November.

Launched to the International Space Station for a long-duration mission on 15 December, ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli (IT) served as Flight Engineer for Expeditions 26 and 27. MagISStra is the third six-month mission by a European astronaut on the ISS

The first 520-day simulated mission to Mars started in June, when two ESA crewmembers, together with one Chinese and three Russians, closed the hatch of their spacecraft in Moscow.

ESA also performed three bedrest studies at Charit, DLR and MEDES premises with different objectives for the simulation of long-duration spaceflight conditions. At MEDES also the new Short Arm Human Centrifuge was used for artificial gravity applications in conjunction with bedrest protocols. ESAs 52nd and 53rd A300 Parabolic Flight campaigns were performed in May and October with 12 experiments per campaign. Maxus-8, the latest in the series of ESA-funded sounding rocket flights, was launched on 26 March from Kiruna in northern Sweden. Three of the four experiment modules worked normally and have shown very promising scientific results in advanced materials research and biology.

Scientists monitor their experiments during microgravity

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Annual Report 2010

Utilisation: new opportunities

The evaluation and resulting selections for the three ELIPS research solicitations (AO-2009/ILSRA-2009 and BR-2009) were approved by delegations on 26 May. With the 71 new flight experiments in the research pool, ESAs ISS utilisation resources will be put to full use beyond 2015 and include a lot of international scientific cooperation with ISS partners. The next Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for ISS research will be tentatively solicited in the 2013 timeframe. At the closing date of 12 April 2010, twelve proposals were received in response to the Concordia new AO. The peer review and feasibility assessment has been completed and a dedicated results and selection proposal for six projects was endorsed by Delegations on 5/7 October. The implementation of some of the selected experiments is already under way in the winter-over isolation campaign in Antarctica.

Education activities
Last but not least, the Human Spaceflight Directorate also managed to inspire the younger generation across Europe. Several educational and promotional activities were launched including Mission-X: Train like an Astronaut, a worldwide educational initiative supported by ESA and the national space agencies of Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and the US, aimed at educating 4000 participating young children in the importance of exercise and healthy eating.

Following the full certification of the Airbus A300 for partial gravity flights, an AO was issued to the European science community in June 2010 resulting in 41 proposals for experiments to be performed under partial gravity. ESA started to organise a joint partial gravity parabolic flight campaign together with CNES and DLR. The implementation of the first set of 13 experiments is under way for the maiden flight in June 2011.

During his MagISStra mission, Paolo Nespoli helped to launch several educational and promotional activities from the ISS, including Mission X: Train like an Astronaut

In December, from the ISS, Paolo Nespoli also started an educational experiment Greenhouse in Space, with over 1000 schoolchildren participating on the ground with their very own greenhouse experiment. A GeoFlow (Experiment Simulation) Challenge was opened in October to PhD and postdoctoral students. The prize, sponsored by the Directorate of Human Spaceflight, is a two-year postdoctoral position in the form of an ESA external fellowship at one of the institutions participating in the project.

By Christmas 2010, ATV Johannes Kepler was almost fully assembled and loaded with propellant in the S5C building at Europes Spaceport in French Guiana

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technical & quality management

Sustained technological development and advances are a prerequisite for the impressive successes of European space business.

Innovative breakthroughs in turn lead to new space applications. It is therefore essential to sustain competitiveness and innovation in industry and to serve European citizens better. In persistently difficult conditions, the challenge for ESA is to consolidate Europes capacity to act more independently in order to strengthen its role in international partnerships and global competition and to pave the way for innovation.

Systems and technology programmes

Innovation is pursued through processes addressing the way we deliver developments, new technology and ultimately innovative systems. ESA seeks to exploit European competence outside of the core space business as well as national space competence for the benefit of European space projects. The cooperation with internationally recognised laboratories in Member States is a major step towards more efficient use of resources in Europe for space. Tools like the Networking/Partnering Initiative, the Network of Technical Centres approach and the ITI programme support ESAs efforts in this regard. The new software infrastructure of the Concurrent Design Facility, the open concurrent design software, was delivered and is undergoing testing. New capabilities have been developed for creating the mission architecture of complex systems-of-systems, which are being used in support of multi-asset programmes such as Space Situational Awareness and other ESA and partner programmes. The development of the related cost-modelling capabilities has also started. Proba-1 entered its tenth year in orbit, while Proba-2 completed one year of operation. The latters 17 technology experiments have been successfully demonstrated and its four payloads are delivering data routinely. The Proba-3 industrial consortium has been reshaped and Proba-V passed its Critical Design Review. An experimental Automatic Identification System receiver continues to operate from the International Space Station, demonstrating the capability of ship monitoring from space and providing sample data to several agencies and organisations. The Technology Harmonisation process was reviewed with delegations. Technology development continued with a view to aiding the competitiveness of industry. Innovation-triggering studies were initiated internally and with partners, searching for

The robotic ARTIS ultrasound device being used on a patient

Technical & Quality Management

technology leapfrogs that would allow breakthroughs in science and services. Technology non-dependence continues to be a concern. The actions established with the European Commission and European Defence Agency (EDA) were implemented by the partners within the limitations of the programmes. After reflection within the IPC, a proposal was presented to Council and agreed for urgent action for EEE components. The new three-year plan for 201113, under the Technology Research Programme (TRP), was established. The new plan includes significant efforts on deep submicron technologies as part of the action on technology innovation and nondependence. A Startiger project for fast concurrent technology development was completed, with LAM (FR) delivering a prototype of a Sun coronagraph instrument suitable for Proba-3. After a new call for Startiger projects, the SEEKER project was selected, a long-range rover led by RAL to be implemented in 2011. All elements and initiatives within the General Support Technology Programme are subscribed and active. Success is starting to be shown in the GREAT2 initiative to establish a European capability in gallium nitride (GaN) technology; the first X-band transmitter using this technology will be flown on Proba-V. The ESA action is coordinated with national and European initiatives under the EC and EDA. Significant effort is being devoted to the development of technologies for Space Situational Awareness in Element 3, including an Energetic Particle Telescope to be flown on Proba-V. The Technology Transfer Programme supported 16 transfers through its network of brokers and 32 new start-ups in its four Business Incubation Centres (BICs). A fifth BIC was opened in Harwell, UK. The programme also achieved the first closing of the Open Sky Technologies Fund to support start-ups and early-stage companies with seed capital investments.

Proba-V Structural and Thermal Model during testing at Intespace in Toulouse, France (QinetiQ)

Software Engineering

Phase 1 of the Space Avionics Open Interface Architectures initiative (SAVOIR) of ESA, national space agencies and industry has been completed, producing a high-level reference architecture for avionics and software, including Time and Space partitioning, and also a harmonised R&D plan. Phase 2 will produce the generic specifications and interface standards enabling the development of building blocks for reuse so as to reduce cost and risks. A collaboration agreement has been reached between ESA, national space agencies and prime contractors for the definition of a European Ground System Common Core in view of the later development of the kernel of the next-generation of satellite test facilities (EGSE) and mission control systems.

Proba-Vs imager prepared for testing at ESTEC

Electrical Engineering

Significant milestones have been achieved in the pre-development of cutting-edge Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC) system technologies in support of the Mars Robotic Exploration Preparation Programme. A broad range of technology activities has been initiated in the areas of autonomous rendezvous and capture and entry, descent and landing. The TRP activity Precision Landing Ground Test Facilities was completed with the flight of a navigation camera and inertial measurement unit on an unmanned aerial vehicle, simulating Moon and Mars descent scenarios.

Startiger-2 external coronagraph demonstrator during testing. This demonstrator is a complete end-to-end prototype of how an external coronagraph producing an artificial solar eclipse would operate in space (LAM)

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Annual Report 2010

Relative navigation on a Mars-like descent scenario, based on features tracking

Developed under GSTP, the GNC Development Environment tool was completed. It is already being used commercially by industry for Proba-3 and has already attracted customers worldwide. Significant progress has been made in the field of deep submicron (DSM) technologies. For instance, the first test objects, including a four-lane High-Speed Serial Link (4 x 6Gbit/s) prototype, have been manufactured thanks to the new DSM STMicroelectronics (FR) 65nm space ASIC libraries.
The GPS POD (RUAG)

In a similar vein, a new state-of-the-art 10-bit analogue-todigital converter, featuring a 1.5GHz sampling rate was also designed by E2V (FR) and manufactured on Infineon (DE) 0.35m SiGe technology. This converter will be instrumental for future telecom payloads based on advanced processors. A very high-performance Fast Fourier Transform Co-processor (FFTC), based on the commercial PowerFFT design owned by Satellite Services BV (NL), has been transferred into an energy-efficient (less than 2W power consumption), radiationtolerant CMOS technology by Atmel (FR). The FFTC, which can act as coprocessor or in standalone mode, can calculate Fourier transforms of up to one million points in length with floating-point precision at an equivalent performance of 4.7GFlops. It can now be used for onboard data processing in upcoming ESA missions. A new sensor for all-weather nowcasting has produced its first outdoor image. ESAs Geostationary Atmospheric Sounder (GAS) works at millimetre wavelengths to see through clouds and rain. Its high resolution means it could operate from far away in space, delivering continuous wide-area observations to weather forecasters. The GAS design can now be confirmed through tests conducted at the premises of the prime contractor. It proved that it is possible to reduce the number of antennas needed, bringing the number down to 21, compared to the original first estimate of 150. Therefore, operation on future weather satellites becomes more likely. Another innovative development led to a GPS Precise Orbit Determination (POD) instrument, with low mass and low power consumption, under the GSTP-4 programme, in support of the Earth observation missions. The GPS POD was developed by RUAG (DE), based on components developed by Saphyrion (CH). This receiver was selected by the Swarm, GMES Sentinels and EarthCARE projects.

A Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK) modulation scheme was used by both Herschel and Plancks Telemetry, Tracking and Command transponders, representing the first use of this scheme for a space mission. This scheme was orginally proposed by ESTEC back in 1988. Herschel and Planck are the first ESA satellites to travel to a halo orbit around the second Lagrangian point, 1.5 million km away from Earth. This is far enough to avoid the undesirable thermal emission from Earth, the Moon and the Sun, which would cause too much interference for the scientific instruments. Since their beginnings, it was decided to operate these two satellites in X-band for both spacecraft and instrument data transmissions, instead of the congested S-band used by other spacecraft. In order to optimise the overall bandwidth of only 50 MHz, the GMSK modulation scheme was selected for the high data rate downlink.

Geostationary Atmospheric Sounder demonstrator during outdoor testing

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Technical & Quality Management

Mechanical Engineering

A technological breakthrough was achieved with the development of optical fibres operating in the thermal infrared spectral range (620 m) in single-mode and compatible with gamma radiation and cryogenic temperatures. These fibres are key components for future nulling interferometers to be used in extraterrestrial planet-finding missions. A thermally stable interferometer with a special mount was developed for use in longitudinal and lateral high-precision optical metrology sensors for formation-flying missions. An extremely compact Three-Mirror Anastigmat telescope (as small as 63 x 32 x 56 mm) with a wide field of view of 500, f number of 6 and focal length of 43 mm was designed for the optical payloads of microsatellites (CubeSats) to achieve multispectral/hyperspectral imaging from such small platforms. The breadboard of this telescope was manufactured using diamond-turning. In photonics, considerable achievements were made in the area of focal plane detector arrays. An innovative, high-performance 3 x 1000-pixel InGaAs array, complete with integrated read-out electronics, was developed for the Proba-V SWIR channel, and a hybrid 500 x 256 HgCdTe pixel detector array was demonstrated for remote sensing of greenhouse gases. Dynamic response and thrust oscillations measured during test firings of Vega launcher stages are being employed for modal identification of the respective rocket stages to validate and update mathematical models used in the Vega coupled loads analysis in support of Vega payloads.

In cryogenics, a 2050K Pulse Tube coldfinger development has resulted in a new product for future science or Earth observation missions. A very good performance, of more than 300mW cooling power at 18K with a heat intercept at 80K, has been achieved using the compressor of the Large Pulse Tube Cooler. In the area of heat transport and rejection, several activities to develop advanced cryogenic heat pipes, cryogenic and high-temperature loop heat pipes and enhanced mechanical pumps have resulted in novel hardware with very promising performance. A Loop Heat Pipe-based flight experiment was launched on a commercial telecommunication satellite aimed at the use of an EastWest Radiator Panel configuration for efficient heat rejection, while at the same time providing the required payload temperature regulation. In the area of thermal tools and methods, several new analysis methods were developed to optimise thermal tests, accelerate model correlation, and enhance realtime data evaluation. Flight measurements from the GOCE electric propulsion engine are being analysed to improve future ion engine designs, including the high-power 5kW ion engine that will power BepiColombo to reach Mercury and perform mission operations. Regarding health in space, a project for remotely carrying out ultrasound examinations through terrestrial or satellite communication means, ARTIS, was completed and demonstrated that technologies developed to support astronauts health can benefit European citizens in their daily lives.

The robotic ARTIS device can be controlled remotely by an expert radiologist in real time

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Annual Report 2010

In Automation and Robotics, the year saw renewed interest in satellite servicing, including deorbiting and reorbiting. In particular, a CDF study was performed addressing the end of life of Envisat using the wealth of knowledge of past robotics satellite servicing R&D activities. The Erasmus Recording Binoculars, developed in support of the ESTECs Erasmus Centre, was launched to the International Space Station and used by astronaut Paolo Nespoli in ISS inventory and PR activities.

From an engineering point of view, good progress is being made with respect to the establishment of transportable waferlevel encapsulation within the frame of WALES (WAfer Level Encapsulation of micro-Systems) in which wafers processed by LETI are actually wafer-level-packaged by CSEM and tested by IAF. Finally, two nanotechnology surveys including nanomaterial description, technology domain landscape and potential improvement expected for the space industry as well as prioritisation and roadmaps for the next 10years have been completed. The first survey was led by an academic consortium with a technology-push approach, whereas the second was completed by ESA end users, giving a system-pull vision of the need.

Standardisation, cooperation and quality management

Micro- and nanotechnologies
The seventh ESA Micro- and Nanotechnologies (MNT) roundtable event for space applications took place, with more than 150 participants from industry, academia and space agencies. Significant progress was reported on MEMS wafer-level packaging, MEMS process commercial offering and in-orbit demonstration flight data availability. Significant progress was made towards future MEMS qualification procedures and methodologies, which was highlighted as urgently needed by the European space industry for a rapid insertion of MEMS products into flight hardware. A first activity was concluded, establishing MEMS subfamilies in accordance with the materials, the functioning principle, etc., and possible qualification test plans and test flows were defined for each sub-family. The methodology will now be scrutinised and further validated by major European research centres before gradually introducing it into industry.

The MEMS Rate Sensor is the smallest navigation gyro ever flown by ESA, a guest payload aboard ESAs CryoSat-2 mission launched in April

ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli using the 3D Erasmus Recording Binoculars on the ISS

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Technical & Quality Management

Gallium nitride

There has been continued good progress in developing gallium nitride (GaN) electronics, which is felt to be one of the most important semiconductor developments since silicon. Encouraging results are being obtained in ESAs GREAT2 (GaN Reliability Enhancement and Technology Transfer Initiative) project, where the main objective is to implement an independent European component supply chain for discrete microwave GaN power transistors and GaN Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs) that are suitable for space applications. In December, the M3 performance milestone target was achieved in which over 1000hours of radio operating lifetime was demonstrated for L-band and X-band technology characterisation vehicles, fabricated using the UMS GH50_10 and IAF GaN_25 processes respectively. The milestone results were also independently validated in the ESA components laboratory. Preliminary space assessment has not shown any major issues with respect to radiation hardness or sensitivity to hydrogen poisoning. This is very encouraging, but further work is planned to confirm these results on larger power transistors. The next important step is to demonstrate over 10000 hours operation and finally over 20years of operation, with establishment of a spacecompatible commercial production process scheduled for 2012. X-band MMICs from GREAT2 are being integrated into an experimental telemetry transmitter on Proba-V, which is

a unique opportunity to gain early flight heritage on GaN components that have been extensively tested on the ground. Engineering prototypes were made in 2010 and approval has been given to procure the Qualification and Flight Model units, with a launch planned for 2012. If successful, this work will accelerate the technology readiness level for GaN component technology and speed up insertion into ESA projects.

Skills training schools

Since 1979, ESA has been managing six skills training schools: IFE and ZVE in Germany, ISS in Italy, HYTEK in Denmark, ECE in the UK and Institut de Soudure in France. These schools offer nine course topics and about 20 individual courses with the aim of certifying operators, inspectors and Category I instructors in the processes for electronic assembly, RF cable assembly, crimping, repair/modification of printed circuit board (PCB) assemblies and boards, wire-wrapping and fibre-optic assembly. The schools are regularly audited for, among other things, technical facilities and investigation of complaints. In 2010, 1100 students followed courses, of which 30 were Category I instructors and five were ESA staff.

Surface mount technologies

Major challenges were encountered in the verification of surface mount technologies (SMT). The number of companies requiring verification of their production lines increased to such a degree that local verification at ESTEC required outsourcing to be able to follow the verification procedure

GaN on silicon carbide wafers, produced as part of ESAs GREAT2 project (ESA/GREAT2)

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Annual Report 2010

according to ECSS standards in a timely manner. Six companies SPUR (DE), HYTEK, ISS, ZVE, SERMA (FR) and Tecnalia (ES) were chosen after a careful auditing of their technical capabilities. These companies are now regularly performing microsections on surface-mounted PCBs to the same quality as ESTEC.

European Components Initiative

Printed circuit boards

In 2010 a number of challenges were experienced among the ESA-qualified PCB manufacturers in terms of finance and quality. Significant support was provided from end-users and agencies and significant improvements were observed in the PCB industry. Five companies are qualified to deliver PCBs for ESA projects, ranging from rigid double-sided and multi-layer boards to flexible boards. The qualification of six companies in the UK is under way, while discussions have also started with a second source in France.

All the activities for European Components Initiative (ECI) Phase-2 are expected to be completed by the end of 2011. Since there was no funding mechanism in place to cover the follow-on activities identified in the work plan, the key activity in 2010 focused on confirming the future needs of the business and exploring funding options that could be put in place for stable, long-term funding for key strategic EEE components. This resulted in an IPC working group on component issues meeting in November, together with the major system integrators and equipment manufacturers, with industry confirming that the technical needs and roadmaps were fundamental to the competitive future of the European space sector. ESA was tasked with identifying ways of bridging the immediate funding gap until long-term funding solutions could be prepared for the Ministerial Council in 2012. The increased availability of European qualified parts and processes is continuing to readjust the balance of European versus non-European parts used in the European space programme, but still has some way to go before reaching the ECI goal of having on average over 50% in European spacecraft in terms of the value of EEE component procurement secured by European or ECI global partnership sources.

Lessons learned

A lessons learned presentation was given on edge-welded titanium bellows. These bellows had shown several welding deficiencies in the past owing to improper welding techniques.

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operations & infrastructure

In another demanding year, Operations teams have again delivered excellent support for 16 spacecraft in flight, plus work continued on the Space Situational Awareness Preparatory Programme and on ESAs third Deep Space Antenna in Argentina.

Mission operations
Operations support teams at ESOC have again delivered the expected excellent support during several critical mission phases with a total of 16 spacecraft operated in flight and another 14 missions in preparation. The CryoSat-2 team supported the launch on 8 April and the subsequent commissioning phase. GOCE routine operations at 250km altitude were interrupted in the summer by a major anomaly with the main computer. Following intense recovery activities, science data acquisition was resumed in October. Rosetta performed a spectacular flyby of asteroid Lutetia, the largest asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft, at a distance of 3160km. The spacecraft has beaten all records of distance from the Sun for a solar-powered vehicle, reaching at the end of the year a distance of 565 million km. Mars Express and Venus Express continue orbiting our neighbouring planets. Mars Express carried out close flybys of the martian moon Phobos. Planck completed its first two sky surveys in 2010 and published stunning scientific results of almost 100% science data return. The Herschel team recovered the redundant chain of the HIFI instrument. XMM-Newton and Integral continued to deliver high-quality science. The fleet of four Cluster satellites completed its tenth year in orbit. In the context of the second Envisat Mission Extension until 2013, the satellite semi-major axis was reduced by 17.4km. Preparations started for the ERS-2 deorbiting planned for mid2011. The SMOS payload operations continued smoothly in close coordination with CNES.

Human spaceflight operations

Valeria Bozzi, CryoSat-2 engineer, at her console in ESOC during launch operations

Europes Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station continued its third year of mission operations, enabling leading research in plant biology, exobiology, solar physics, human physiology, and fluid and material sciences. New experiments were installed after delivery by the Space Shuttle and maintenance performed to ensure operation of existing experiments.

Operations & Infrastructure

Columbus continues to be the most intensively used ISS module. European human spaceflight operations are carried out by the Columbus Control Centre at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen under ESA contract with EADS. Following the mission of the first European Automated Transfer Vehicle, ATV Jules Verne, the ATV Control Centre was updated to introduce changes based on lessons learned, to replace obsolete equipment and to accommodate new interfaces with external organisations. Preparations for the upcoming ATV Johannes Kepler launch continued with end-toend tests with the ATV and its new mission control system and with the completion of major milestone reviews. ATV missions are operated from the CNES mission control centre in Toulouse under ESA contract with CNES. This operational approach for Columbus and ATV makes use of Europes distributed assets and skills to ensure Europes strategic independence and reinforces its ability to remain a major international partner in manned space exploration.

Left to right: Richard Francis, ESA CryoSat Project Manager, Klaus Koeble, Astriums CryoSat-2 Project Manager, and Pier Paolo Emanuelli, ESA Flight Director (ESA/J. Mai)

Missions in preparation

Development of the science mission ground segments for Gaia, LISA Pathfinder, ExoMars and BepiColombo progressed as planned. Earth observation mission operations preparations for Swarm, Aeolus, EarthCARE and GMES Sentinels continued as planned.

Paolo Nespoli working on the ISS in 2010

An ATV Launch and Early Operations Phase simulation at the ATV Control Centre in Toulouse

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Annual Report 2010

Space Situational Awareness

Activities continued in the four elements of the Preparatory Programme, focusing on the consolidation of civil user requirements leading to the high-level Mission Requirements Document, on the preparation of the Precursor Services in the three segments (Space Surveillance, Space Weather and Near-Earth Objects) and their related Pilot Data Centres, as well as on the initialisation of the procurement of the breadboard surveillance radar. The System Requirements phase continued as well, based on the consolidated Mission and Customer Requirements. It will lead not only to an approved set of System Requirements, but also to a high-level architectural design of the complete system and a first estimate of its total cost. A test and validation campaign of future Precursor Services was initiated at ESAC in the area of space surveillance. Within this campaign available surveillance and tracking assets (radars, telescopes) have already started to deliver data, which will be used progressively to generate a European catalogue of space objects The deployment of data centre facilities started at the Space Pole in Brussels for the Space Weather Precursor Services and at ESRIN for the Near-Earth Objects Precursor Services. The location of the future SSA Tasking Centre area at ESOC was identified. This will allow the execution of test and validation activities to be conducted with associated national institutes and facilities in 2011 and 2012.

Dialogue with European and international actors in SSA-related fields

In addition to the regular dialogue with the SSA Participating States, very constructive exchanges were pursued during 2010 with the main actors involved in SSA within the EU Institutions (EU Council, European Commission, European Defence Agency and European Union Satellite Centre). The discussions related to the governance of the future European SSA System are taking place under the leadership of the European Commission and of the European External Action Service in line with the September 2008 Space Council Resolution. They are proving to be very complex, and at this stage no firm agreement has yet emerged among the various actors, although several possible options have been analysed. The most sensitive issue relates to the Space Surveillance and Tracking element, owing to the fact that certain detected objects may, in some cases, need to be handled in a classified environment.

International relations

Important meetings have also been held with the US authorities (Department of State, Department of Defense, NASA, NOAA) where beside an open exchange of information of each others plans, a reflection has been conducted on the way to improve the standardisation of data and achieve good potential for future interoperability. Contacts are also taking place with other space powers in the various SSA-related domains.

Artist's impression of space hazards and a possible SSA ground infrastructure

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Operations & Infrastructure

Special projects
Looking to the missions of the future, support has been given in defining mission operations concepts and system design that will be necessary to rise to the challenges of next-generation missions. Key evolutions in new technologies, artificial intelligence and mission concepts have been explored and evaluated for possible benefits in operating these new missions. Partnerships with industry and universities provide challenges and stimulate innovation and economic growth in areas of new potential. In close cooperation with the EU, ESA has continued to support the design and development of the Ground Segment and Operations for the Galileo programme.

Space debris

The degradation of the space debris environment caused an all-time high of nine collision avoidance manoeuvres for ESA missions in 2010. On 21 January, the 8.2-tonne Envisat would have had an encounter with a 4-tonne CZ-2C orbital stage closer than 50m, with a probability of collision of 1:80. An evasive manoeuvre increased the flyby distance to a safe level.

Navigation
Galileo, EGNOS and other ESA projects are supported on a continuous basis. The world-class provision of centimetre-level accuracy for GPS and Glonass products is increasingly attracting external customers. Precise low-Earth orbit (LEO) determination capability is also a top priority. Ongoing software developments will bring further improvements.

Ground systems engineering

Ground station technologies
The third ESTRACK Deep Space Station project continued in Argentina with a view to becoming operational in 2012, thus providing ESA with a fully global deep space communication capability. Design work on a network of optical telescopes for space debris detection has continued and a prototype surveillance radar is in preparation within the SSA preparatory programme. Space communication system designs have started in the domain of optical communications through Earths atmosphere.

Research and technology

The Directorate prepared efficient operational mission systems and services by running some 50 active studies, addressing strategic issues such as deep-space stations or radar/optical technologies for SSA, enabling technologies such as cryogenic low-noise amplifiers for high-performance signal amplification in ground stations, but also enabling new and innovative ideas or concepts like mobile phone network usage for data transmission in LEO.

Ground data systems

CryoSat-2 data systems supported the launch and are used for operations. Those of Galileo, Swarm, MetOp and MSG-3 are being finalised while several others are in preparation in support of future missions and the SSA programme. All systems are based on the Directorates software infrastructure that is evolving into the ESA Ground Operation System also used outside ESA, allowing wide software reuse, significant cost savings and risk mitigation.

Informatics and Facility Management

Corporate Informatics
An ESA-wide review of IT strategy and governance model was conducted in 2010, involving senior representatives from all Directorates. This will be implemented in 2011 in the framework of the new ESA organisational structure. A new IT outsourcing model has been defined, which will be reflected in the publication of open tenders in 2011 for the management of global and local IT service delivery and for the evolution and innovation of IT services in the Agency.

Flight dynamics

CryoSat-2 launch and commissioning were supported. Recovery activities for GOCE and contingency analysis for Herschel were further highlights. Rosettas flyby of asteroid Lutetia was one of the most precise and challenging trajectories of an ESA mission ever. Support is being provided to LISA Pathfinder and BepiColombo development. Cooperation between ESOC and CNES continued on a common infrastructure system design.

Computer-generated image of objects in Earth orbit that are currently being tracked. Approximately 95% of these objects are orbital debris, i.e. not functional satellites. This provides a good visualisation of where the greatest orbital debris populations exist, in low Earth orbit and the geostationary ring. The objects are shown at an exaggerated size to make them visible at the scale shown. (NASA)

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Annual Report 2010

IT evolution towards cloud computing technology has been analysed and led to a Europe-wide initiative (EU, European scientific agencies, European IT industry) to create a European infrastructure able to satisfy the need for the huge amount of space data but also in general the needs of citizens. In 2010, new videoconferencing and web-based collaboration services were added to the ESA IT Service Catalogue, with the objective of enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of ESA activities and cooperation with external partners.

With respect to Programme Activities, constraints and opportunities linked to Sustainable Development are taken into account. Constraints mainly concern current and upcoming environmental regulations and the Agencys ability to react to their requirements by proposing adequate responses. There may be opportunities to integrate greener solutions into ESA missions. The Governance and Ethics dimension deals with the corporate responsibility of ESA as an organisation and a space agency. It describes how economic, social and environmental values are created and how ESA is accountable for these. It also covers the internal corporate social responsibility aspects. In 2011, ESA will issue its first Sustainable Development report covering the period 200910. It will illustrate how Sustainable Development and space are connected, how space activities contribute to the building of a more sustainable society, how ESAs operations can become more sustainable and how ESA can cooperate with its stakeholders. It will also give the blueprint of what will be the future Sustainable Development reporting scheme.

Facility Management

Within a challenging economic and budgetary setting, ESA Facility Management has continued to take steps to ensure that valuefor-money strategies provide the best possible working conditions for Agency staff. Careful obsolescence management has ensured those areas most in need are well protected. A new facility management contracting strategy, based on combining different services under a single frame contract, was identified and implemented and is already beginning to demonstrate savings while ensuring output levels are at least maintained. The precious funds that remain for investment within the domain have been subjected to a rigorous allocation process driven by the requirements of the Heads of Establishment. This has meant that some long-standing infrastructure needs in ESRIN and ESAC are now being fulfilled and that other previously launched activities at the other ESA establishments can be completed. Also worthy of note is the progress of ESAs physical security upgrade project. The procurement process is nearing completion and through 2011 many measures will be taken to ensure that Agency sites are well equipped to respond to the needs of key projects that require enhanced security measures.

Sustainable Development
In March, ESA Council was presented with a Framework Policy on Sustainable Development, giving both a political signal to ESAs stakeholders and framing its future actions and associated indicators in the field of sustainability issues. This corporate policy encompasses three main areas of action: Environment and Energy, Programme Activities and Governance and Ethics. Regarding Environment and Energy, the Agency is committed towards the EU 20/20/20 target, i.e. 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, 20% improvement in energy efficiency and 20% of energy consumption to come from renewable resources by the year 2020. To this end, and following ESRIN in 2010, ESA will seek to have all its establishments ISO 14001-certified.

ESAs Sustainable Development report 200910

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legal affairs & external relations

In a year dominated by scientific and operational results, the challenge of translating these into interesting and appealing communication was met with great success. ESA has also continued to expand its cooperation with a wide range of international partners.

International Relations
European Union Member States
Romania and ESA completed the negotiations of the Accession Agreement to the ESA Convention with its approval by the December Council. The group of European Cooperating States (ECS) increased in 2010 with the signature of Slovenia in January and the related PECS Charter in November. Slovenia became an ECS after Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland and Estonia. A Cooperation Agreement was signed between ESA and the Slovak Republic in May and another one between ESA and Lithuania in October.

Canada

On 15 December, ESA Council approved a new ESA/Canada Cooperation Agreement covering another ten years of formal cooperation, which was signed the same day by the Director General and the President of the Canadian Space Agency. Cooperation with Canada continued in different multilateral settings, such as the ISS partnership and the Committee on Earth Observation.

United States

Cooperation continued with NASA on space science, covering the full spectrum of scientific domains, namely astrophysics, heliophysics and planetary science. In particular, the cooperation on the development of the James Webb Space Telescope progressed through new development stages. The definition of the Joint Mars Exploration Programme with NASA, covering both the 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions, proceeded. Bilateral and multilateral cooperation continued on ISS operations and utilisation. Discussions were held with NASA to further define future docking mechanism interfaces, and ISS lessons learned in view of future human exploration endeavours were identified. Five implementation plans were agreed under the ESA/NASA Memorandum of Understanding concerning cooperation in the field of space transportation. They will result in the sharing of technical and operational experience.

A permanent exhibition on European space programmes has been established in the Principe Felipe Science Museum of Valencia, Spain

Legal Affairs & External Relations

Neutron Spectrometer (MGNS) for ESAs BepiColombo mission were conducted well on schedule. ESAs Earth observation satellite CryoSat-2 was launched from Baikonur in April. The ESA Moscow Office celebrated its 15th anniversary. In September, a Protocol to the 1995 Agreement between ESA and the Russian government was signed which provides the legal basis for the VAT exemption of ESAs activities in Russia.

Japan

Mr Gregor Golobic (left), Slovenian Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, and ESAs Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations, Peter Hulsroj, sign the Cooperating State agreement

The Agency discussed bilaterally with NASA and multilaterally within the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) interests in globally coordinated human and robotic space exploration. A first ISECG reference architecture on human lunar exploration was presented in June. In line with the 2009 initiative to reinforce bilateral cooperation in Earth science and climate change research, ESA and NASA agreed on a framework for coordination and on detailed areas for cooperation. The Director General met the US Under Secretary of Commerce and Administrator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Dr Jane Lubchenco, in September. They discussed areas of mutual interest and potential cooperative programmes including future data sharing from planned ESA and NOAA missions. The dialogue with the US in the frame of the SSA Preparatory Programme continued with a view to preparing an international agreement on the US provision of space surveillance and tracking data and services and pursuing technical exchanges with the US regarding future data standardisation.

Due to an expected reform of the Japanese space sector, the 33rd ESA/Japan Annual Meeting was postponed until mid-2011. In the meantime, ESA and JAXA held a cooperation review meeting in June, which proved to be very fruitful to foster both information exchange and identification of actions pertaining to the implementation of current ESA/JAXA cooperation. Furthermore, ESA entertained throughout the year regular contacts with the Japanese Strategic Headquarters for Space Development, located in the Cabinet of the Prime Minister, with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and with the Space Activities Commission overseeing Janas activities. The development of the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), which is JAXAs contribution to the BepiColombo project, proceeded on schedule and is meeting all expectations. Cooperation on Hinode data access and ground support was extended. ESA confirmed its support for European scientists participation in the Japanese Astro-H mission definition team. Regular contacts were pursued regarding SPICA cooperation opportunities. In the field of technology, the implementation of the 2007 ESA/JAXA Agreement on Space Components in June 2007 made good progress and delivered many opportunities for information exchange and the definition for joint work plans for harmonisation. ESA/JAXA cooperation in Earth observation was expanded with the signature of an agreement in January to provide for the provision by JAXA of a Cloud Profiling Radar for the ESA EarthCARE mission. An agreement with JAXA was signed in 2010 regarding ESA access to data from the Japanese Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT), which was launched in January. JAXA hosted a meeting of the ISS Heads of Agency on 11 March 2010 in Tokyo. This meeting was an occasion for the ISS partnership to reaffirm the importance of a full exploitation of the ISS and to express a common intent to undertake necessary procedures in view of a decision to extend ISS operations and utilisation to 2020.

Russia

ESA and Russia maintained their close cooperation, mainly in the fields of human spaceflight and the installation of Soyuz launch facilities at CSG. Work progress was fully satisfactory. Cooperation on the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) aimed at the preparation of the launch of ATV Johannes Kepler in early 2011. ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli carried out his long-duration ISS mission starting with a launch on Soyuz TMA-20 in December. His six-month ISS mission (Expeditions 26/27) was a success, thanks in particular to the nominal performance of Russian and other partners systems. The primary phase of the Mars500 isolation study started in June. A crew of six, including two Europeans selected and supported by ESA, began simulating a 520-day flight to Mars at the Moscow Institute of Biomedical Problems. ESA prepared itself to provide ground station support for the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission, which had been postponed to until 2011. Compatibility tests were started in late 2010. Development and tests for the Russian Mercury Gamma-Ray and

China

An ESA/China bilateral meeting on space science was held in Chengdu in June 2010. The meeting was very successful with the two sides identifying new areas for future cooperation. Another highlight in the ESA/China relations was the Dragon Symposium held in Guilin in May. More than 300 European and Chinese scientists participated in the symposium and presented their latest results using both Chinese and European remote sensing Earth observation satellite data to conduct joint research in the 25 predefined areas.

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Annual Report 2010

India

The Director General and Dr K. Radhakrishnan, the new Chairman of ISRO, met for the first time in a bilateral meeting in Prague during the International Astronautical Congress. Information on latest developments was exchanged together with recognition of the ESA contribution to the ISRO Chandrayaan-1 lunar robotic mission and the new momentum given to ESA/ISRO bilateral relations with a dedicated review of Earth observation cooperation opportunities. The integration of Hylas-1 on an Indian platform was the main focus of technical cooperation throughout the year. Considering the plethora of applications in use in India, and their high standard, further areas of cooperation are being considered, in particular in areas like tele-medicine and teleeducation with African countries.

South Korea

The Director General and the President of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) met in October to discuss future cooperation. KARI was welcomed as a new member of the International Charter Space and Major Disasters. KARI recalled with satisfaction the launch of Ariane 5 in June carrying the first Korean Communications, Ocean, Meteorological satellite (COMS-1). The arrangement between ESA and KARI on launcher telemetry and tracking from Jeju Island was finalised and approved by the Korean government and by ESA Council in December. The Jeju tracking station will be used for future launches of Soyuz and Vega launchers.

Latin America

Following the signing of the Implementing Arrangement for the setting up of a Deep Space Antenna in Malarge, Argentina, ESA has worked intensively with the Argentinean authorities to secure the smooth implementation of this project. The Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE) requested ESA support from ESOC on ground operations and Launch and Early Orbit Phase capabilities. In November, ESA organised a technical visit to ESOC for INPE staff. On 1215 October, ESA representatives attended the 24th CEOS Plenary meeting in Rio de Janeiro.

Australia

Following the creation of an Australian Space Science Programme and a Space Policy Unit in the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research designated as the focal point for international space cooperation, discussions were actively pursued between ESA and Australia to sustain ESA ground stations assets and investments made in Western Australia with the objective to obtain required radio frequency clearance and protection. The Director General of ESA had a meeting with Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research during which various points were addressed and in particular new developments in ESA/Australia bilateral cooperation and the issue of radio frequency protection.

United Nations

As an observer to the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), ESA pursued its coordination role aimed at achieving common European positions in COPUOS and its subsidiary bodies. In 2010, ESA renewed its support for the series of workshops and training courses organised by the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs (OOSA) in the framework of the UN Programme on Space Applications.

Education and Knowledge Management

The European Student Earth Orbiter (ESEO) microsatellite project entered the Preliminary Design Review process at the end of the year and ESMO (the European Student Moon Orbiter) completed its System Requirements Review in July. Seven university CubeSat payloads for the Vega maiden flight progressed through qualification testing and onto flight model integration. Nine ESA-sponsored student experiments were launched on the REXUS/BEXUS sounding rocket and balloon flights from Kiruna, Sweden, in collaboration with SNSB/DLR. A new version of the software for the Global Education Network for Satellite Operations (GENSO) was developed. Regarding primary and secondary education, efforts concentrated on the start-up of a study for the continuation and enlargement of the ESERO project through funding schemes allowing wider participation from Member States. The Outreach unit completely restructured and restyled the Eduspace website, ESAs educational tool on Earth observation for secondary schools. The ESA Kids website also underwent a thorough revision, expanding the educational content of the site. In addition, the first ESA-wide knowledge management initiative was launched and the optimisation of the portfolio of publications and the consolidation of the new IT platform for libraries was undertaken.

Preparing for a BEXUS flight from Kiruna

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Legal Affairs & External Relations

Communication
Science
After the launch of Herschel and Planck in 2009, 2010 was always going to be a year dominated by scientific and operational results. This posed the challenge of translating science and operations into interesting and appealing communication a challenge that was met with great success, especially in the case of Herschel, Planck and Rosetta. One year after launch, the first Herschel results were presented at ESTEC in May. In July the first all-sky scan from Planck was published. A coordinated release and promotion strategy, in cooperation with partner space agencies and scientific institutes, paid rich dividends. The image enjoyed massive global coverage and the article on it became the second most read on the ESA web portal. Later in July, the Rosetta flyby of asteroid Lutetia generated massive global media coverage, particularly in Europe, the USA and Russia. The rapid publication of the first image of Lutetia, together with an effective social media campaign, produced outstanding results.

of Earth observation for disaster management, generating considerable media attention. In January, after the disastrous earthquake in Haiti, ESA published the first satellite map of the destruction to aid recovery efforts. In April, the eruption of the Eyjafjallajkull volcano in Iceland brought air traffic over Europe to a standstill ash-cloud mapping was provided by ESA and its partners and used by media. In May, the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had a tremendous impact on local ecosystems. Space technology and ESA satellites supported the observation of the spread of the oil spill and allowed the public to understand the situation.

Earth Observation

2010 was a successful year for Earth Observation at ESA with the launch of CryoSat-2. With this launch, following on from GOCE and SMOS in 2009, three Earth Explorer missions have been delivered within 12 months. This was unfortunately also a year in which major natural disasters led to widespread use

The Mars500 crew began their 520-day simulated mission to Mars in June

Volker Liebig, ESA Director of Earth Observation, at the Living Planet Symposium in June

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Annual Report 2010

The Living Planet Symposium took place in Bergen, Norway, in June. A significant deployment of communications means resulted in extensive coverage in major newspapers and online media. At the event, the SMOS satellite early results were presented.

Paolo Nespolis MagISStra mission was launched on 15 December with the docking to the ISS two days later. This mission, lasting six months, was highly successful in communication terms and led to an increased presence of ESA on social media channels.

Human spaceflight

Launchers

The last European-built ISS modules, Node-3 and Cupola, were launched on the Space Shuttle STS-130 mission in February, and a press trip was organised for international journalists to cover this important flight. In May, during the OasISS postflight tour, ESA astronaut Frank De Winne met European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, and handed over a European flag that had been carried to the ISS during his mission. Frank had used it in combination with the ESA flag as a backdrop for his message appealing to European citizens to make their voices heard at the 2009 elections to the European Parliament. One of the largest media events this year was the start of the Mars500 isolation study in Moscow in June. This event attracted 73 international journalists, and 1.9 million hits on the ESA web portal the following day. ESAs six new astronauts graduated in November during a ceremony at EAC with media from Germany, Denmark, France and the UK in attendance. ESA released the films shot during the 15 months of astronaut basic training, which were extensively used by the various national TV stations. Paolo Nespolis MagISStra mission was launched on 15 December

The 30th anniversary of Ariane provided the opportunity to develop a certain number of communication products and actions, in cooperation with CNES and Arianespace. A new corporate visual identity on ESA facilities in Kourou, French Guiana, was implemented resulting in enhanced ESA visibility, taking advantage of the imminent arrival of Soyuz and Vega at Europes Spaceport.

Paolo Nespoli began his six-month mission in December

ESA astronaut Frank De Winne presents a European flag from the ISS to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy

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Legal Affairs & External Relations

Technology

Communication on technology and space engineering was focused on ESAs technical innovation capabilities, as well as the successful spin-offs generated by the Technology Transfer Programme. Some successful technology transfer stories, demonstrating to decision-makers and the public the benefits of space and economic impact of such transfers, were communicated with the help of the Business Incubator networks. A new ESA Business Incubation Centre in Noordwijk was opened in April, with Dutch media covering the event.

Navigation

ESA supported the Galileo Application Days in Brussels in March. Galileo ground facilities were inaugurated, featuring in local media, at Redu (BE), Noumea (New Caledonia), Kiruna (SE) and Fucino (IT).

Telecommunications

One of the last significant communication events of the year was the launch of Hylas-1 on 26 November. In close cooperation with Avanti Communications, the communication campaign focused on Hylas-1 as an innovative mission and ESAs first public-private partnership resulting in a full satellite system. In addition, many professional events were organised by the programme, with the support of Communications, targeting industry, operators and users.

The Space for Earth pavilion at ILA was inaugurated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel

International exhibitions and corporate events

The year was particularly rich in terms of corporate events and exhibitions. As usual, ESA participated, together with DLR and the German aerospace industry association, BDLI, in the ILA Air and Space Show, in September. The joint pavilion, called Space for Earth, was officially inaugurated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The pavilion won the Gold Galaxy Award in New York as the best world pavilion in a trade show. ESA was present with an exhibition stand at Farnborough International Air Show in July, together with the UK Space Agency and ASI. ESA was also present with an exhibition stand at the International Aeronautical Congress in September in Prague, Czech Republic.

entertainment system was extended to routes covering North and South America as well as Africa. In 2010, a license agreement was signed with Imaginarium Toys. Through this agreement, 18 ESA-inspired products were made available in over 350 shops worldwide.

Internet

Exhibitions for the public and related events

A permanent exhibition on European space programmes was put in place by the Principe Felipe Science Museum of Valencia (ES) with the support of ESA. The experience has proved extremely worthwhile because information on ESA is prominently displayed in a museum that has received 25 million visitors in 10 years of existence. The concept of this exhibition can be reused by other European institutions in cooperation with national delegations.

Social media is becoming increasingly prominent in the dissemination of information. Twitter is a useful tool, in particular for media. ESAs Twitter account was launched in February and, after only 10 months, had reached almost 12 000 followers. A particular effort was made this year to webstream ESA communication events. Webstreaming vastly improves outreach to the general public, interested followers and media and, at the same time, reduces costs. Complemented by promotion on channels such as Twitter and Facebook, this is providing impressive results.

Partnerships and cooperation

The French and Flemish versions of the ESA planetarium show Touching the Edge of the Universe opened in June in Brussels. Lufthansa received the second series of ESA films to be shown on its brand new A380 long-distance aircraft. Passengers can choose between a large selection of Envisat pictures and a collection of short videos on recent ESA missions. A cooperation with Air France in which satellite images of the areas being overflown are shown to passengers via the onboard

Lufthansa passengers can enjoy a range of ESA images

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Annual Report 2010

Legal Affairs & Decision-Making Process

The Working Group on the ESA Decision-Making Process established in 2009 under the chairmanship of Laurens Jan Brinkhorst had been entrusted with the additional task of defining a range of possible remedies for the institutional issues it had identified earlier. It gave a preliminary account of its findings in the March 2010 Council meeting and presented its final report and recommendations addressing an array of issues and opportunities for improvement related to decision-making in the June Council meeting. At the request of Council, the Working Groups conclusions and recommendations have been translated into a draft Code of Conduct on how to conduct business in the future within the framework set by the Convention.

Main Communication events in 2010

Huygens Legacy and Future Titan Exploration 315 January, Cosmocaixa, Barcelona Spanish Presidency of the EU, Campus Party Europe 1518 April, Madrid Oceanology International 911 March, London ESA Huygens material on display during international conference organised to mark the fifth anniversary of the Huygens landing. In coordination with CDTI, an exhibit showcasing ESA, ExoMars and European participation in the ISS, inaugurated by the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation. ESA supported the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission in an exhibition pavilion at this international conference showcasing satellites as a fundamental part of a Global Ocean Observing System. Exhibition of ESA space applications for monitoring the oceans and coastal zones in cooperation with the International Oceanographic Commission. ESA exhibition on space applications and Earth observation, with Alphasat scale model display. With DLR and the association of German aerospace industry (BDLI), ESA participated in the Space Pavilion at the German air and space show. ESA hosted a dedicated Space Zone and exhibition stand with the UK Space Agency and ASI. A Space Day meeting was held for the new UK Minister of State for Universities and Science David Willetts, the Italian Minister and chair of ESA Council, the Heads of ESA and the UK Space Agency and leaders of industry. ESA exhibition stand to inform visitors about todays European space programmes.

World Oceans Day 8 June, UNESCO, Paris Toulouse Space Show 811 June, Toulouse Internationale Luft und Raumfahrtausstellung (ILA) 813 June, Berlin Farnborough International Air Show 1925 July, Farnborough, UK

UK Minister of State for Universities and Science David Willetts (left) with Director Genereal Jean-Jacques Dordain at the Farnborough air show

ESA Security Ofce

After successful inspections by the Security Office, the Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations, in his capacity as ESA System Accreditation Authority, has accredited the T Building at ESTEC for the hosting of Galileo classified facilities and the ESTEC satellite test facilities to support the testing by industry of the four Galileo IOV satellites. Additional accreditation activities have started at ESTEC for the construction of the PRS Laboratory and the accreditation of the CDF to handle classified information, at Redu for the IOT facility and PRS receiver, and at ESOC for the IOV Launch and Early Operations Phase (LEOP). The construction of a zone 5 at ESOC in support of secure LEOP is being addressed. An ESA Generic PSI (Programme Security Instructions) has been produced by the Security Office and approved by the ESA Council as an addition to a specific programmes implementing rules. It thus establishes a formal method to add the formal protection of classification to a programme. This procedure was immediately used by the ESA GNSS Evolution Programme.

International Aeronautical Congress (IAC) 27 September 1 October, Prague Conference on A new Space Policy for Europe 2627 October, Brussels World Science Day for Peace and Development 10 November, UNESCO, Paris Exploring the Universe, Space for Earth 24 November, Valencia, Spain Fourth Portuguese Space Forum 7 December, Lisbon

ESA exhibition at the European Parliament; ESA was the only institution authorised by the European Parliament to deploy an exhibition at the conference. ESA exhibition showing how space science and technology supports decision-makers in their efforts to improve planning for development, opened by Getachew Engida, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO. A permanent exhibition on European space programmes organised for the 10th anniversary of the Principe Felipe Science Museum with ESA support. With the Portuguese delegation, ESA supported this event at the Pavilho do Conhecimento to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Portugal becoming an ESA Member State. This event was attended by the Portuguese Science Minister, Jose Mariano Gago and ESA Director General, JeanJacques Dordain.

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resources management & industrial matters

Human resources, corporate controlling, finance and procurement functions are of fundamental importance to the Agency. In 2010, the Financial Management Reform was delivered and introduced a major change in the way planning and reporting is performed in the Agency.

Human Resources
Human Resources Policy
Some 2200 ESA staff members are working together in Programme and Support Directorates, complemented by contractor personnel on site. It is their expertise that allows ESA to undertake its missions and to go beyond the current level of knowledge. It is their diversity, in terms of professional background, nationality, gender and age, which opens the door to new and creative solutions to the complex questions that the Agency faces. The Human Resources (HR) Department aims to ensure that staff have the right competences to achieve ESAs objectives while encouraging staff motivation and offering the means for all staff members to develop to their full potential. ESA employs staff in a variety of knowledge domains, recruiting from the large and diverse pool of talent, both within the European space industry and research institutes. Often staff will join ESA after having worked in industry for some years and being therefore equipped with a good understanding of how ESAs industrial partners do their business. Most staff members work for ESA for a substantial part of their professional lives. ESA careers that cover 20 years and more are not an exception and the attrition rate of the Agency is comparably low (35 %). To support staff in their professional development and to allow for a career in ESA is an important responsibility of HR and ESA managers.

Staff Training and Development

A wide range of training and development activities was made available to ESA staff members in 2010. These include activities centrally driven by the Internal University to serve corporate needs and priorities, and those instigated locally in each Establishment in response to the job needs identified by staff members and their managers as a result of the annual assessment exercise. Training activities cover a broad spectrum, from in-house courses/seminars designed to meet ESA specific requirements to the funding of individual staff members participation in external professional or academic programmes. A balance between technical and non-technical training is always

Resources Management & Industrial Matters

carefully evaluated to ensure that ESA staff develop a range of competencies appropriate to working in the Agency environment. In 2010, the Internal University offered about 15 programmes responding to different corporate priorities, such as reinforcing the Agencys managerial and leadership capability, expanding staff knowledge about the Agencys functioning and promoting the harmonisation of practice and exchange of expertise. Two Newcomer Integration Programmes were offered in January and July 2010 respectively to provide newly recruited staff with an understanding of the Agencys environment and functioning. As a result of the Financial Management Reform introduction, 2010 was marked by the considerable amount of time dedicated by some ESA staff members to becoming acquainted with the new financial environment, including the use of SAP.

the project team has consolidated further HR processes down to the SAP HR transaction in order to guarantee optimum data reliability in real time. In parallel, the HR process review is under way. This will provide ESA with a catalogue of all HR processes duly documented in a standard ESA format. Finally, the Director General decided in late 2010 that the HR Department would henceforth not only monitor the number of staff, but also the size of the population of individually selected contractor personnel. Furthermore, a reduction in this population (2.5% in man-years) will be implemented in 2011. The list of ESA generic jobs has been revised by the WFM project team, and all A- and B-grade staff and contractors have been mapped to this list.

Workforce Management

In early 2010, the Workforce Management (WFM) team had to renegotiate the contract with the industrial partner. Despite this, during the year important project milestones were achieved: the WFM Planning model was consolidated (the results of three hands-on sessions organised for the Directorates in November demonstrated that the project is on the right track); the rationalisation and optimisation of HR reporting for various user communities, using a new technology available on SAP HR, has been achieved with very positive feedback from users; a new application has been developed on SAP to forecast the ESA workforce (very important for multi-year planning);

Trainee and Internal Research Fellows Programmes

While professional experience from previous work in industry is an import asset, ESA also focuses on attracting young professionals and scientists at the beginning of their careers.

The ESA Young Graduate Trainee (YGT) programme provides hands-on experience to young graduates from ESA Member and Cooperating States who have recently obtained Masters level degrees in one of ESAs technical fields of specialisation and who have no professional experience as yet. This oneyear, on-the-job training experience helps trainees embark on a career in research or the space industry. In selecting

Participants in the Newcomers Integration Programme visit to ESOC in January

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Annual Report 2010

candidates, a conscious effort is made to attract more women to scientific and engineering fields, and also to attract graduates from as many ESA Member and Cooperating States as possible. Particular efforts have been made to raise the interest of potential candidates from under-represented Member States through, for instance, extensive participation in job fairs. Out of the 2065 applicants to the YGT Programme, 75 candidates from 14 different nationalities (33% of these new recruits being women and 67% men) received an offer following their successful interviews. In total, 165 YGTs worked at ESA during the year, for a total 88 man-years. ESAs Internal Research Fellow Programme is a postdoctoral research fellowship programme that offers scientists and engineers the opportunity to carry out advanced research in a variety of disciplines related to space science, space applications and space technology. This programme welcomed 24 new recruits. In total, 69 Postdoctoral Research Fellows were in post at ESA during the year, for a total of 40 man-years. The National Trainee programmes, offering practical experience in space applications to young graduates within the framework of bilateral agreements with Spain, Portugal, Greece and Germany, continued their activities. A new framework for the Spanish Trainee programme, now under the Ministry of Science and Innovation, was introduced in 2010. The first 10 Spanish trainees recruited in the new framework will take up duty in 2011. The selection of 10 Portuguese trainees was completed, but take-up of duty was delayed until the beginning of 2011 for budgetary reasons. Five Greek trainees recruited in 2009 were granted six-month extensions, and a new call for opportunities was launched for 10 new trainees to be recruited in 2011. The first batch of 11 German trainees took up duty and the selection of the second batch was completed by the end of the year.

Secondments

In recent years an increasing number of secondments have taken place at ESA. These concern either ESA staff members being seconded to external entities, or people from external entities being seconded to ESA. The secondment mechanism is a valuable tool for cross-fertilisation and to create synergies between ESA, national agencies and industry, as well as to reinforce complementarities in the European space sector. Furthermore, the seconded person benefits from enriching hands-on experience and insight into the functioning of partner institutions, and gets an opportunity to develop their professional network. Secondments are based on agreements between an external entity and ESA. In the vast majority of cases, the people concerned maintain their existing contractual relationship with the parent organisation and do not become staff members of the organisation to which they are seconded. The HR Department is responsible for administering secondments and is in charge of the preparation and followup of secondments in close cooperation with the Directorate concerned. This involves the negotiation and drafting of legal documents with the external entity, funding arrangements, assessment, career planning and reintegration.

Equal Opportunities and Diversity Policy

The purpose of diversity management at ESA is to create an inclusive environment that enables people to perform at the highest level and feel professionally fulfilled. Since 2001, ESAs commitment has been official, with the adoption by the Ministerial Council in Edinburgh of a policy on gender equality and diversity. ESA has made significant strides in two key areas that are central to its commitment to equal opportunity: gender balance, and social and cultural diversity. Pascale Depr, who was the Senior Advisor on Diversity and Equal Opportunities at ESA for many years, set high standards in this area of activity. As a result, women now represent 17.4% of ESAs A-grade population in 2010 compared to 8.5% in 2002. ESA has been participating in the European WHIST project, which consists of a coordinated set of activities involving networking, awareness-raising, experimentation and knowledge transfer between different kinds of scientific organisations in different countries, as well as between scientific organisations and decision-makers. A new training programme on managing diversity was developed by the Internal University and is to be delivered in all ESA establishments from 2011 onwards to ESA managers.

Secondments offer enriching hands-on experience, insights into the functioning of partner institutions and an opportunity to develop professional networks

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Resources Management & Industrial Matters

Pensions

A New Pension Scheme (NPS) was introduced on 1 July and applies to all staff taking up duties from that date. The NPS is intended to better harmonise certain parameters with changing social trends and pension reforms in other international organisations, and to help contain rising costs. The NPS in particular sets the age required to draw a pension with no reduction at 63. Together with the pension reform, the ESA employment contract policy was amended so as to raise the age-limit for indefiniteterm contracts for new staff joining ESA after 1 July 2010 from 60 to 63, while maintaining the possibility for all staff to be granted limit-term contracts from 63 to 65 and, in some exceptional cases, up to 67.

Sustainable Resources Management

Sustainable Resources Management aims to increase the sustainability of ESA and its processes in terms of an efficient use of resources. This years activities have been focused on support related to the restructuring of ESAs IT services, on a pilot project concerning more-efficient and team-oriented office accommodation, and on the elaboration and approval of guidelines for business travel and the related changes in the mission instructions. Further, a comprehensive report was drawn up on the long-term evolution of the ESA wage bill (200009), including the influence of various factors. Preparatory activities were undertaken for a qualitative analysis of strengths and weaknesses of ESAs technical matrix structure; for an optimisation of general and administrative processes, reflecting best practices in other organisations; and for the improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of two laboratories. Eventually, significant input from several of these activities was provided to the Austerity Working Group.

Statistics

Pensions At the end of 2010, there were 1177 pension recipients, compared with 1139 at the end of 2009. Staff At the end of 2010, ESA had 2181 staff in post (permanent and advanced recruitments). There were 138 recruitments of permanent and advanced recruitment staff in 2010, distributed as follows: 133 external recruitments 5 staff integrated as advanced recruitments or permanent staff.

Procurement and Industrial Policy

Industrial Policy
2010 saw the issuing of regulatory documents to sustain the procurement reform agreed by the Ministerial Council in 2008: in June, Council adopted the Procurement Regulations to replace the Contracts Regulations, as well as the new General Clauses and Conditions for ESA contracts. By early 2011, an updated Tender Evaluation Manual will be published. By that time, the bulk of the reform will be over with all the relevant documents, rules and regulations approved and in place. In accordance with Article IV.5 of Annex V to the Convention and with the 2005 Council decision to achieve a minimum overall Return Coefficient of 0.94 for each Member State, the Formal Review of the geographical distribution of Contracts for the period 20059 took place in 2010. Furthermore, in June Council adopted a Resolution on the return coefficient, discontinuation of geographical return statistics and the Strategic Initiative which comprises a set of decisions, including: (i) new lower limit values for the cumulative return coefficient at end-2012 (0.95) and end-2014 (0.96), (ii) a discontinuation of return statistics at end-2014 to be confirmed early 2013 and (iii) the launch of a Strategic Initiative to find a robust solution to geographical return issues. This initiative is carried out through appropriate industrial policy actions aimed at having a structural, sustainable effect on industrial and technical capabilities in the medium to long term.

Member States
Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg The Netherlands Norway Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom Total

Hors Classe
1 1 3 1

A
37 83 3 21 15 409 351 16 18 363 2 62 22 21 166 38 26 192 1845

B
2 7 1 5 90 59 2 10 30 23 2 2 8 4 3 25 273

Total Sta
39 91 3 23 20 517 416 18 28 395 2 86 24 23 174 42 29 221 2151

10 5

2 1

1 10

3 18

Industrial Relations

Non-Member States
Canada Grand Total 10 28 1873 18 2 275 5 30 2181

As recommended by the IPC, the main focus of the activities in the period was the analysis of the European space industry and its evolution with the important objective of collecting the required information in preparation for the next Ministerial Council. Several studies were prepared and initiated to: analyse the situation of the European space industry, as well as the main trends in the period 200810 and deviations with respect to previous periods;

ESA staffing as at 31 December 2010

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Annual Report 2010

develop scenarios to assess likely evolutions of the European space sector in the near- and mid-term (horizon 2020+), and assess the roles ESA could play in each case. These studies are expected to help draw up substantiated recommendations contributing to the reform of ESA industrial, programmatic and procurement policies. The related activities and plans were presented and discussed by the IPC on a regular basis. The Industry Outlook (Entity Management) tool was used during 2010 as the industry interface for registration on EMITS, providing a unique source of structured information available ESA-wide. In 2010, 510 new companies registered with the tool with 446 companies making updates to their profiles.

In the area of the Plan for European Cooperating States (PECS), the contractual documentation has been improved and the placing of PECS agreements has continued on a steady basis. With respect to new Members States, all contracts from previous Announcements of Opportunity in Greece and the Czech Republic were placed. New Announcements of Opportunity were issued in Greece and the Czech Republic.

Science

Procurement Auditing

In Science and Robotic Exploration, efforts were devoted to the covering of activities relating to ExoMars Phase-B2 Extension 2, in line with international cooperation agreements and the resulting rebaselined configuration. This included selection of a series of subcontractors, through the Best Practices procedure. Also, the procurement policy for the Cosmic Vision M-class Solar Orbiter mission was devised and implemented through a Request for Quotation with a staggered selection of the industrial consortium. The industrial offer received has been evaluated. Finally, an agreement was found on the rebaselining of LISA Pathfinder and BepiColombo and the related intellectual property issues.

Following the approval in 2008 by Council of the ESA Procurement Regulations, the audit rights for ESA in relation to industrial costs were formalised. During the year, the related Implementing Instruction concerning the ESA Industrial Costs Audits, as well as the new General Clauses and Conditions for ESA Contracts, were approved by Council in June. Annex 1 to the new General Clauses and Conditions for ESA Contracts provides for the rules on allowable and non-allowable costs, which is a key instrument in ensuring an ESA audit process that provides fair and equal conditions for all companies doing business with ESA. Another very important activity was the initiation of a coordination of industrial cost auditing activities between Member States and ESA, the process of which will be formalised by means of bilateral and/or trilateral arrangements between ESA and those Member States having requested such coordination. To this extent it was also decided to install a permanent IPC Expert Group dealing with subjects related to industrial cost auditing. With respect to launcher-related audit activities, a major effort was undertaken, in addition to the recurring EGAS audit process, which concerned the comparison of the evolution of prices between batches PA and PB of the main companies involved in Ariane production. The outcome was presented to the Launchers Programme Board delegations in June, the main conclusions of which were later confirmed once again by the due diligence process conducted.

Education

The PDR process for the ESMO Moon orbiter mission was started, and the close-out is expected in 2011. Subject to completion of the review, negotiations will start for the placement of the Phase-C/D/E1 contract, expected in 2013. The placement of the Phase C/D/E1 contract for the ESEO Earth orbiter mission is the subject of a separate tender action whose preparation has started and will be issued in 2011.

Earth Observation

Procurement activities

In Earth Observation, major efforts were devoted to the evaluation of the industrial offers received in response to the competitive invitation to tender for Meteosat Third Generation, in line with the particular procurement approach that had been devised, building on the principles approved at the Ministerial Council in November 2008, and aimed at maximising competition at prime and subcontractor level. Pursuant to the successful negotiation with the recommended contractor and approval of the corresponding Contract Proposal by the Industrial Policy Committee in June, the industrial activities were formally started in November. The invitation to tender for the GMES Sentinel-4 instrument, to be flown on Meteosat Third Generation, was issued and the evaluation of the industrial offer received was completed. The parallel contracts for Sentinel-5 precursor, both satellites and systems, were signed. Very fruitful exchanges took place with the European Commission on ways to tailor the ESA procurement process, so as to make it an even more effective tool in implementing the European Space Policy at the service of ESA/EU cooperation. The selection of subcontractors for the EarthCARE satellite contract progressed further, and the negotiations relating to contract for the Jason-CS satellite were satisfactorily concluded.

More than 630 Invitations to Tender (ITTs) were sent to industry during 2010, of which 320 were in open competition and 309 in direct negotiation. 3060 contract actions were initiated by ESA in 2010: 952 Main Contracts 31 Riders 199 Work Orders 1878 Contract Change Notices

Strategic Initiative, PECS and new Member States

In support of the Strategic Initiative, Announcements of Opportunity for industry in Norway and Ireland were launched and proposals evaluated with the placing of the selected contracts under way.

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Resources Management & Industrial Matters

On SEOSAT/Ingenio, efforts concentrated on the selection of the subcontractors and on the devising, in cooperation with CDTI, of the procurement approach for the Ground Segment and the preparation and release of the according Request for Quotation. Regarding Ground System Software-Related Activities (201014) [100 million], the Competitive Frame Contracts came into effect in June. The second and third quarters of 2010 were therefore dedicated to implementing the new structure of these contracts. Under these Competitive Frame Contracts, the Agency has reserved the right to review and update the list of Qualified Partners whenever deemed appropriate. In 2010, two such QPA Reevaluation Exercises took place. The ITT for the Engineering Manpower Support Frame Contract responding to the requirements of an entire Department (OPS-G) has been issued and all contracts have been awarded. The ITT related to Data Warehouse (201013), funded under the ESA/EC Delegation Agreement, was issued and its evaluation and the awarding of contracts will take place in 2011. This ITT is very different from the usual ESA procurements as the core contractual provisions are related to IPR and data license conditions. This ITT is the continuation of the data access activities started under the ESA/EC grant. Also worth mentioning are the successful negotiations of the Sentinel-1, -2 and -3 Core Payload Data Ground Segment, as well as the finalisation of the placing of all contracts under the Climate Change Initiative.

On ATV, achievements included the finalisation of the contract with Roscosmos for the support to operations of ATV-3. In addition, two major procurement actions were completed, relating to ATV-2 Engineering Support Team and Design authority tasks, and ATV-2 Operations respectively. On the Advanced Reentry Vehicle (ARV) Phase-A procurement, selection of subcontractors progressed, with the attempt to maximise competition while securing efficiency of the process, in view of both the stage and the nature of the activities considered. Finally, the contract for Lunar Lander Phase-B1 was concluded.

Navigation

Following the initiation of the Competitive Dialogue for the Galileo FOC phase in 2008 with the selected candidates, the Agency, acting on behalf of the European Commission, has carried on an intensive and constructive dialogue with the candidates of the six main work packages leading to the signature of five major contracts. In January, two frame contracts for satellite procurement were signed, with Astrium GmbH and OHB System AG, including a first order of 14 satellites with the latter, then a contract with Arianespace for the procurement of Launch Services and a System support contract with Thales Alenia Space Italy. Later in the year a frame contract was signed with SpaceOpal, a joint venture between DLR and Telespazio, to cover all Galileo Operations for the IOV and FOC phase, including CNES and ESOC in charge of the Launch and Earth Operations Phase. The remaining main contracts for Ground Mission and Ground Control will be placed mid-2011 following consolidation of the IOV activities.

Telecommunication

Launchers

Implementation of the frame contracts for the Ariane 5 Research and Technology Accompaniment (ARTA) Programme: work orders for an overall price of 178 million were placed, of which 70 million were related to ground segment activities. A key procurement in the Future Launchers Preparatory Programme was the CUST 1.2 contract with Astrium GmbH as prime contractor for a total price of 20 million, which aims to provide in-flight and post-flight data resulting from Texus experiment flights and to develop and identify other technologies. In parallel to the final ground segment and launch vehicle development activities for the European small launcher Vega, several procurement activities were completed for the preparation of VERTA demonstration flights. Two important launch service agreements were signed. For Earth Observations Swarm mission, a launch service agreement was signed with Eurockot for 27 million and its generic backup for 20 million. The second important launch service agreement was signed for the Earth observation radar satellite Sentinel-1A with Arianespace in December for 67 million.

The ITT for Phase-B/C/D/E1 of the European Data Relay System was issued in February. Based on the only Best And Final Offer received, negotiations of this PublicPrivate Partnership with Astrium GmbH began in October with a view to kick off in April 2011 and signature of the contract no later than June. One of many complexities stems from the need to fly third-party payloads in order to achieve the necessary financial cover. The Agencys first PublicPrivate Partnership was entered with Avanti Communications Ltd to build the Hylas satellite. In November, five years and two months after the IPCs approval, the satellite was launched on an Ariane 5 and will be operational in March 2011.

Technology: Project for Onboard Autonomy

With respect to Proba-3, the technical activities continued under PATP, while the rebaselining of the project was taking place. With Spain taking an increased share in the programme, it was agreed that the prime role would be taken over by Sener. The tendering, evaluation and negotiation process was implemented during the year, with Sener to sign the contract in early 2011. For Proba-V work proceeded and the conversion from ceiling price to firmfixed price for Phases-C/D/E1 was negotiated.

General procurement

Human Spaceflight

In Human Spaceflight, and more specifically concerning ISS Exploitation, efforts concentrated on the preparation and release of the Request for Proposal to industry for the tasks to be performed during the 201112 timeframe.

The review of the manpower procurement approach was completed and a rationalised procurement approach was approved by the IPC, grouping and harmonising the manpower procurement for all Directorates present at ESTEC. The ITT was finalised for release in early 2011. The procurements regarding facility management at ESTEC were rationalised and grouped into two large ITTs issued in 2010.

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Annual Report 2010

Industrial activity and evolution of industrial return

Industrial activity included in the fair return statistics of the Agency increased during 2010, with some 1.52 billion1 of contracts committed with European and Canadian industry during the year. Application programmes (Telecommunications, Navigation and Earth Observation) accounted for about 20.6% of the total

committed value, 28% was related to Launchers, 19% to Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration, 16% to Scientific and Robotic Exploration, 0.8% to Space Situational Awareness, and 6% to Technology, with the remaining 8.8% to the General Budget and incentive schemes.
1 Amounts committed with industry in the Galileo IOV and GMES SC programmes are not yet included in the return statistics at the end of 2010, pending completion of the programmes following the relevant Council decisions.

0.6% 0.8% 0.8% 3% 6% 6% 6% 8% 13% 13% 14% 28%

Slovenia Czech Republic Hungary Romania Poland Greece Luxembourg Ireland Portugal Canada Finland Norway Sweden Denmark Austria Netherlands Switzerland Spain Belgium United Kingdom Italy Germany France

Navigation Other programmes Space Situational Awareness Robotic Exploration Microgravity Telecommunications Technology General Budget Science Human Spaceight Earth Observation Launchers

0.002% 0.01% 0.01% 0.02% 0.04% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.4% 0.5% 0.9% 1.2% 1.3% 1.3% 2.5% 3.8% 4.1% 8.0% 11.9% 15.6% 23.4 23.9
69

Commitments made to industry in 2010 per programme and per state

Resources Management & Industrial Matters

Finance and Corporate Controlling

The Financial Management Reform was delivered at the beginning of 2010 with the aim of introducing major changes in the way planning and reporting is performed in the Agency. The adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) implied not only a change from cash to accruals based accounting, but also to the implementation of a comprehensive cost accounting system for internal management and control of costs. Consequently, actuals are reported in costs incurred as opposed to expenditure on a disbursement basis. The principal difference between cost and cash accounting is that cost is recognised in the accounts upon delivery of service or goods or predefined contractual milestone achievement. In the section below, all reported amounts correspond to cost accrued during the 2010 financial period. As 2010 was the first year of implementation of the new Financial Model compliant with IPSAS and with a new Chart of Accounts, the figures are not directly comparable with those for 2009.

Financial Management Reform

The SAP-based tool (ESA-P) supporting the Financial Management Reform (FINREF) was deployed within ESA in February and to industry in March. After more than two years of process definition there were only one and a half years left to implement the solution, which could not be fully tested and validated before entering into operation. In view of the number of blocking issues, a stabilisation campaign of defect correction and process tuning was initiated to allow ESA to perform its normal business. Nevertheless, with increased effort and resources, about 4 billion could be paid to industry and about the same in procurement actions. However, the last element in the chain with all necessary reporting capabilities could not be stabilised. Stabilisation activities combined with improvements activities will have to carry on in 201113. Special emphasis will be given to process simplification to allow a more effective utilisation of the tool.

Costs

Resources Processes Governance Ofce

The Resources Processes Governance Office initiated its activities by establishing and running the Demand Management Process, initially mostly in support of the FINREF project. With Demand Management, the business processes of the Agency were reviewed and updated in a structured and configurationcontrolled manner. The Office also supervised the drafting and approval of the related documentation. The Office extended its activities by initiating the design of processes related to Work Force Management and e-Procurement in order to ensure a proper integration with the existing ESA corporate process map. The Office also supports the processes and documentation definition of the IMS project. OTHER
70.20 M 2%

ESA's total costs in 2010 amounted to 3709 million. Around 86% of ESAs 2010 costs were incurred in industrial contracts in the Member States for research or project-related activities, the running of technical or operational facilities, technical assistance and IT.

Income

ESA Mandatory Activities are, as in the 2009 Annual Report, the General Budget, the Associated Budget and the Scientific Programme. The percentages that appear in this table are not the scale of contribution to the Mandatory Activities, but the observed scale of contribution, for example Canada contributes only to the General Budget and not to the Scientific Programme. RUNNING COST
77.30 M 2%

TOTAL
Cost per function

3709 M
4
INDUSTRIAL COSTS
2384.90 M 64% Costs per function in 2010

EXTERNAL SERVICES

806.50 M 22%

STAFF COST
370.30 M 10%

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Annual Report 2010

2010 Mandatory Activities

Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom Total Member States Canada Hungary Poland Romania Estonia Total Cooperating States Total ESA 0.76% 2.09% 2.88% 0.81% 1.65% 1.32% 17.64% 20.17% 1.74% 1.16% 12.11% 0.22% 4.48% 2.14% 1.16% 7.69% 2.55% 3.18% 16.26% 99.24%

Optional Programmes
1.69% 6.62% 0.21% 0.93% 0.45% 26.39% 23.31% 0.18% 0.32% 14.18% 0.44% 3.00% 2.13% 0.50% 6.66% 2.07% 3.24% 6.58% 98.91%

0.76%

0.78% 0.10% 0.06% 0.10% 0.06% 1.09%

100.00%

100.00%

Contributions from Member and Cooperating States to ESAs Mandatory Activities and Optional Programmes in 2010

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future & plans

Preparing for the future is an essential part of ESA activities, from the General Studies Programme and the various scenarios proposed under the Long-Term Plan, to developing ESA sites and infrastructure to meet the Agencys long-term strategic priorities and objectives.

General Studies Programme

Following a range of activities in 2009, an ESA-internal refunding mechanism has been put in place, agreed at the Ministerial Council of 2008, to allow the General Studies Programme (GSP) to conduct an even larger number of activities for the definition and preparation of the Agencys future. As a result, system studies such as the seventh Earth Explorer mission were initiated together with the analysis of synergies between future Earth Explorers and telecom technologies. The European Data Relay System (EDRS) was supported into its Phase-A2, while the studies for the Mand L-class Science missions pre-selected in the frame of Cosmic Vision 201525 have come to completion. Phase-A studies have also been initiated by the Human Spaceflight Directorate for the definition of the Lunar Lander mission and associated payloads. Interdisciplinary activities covered a large number of scientific and technical domains directly or indirectly supporting future space missions (e.g. aerobraking techniques, onboard autonomy, chemistry climate interactions, radiative transfer modelling, reentry analyses) while in some cases allowing new perspectives for science from space across different ESA programmes. In addition, the internal biannual Call for Ideas was carried out. Some 200 proposals from nearly 500 staff were received. Selected activities (more than 60) will be implemented in 2011 and 2012 and will cover a broad range of topics ranging from the understanding and modelling of physical phenomena to advanced future technologies. Following the successful first ATV mission and its reentry, a number of studies have begun to characterise the reentry phase and fragmentation events. Together with the knowledge of the debris environment, efforts have been put in place to understand our close environment better and identify mitigation strategies.

Aiming for the Moon: studies were initiated for the definition of the Lunar Lander mission and associated payloads

Future & Plans

A fiery end for ATV Jules Verne in 2008: a number of studies began to characterise the reentry phase of the Automated Transfer Vehicle and fragmentation events

Advanced Concepts Team

In 2010, the Advanced Concepts Team (ACT) strengthened its contribution to the preparation of the future of ESA by scientifically exploring advanced concepts, techniques and working methods that are still beyond the scope of regular ESA activities and projects. The ACT expanded its research areas by adding advanced economic modelling to its general research areas (biomimetics, fundamental physics, computer science and applied mathematics, mission analysis, computational management science, artificial intelligence and advanced energy systems). As these themes evolve over time, the ACTs competence base and topics are constantly adapted to the evolving needs of ESA. The methodology of the team, based on dynamic interdisciplinary cooperation among a core team of young temporary researchers, and expanded on a case-by-case basis via a broad network of European academic expertise, is increasingly recognised as a successful model. Internal and collaborative research with academia are at the core of ACT activities, providing the basis for broadening ESA horizons towards new

areas, offering an entry point for innovative academic research ideas, bridging these to operational technical expertise while deriving strategic directions from research progress. The ACT also explored emerging new methods related to scientific crowdsourcing and open governance research. In this context, four open-source projects were selected by Google Inc. and funded through its Summer of Code initiative, providing the team with valuable insight into the mechanisms implemented within that innovative community. Scientific crowdsourcing was further explored during World Space Week, with the ACT launching its first crowdsourcing/citizen-scientist experiment. This competition attracted a record of over 5000 participating users submitting 2000 solutions. In addition to providing internal reports, the team continues to maintain regular information exchange contacts with European industry, allowing these to fully benefit from ACT research. Finally, the team performed and published research in a range of different areas. All of the teams 36 scientific publications are available at www.esa.int/act.

The ACT team at ESTEC in 2010

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Annual Report 2010

Long-term Planning and Performance Management

The Agencys Long-Term Plan (LTP) 201120, presented to Council in December, which includes ESA strategic objectives and priorities in the context of the European Space Policy and the set of programmes to implement them, reflects three different long-term programmatic scenarios based on assumptions relevant to funding availability from ESA Member States and from the EU. These three scenarios, besides taking into account uncertainties linked to the financial resources to be dedicated by the EU to space, also considered the consolidation of Europes role within a global vision for exploration as well as the future of the European launcher sector. In line with the March Council decision, and in order to reinforce the Agency-wide perspective as well as provide guidance on prioritisation of activities at domain level, Programme Boards and Committees received the draft ESA LTP as a background document in October and November. The LTP also took into account the new Agency financial management model that entered into force in January through the new Financial Regulations. Though taking on board the majority of the requirements, additional work is required to adapt the financial part of the LTP to the new financial model, especially considering that the ERP system adopted had not been completely stabilised in 2010. Common infrastructure investments, workforce planning and the Director Generals assessment of the risks linked to longterm objectives were then included in the LTP with the purpose of reinforcing the Agencys strategic framework and providing Member States with a global picture of the way in which objectives would be achieved. Performance management based on LTP-related objectives has been running a pilot phase approved by Council in 2008. Selected Key Performance Indicators have been monitored and measured.

Phase-A studies were initiated by the Human Spaceflight Directorate for the definition of the Lunar Lander mission

The requirements aimed at their automatic calculation within the new ERP system were integrated in the frame of the Financial Management Reform project.

Agency-level Risk Management

ESA is implementing Agency-level risk management in support of strategic planning and decision-making processes to guarantee its capabilities and preparedness in setting objectives and pursuing their success. A pilot phase was initiated in mid-2009 and continued in 2010 to assess those threats that endanger the fulfilment of ESA long-term strategic objectives, including those arising from technical challenges, extreme environments, project delays, cost overruns or even from trans-border legal barriers. The agency-wide assessment of risks potentially affecting long-term objectives was included in the ESA Long-Term Plan. This supports the strategic planning process and Member State decision-making by providing a full picture of all risks inherent to ESAs long-term vision.

European Ministers in charge of space matters, heads of space agencies, representatives from European Member States and international delegations gathered in Brussels at the second International Conference on Space Exploration on 21 October (E. Bourgois)

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Future & Plans

Interdisciplinary activities
A number of activities are being performed in a trans-Directorate context, to support the preparation of the future in domains where no user Programme has yet been entrusted to a specific service and where there is the need for global ESA coordination.

Space & Energy

Following the identification by the European Commissions DG-Energy of three potential pilot projects from ESA (within the 15 pilot actions proposed), the internal EU process began with the aim of including them in the next FP7 2012 Work Plan. Discussions have also started with Ukraine on possible cooperation on matters of common interest.

Space & the Arctic

The Inter-Directorate Working Group achieved progress with the identification of existing activities and the preliminary analysis needs. Discussions have also taken place with Canada to investigate the potential participation in the Polar Communication and Weather programme. A workshop on Future of space cooperation in the Arctic region was held in Paris in December, gathering some 50 policymakers, scientists and ESA specialists for a multidisciplinary discussion on the challenges affecting the Arctic region. The EC and ESA jointly worked on an interim report on the status of the implementation of the recommendations of the Stockholm Workshop of October 2009.

To examine the feasibility of a European space exploration strategy building on existing competences, strengths and priorities To support the extension of ISS at least until 2020 and strive for its exploitation To seek to ensure that ISS utilisation is made accessible to all ESA and EU Member States to optimise and broaden European scientific, technological and operational returns To study together with ISS partners the potential opening-up of ISS utilisation to additional non-European participants To initiate further reflection on an international common space exploration transportation policy To establish in 2011 long-term roadmaps and associated programmes for technology, in particular in critical areas such as life support, automation and robotics, novel energy sources and storage and advanced propulsion On the basis of the proposed international high-level space exploration platform, to organise a first meeting by the end of 2011. The implementation of these actions has started and will continue in 2011.

Security
Meeting Europes security and defence needs was defined as one the strategic objectives of the European Space Policy adopted in 2007. Within the framework of the Structured Dialogue on Space and Security, ESA has been involved in a growing number of security-related activities and programmes with a security dimension. Interactions with potential users of security services and major European security actors have increased, in particular with the EC, the EU Council General Secretariat, the Crisis Management and Planning Directorate within the newly formed European External Action Service, the European Defence Agency and the EU Satellite Centre.

Exploration

The work of the ESA Exploration Scenarios Working Group (ESWG) continued through 2010. ESA participated in the Technical Steering Group meeting preparing the second Conference on Space Exploration held in Brussels on 21 October. Conference participants endorsed the following actions for Europe:

Jean-Jacques Dordain, during the Seventh Space Council press conference

76

Annual Report 2010

In March 2010, a conference on Space and Security, organised in Madrid under the Spanish Presidency of the EU, brought together European policy-makers to advance cooperation on the GMES and SSA programmes. The conclusions of the conference called in particular for more-effective integration of the different space technologies and of space systems with groundbased or airborne systems to support security users needs.

They stressed the importance of national assets as essential components of any European space system responding to security objectives and highlighted the need to increase synergies between security and defence space activities. During the Seventh Space Council in November, the Ministers from EU and ESA Member States reaffirmed the key role of space systems for security policies and called for the further development of the security dimension of GMES and for ways to be explored to strengthen European crisis management capacity with space assets and services, taking full advantage of dual-use synergies. They also stressed the need to ensure the security of space systems and of a Space Situational Awareness capability.

Evolution of ESA Sites and Infrastructure

The activity dedicated to the evolution of ESA sites and infrastructure continued along two coordinated tracks: shortterm actions and long-term considerations on the evolution of the sites in the next 1520 years. The activities performed were regularly reported to the Council meetings throughout 2010. With respect to short-term actions (e.g. actions necessary to cope with maintenance, safety and health issues), important preparatory work for the renovation of the Headquarters of the Agency was conducted by the HQ Project, started in October 2009 and supported by a Working Group with Member State Delegations. The reflection on the long-term evolution started in 2008 continued through an enlarged consultation with Member States with the objective of proposing a set of recommendations to the ESA Director General; these recommendations to be finalised in March 2011 would support the Director Generals elaboration of a development scheme for the evolution of the sites and infrastructure of the Agency.

The Conference on Space and Security, Madrid, in March, part of the continuing Structured Dialogue on space called for by the European Space Policy

Started in 2009, preparatory work for the renovation of ESA Headquarters in Paris was continued by the HQ Project

77

facilities

ESTEC
Engineering Laboratories
The Automation and Robotics Laboratory was enhanced in the field of telerobotics and haptics by an extension to the Erasmus building and hosts activities in the frame of the collaboration with the University of Delft as well as the ESA/ DLR Memorandum of Understanding. In order to better understand the root cause of in-orbit anomalies affecting GOCE in 2010, many characterisation campaigns were run in ESTECs Avionics Lab. Two items were to be scrutinised; the first being related to a floating-point error flagged by the onboard processor CPU, the second being related to data transmission errors between modules. Several simulations and measurement test-benches made it possible to understand the behaviour of critical interfaces better. This made it possible not only to recommend proper mitigation measures to the project team affected, but also to derive lessons learned concerning the proper implementation of cross-strapping, for the benefit of projects under development, such as the Sentinels, Swarm and BepiColombo. Future Mars landers and rovers will have to operate in a lowtemperature environment. Unlike the other power supply components, the performance of the current space-qualified lithium ion batteries degrades rapidly at temperatures below 0C, especially during charge. As a quicker and lower-cost alternative to developing and qualifying improved battery chemistries to overcome this limitation, an investigation was carried out in the European Space Battery Test Centre to determine whether a special battery thermal management would allow the use of existing high specific energy commercial cells. After two years of life-cycling of cells provided by ABSL Space Products, the test had demonstrated more than four times the required cycle life. Despite the need to use some of the battery energy for self-heating, the battery was still able to provide 100 Wh/kg of useful energy for the rover, which is an attractive performance. The model has already been reused in power system studies for the Lunar Lander project.

This was a successful year for the ESA certification scheme of European test centres. Three new test centres were awarded certification in compliance with ECSS-Q-20-07A, i.e. Intespace, Centre Spatial de Liege (CSL), and the European Space Tribology Laboratory (ESTL). Together with previously certified sites (ESTEC Test Centre, IABG and the Thales Alenia test centres in Cannes and Rome), the scheme now comprises seven certified test centres. This certification is being maintained through annual surveillance assessments that ensure continuous compliance with the requirements of the standard. In addition, discussions resumed with Astrium Stevenage in the UK and the Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aerospacial (INTA) in Spain for the assessment of their space test facilities.

ESTEC Cobalt-60 facility

This facility, for gamma irradiation of space components, was assessed against ISO/IEC 17025 by the Dutch Accreditation Council (RvA) and demonstrated a high level of technical competence and effective implementation of a robust quality management system. The outcome of this exercise will lead to the award by the RvA of a distinguished ISO/IEC 17025 Accreditation Certificate for the only radiation laboratory in Europe accredited for gamma irradiation in line with ESCC requirements.

Test Centre

The Test Centre conducted four major space-related test campaigns. These were supplemented by numerous smaller tests. The year started with the arrival of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) flight model. The Test Centre hosted the large international team of AMS-02 between February and May to perform the electro-magnetic compatibility and the thermal balance/thermal vacuum test on the instrument before proceeding with the launch preparation. It was immediately followed by the MetOp-B payload module, when the Large Space Simulator (LSS) was used to validate the complete module under representative conditions for all the instruments. During the summer, modifications prepared over the previous two years were implemented in the LSS to increase the intensity of the artificial Sun from 2600 W/m2 to 14 000 W/m2 to test modules of BepiColombo. The Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter from JAXA was the first module to be subjected to the extreme solar illumination. It was initially tested for two weeks under high Sun intensity, and eventually subjected to the Mercury environment with ESAs BepiColombo sunshield (MOSIF) second module. Infrared camera measurements enabled efficient monitoring of the extreme temperatures of

Materials and Components Laboratories

Investments and activities are driven by the preparation of the exploration programmes and evaluation of a new generation of advanced materials utilising novel processing techniques. The mechanical testing facility was expanded with an ElectroPulse fatigue tester, where the deformation is monitored and measured by an optical 3D system. In this way the deformations in the samples can be followed locally.

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the specimens for the full duration of the test. The facilities were also used to perform effectively the mechanical qualification of the launcher dispenser that was developed specifically for Galileo. In addition to these major space programme tests, the Test Centre was also used for some remarkable non-space programmes. In particular the large vibration facilities were used to simulate complex vibration profiles for testing a complete portion of an Airbus A319 fuselage, and a number of large electrical transformers. The refurbishment of the LSS continued during this period to replace equipment dating from its installation in the early 1980s, with several major parts of the thermal generators replaced. The replacement of the motion system that holds the test specimen and makes it possible to change its orientation during the tests has been initiated. The small 80 kN vibration shaker was refurbished to meet the new standard in terms of safety and operation. The shaker control rooms have been reorganised to improve operations. The refurbishment of the small thermal vacuum chamber (VTC1.5) was initiated at the end of the year, and its refurbishment includes the addition of a small Sun simulator required for testing parts of BepiColombo and Solar Orbiter. Maintaining reliable functionality of the test facilities is a priority in the ESTEC Test Centre, and this is being achieved with inhouse engineering and industry support.

ESOC and the Stations

ESOC
ESOC entered a new phase of its evolution. Currently operating at the limits of its capacity, an update of the ESOC site evolution master plan was developed in an architectural competition and a first project is under implementation with financial support from the host country. It is aimed at replacing and revitalising some ageing and asbestos-loaded buildings. At the same time it will, for security reasons, separate operational facilities from offices and public areas and create space for possible future expansion for ESOCs operational and engineering activities.

ESTRACK ground stations and ESOC Operations Control Centre

The mission control rooms for the Earth observation and observatory missions at ESOC have undergone a major redesign. A dedicated control room for supporting Galileos LEOP activities from ESOC was established. A support area for small missions infrastructure (SMILE) was set up and adequate space provided for the ESOC Concurrent Design Facility. The ESTRACK ground stations once again provided highly reliable tracking, telemetry and command and science payload data services to ESOCs mission community. Major operational capabilities have been added to the stations: Delta-DOR services, improved cryogenic low-noise amplifiers and a mainly European solution for a highpower X-band amplifier were deployed at the deep-space stations.

BepiColombos Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO) in the Large Space Simulator (LSS) at ESTEC in October

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Facilities

ESA for the future: an artists concept of ESOC 2

Most of the ESTRACK sites have been upgraded to meet the requirements of the new ESA Security Directives. The launcherdedicated installations at the Santa Maria station, Azores and in Perth have been upgraded to support Soyuz launcher tracking. In Redu, the completion of the Galileo In-Orbit Test facilities is imminent. The station was also instrumental in the data relay support for ATV Johannes Kepler for emergency commanding and for using Artemis.

ESAC
ESAC completed its infrastructure upgrade programme to meet the standard of other ESA establishments: the Canteen entrance was extended; a new VIP dining room was built, a small changing room and shower building was constructed, a new road to the visitors car park was built and construction began of the multipurpose building, to host INTA staff as well as a conference room and ESAC staff. Other smaller projects, such as the fire extinguishing system in data centres and a building management systems extension, were carried out. ESAC is the home for the science operations of ESAs astronomy and Solar System missions. Missions currently in orbit with science operations at ESAC are XMM-Newton, Integral, Mars Express, Venus Express, Rosetta, Herschel and Planck. In development are Gaia, LISA Pathfinder and BepiColombo. Also in 2010, definition work was undertaken on science operations for the Cosmic Vision Medium and Large candidate missions. The data archives of ESAs Science and Robotic Exploration missions are located at ESAC. The first public releases were made of the Planck, Herschel, SMART-1 and Rosetta archives. Data from 13 missions are now publicly available from ESAC. The SMOS satellite, for which ESAC provides both the Instrument Operations and the Data Processing Ground Segment, finished its commissioning phase in May, and entered into its full operational phase, providing maps of soil moisture and ocean salinity, as well as near-realtime data for the weather forecasting agencies. ESAC also participated actively in all the data reprocessing campaigns.

From left: Daniele Galardini, Head of Redu, Paul Verhoef (EC), Eric Beka (BELSPO), Monique Wagner (BELSPO, Ren Oosterlinck, ESA Director of Galileo and Navigation-related Activities, Agnes Grandjean (BELSPO) and Didier Faivre, Head of ESA Navigation Department (T. Denis)

Aerial view of ESAC in 2010

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Annual Report 2010

The Space Situational Awareness Preparatory Project core team at ESAC has doubled in size, with positive progress and important contracts awarded. Conjunction prediction software for Space Surveillance and Tracking was installed at ESAC and key European tracking campaigns coordinated. Solar events led to the Space Weather team assisting the science operations at ESAC. System options have been crafted for the full programme phase.

full certification from the British Standards Institute for two important areas: Occupational Health and Safety Management, and Environmental Management. The site management systems were found to be compliant, consistent, well designed, efficient and effective, an evaluation that constitutes not only a success for the teams having worked on the certification, but benefits all ESRIN staff and contractors. Significant efforts have been invested in improving environmentally friendly site operations, a matter close to the heart for a centre that processes, on a daily basis, satellite imagery showing the status and changes of planet Earth, not least human-induced pollution. The year brought good results in this process: photovoltaic panels were connected and are producing, as of 30 November, 19 400 kW (equivalent to about 3.6 tonnes of oil and 13.3 tonnes of CO2). ESRIN also renewed the contract for the supply of electricity so that, in 2011, green electricity will be bought (i.e. exclusively energy from renewable sources like sanitary water, solar, wind, etc.). Compacting devices have collected and recycled approximately 1500 kg of plastic and 260 kg of aluminium. A special canteen eco-tax introduced last year finances biodegradable glasses in the canteen and at the bar. In March, the Zero Emission certificate was awarded to the ESRIN canteen, the first canteen in Italy to have received this certificate. ESRIN will continue to reduce CO2 emissions and to improve the performance in the environmental impact area. ESRIN hosted numerous scientific conferences, high-level scientific workshops, industrial meetings, reviews, VIP visits and events for the general public. The Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, Antonio Tajani, visited ESRIN in September. It was his first visit to an ESA establishment since assuming his role as Commissioner in February. ESRIN continues to receive a great deal of interest from the general public with thousands of visitors during the year. Public events were managed during the Open Day in spring and during Science Week, and the European Researchers Night was organised jointly with research centres from the Frascati area. ESRIN also hosted delegation visits and bilateral meetings with partner agencies, such as NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. ESRIN was also the location of numerous training activities.

ESRIN
ESRINs core role as payload operations centre for ESAs Earth observation missions was extended by the launch and subsequent start of the operational exploitation phase of the third Earth Explorer, CryoSat-2. At the same time, under the GMES programme, ground segment operation preparatory activities for the Sentinel missions and on the upcoming new Earth Explorer missions continued. Science and application development was pursued further on site, as was management of the International Charter Space and Major Disasters. Also, Earth observation user services were managed from ESRIN throughout the year. The Vega launcher development team made further progress towards the maiden flight of Europes small launcher, expected in 2011. Another activity was the continued management of the complex Financial Management Reform implementation. The ESA IT infrastructure efficiency and streamlining proceeded throughout the year with the support of the OPS teams in ESRIN, including initiation of the massive upgrade of ESAs intranet and internet network capacity to gigabit speeds. The cloud computing infrastructure proof of concept began, to offer computing services on demand to ESA communities. Progress could also be achieved with the security assessment of the programme-specific IT systems of ESA and specifically at ESRIN, and the Security Office obtained the accreditation of the new Galileo building and testing facilities at ESTEC. The new ESA generic Programme Security Instructions (PSI) for all future programmes handling classified information were produced during this year. The negotiations for the ESA/Italy Host Agreement for ESRIN have been conducted throughout the year. The approval process will continue into 2011. Furthermore, ESRIN received the

The ESRIN photovoltaic panels

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Facilities

EAC
After the major upgrade of facilities in 2009 and the construction of new training classrooms and booths in the training hall, this year mainly involved the ongoing maintenance and extension of training capabilities. This additional space was much in need in view of the intense training activity for the crewmembers of ISS Expeditions 23 to 36, who all came to EAC for their training on the European elements of the International Space Station. One of them was ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli, who performed part of his training at EAC as one of the crew of ISS Expeditions 26/27. A new robotic activities trainer has also been installed, increasing the scope of ESA capabilities in the training of astronauts. This system has demonstrated its suitability for the implementation of the Basic Training for the new class of ESA astronauts. This Basic Training, which included mainly classroom and hands-on sessions with activities requiring a wide range of skills, also thrilled the new astronauts with moments such as experiencing microgravity during a parabolic flight campaign, becoming familiar with extravehicular activities in the diving pool or being exposed to highly exacting conditions during survival training. By performing this training, in addition to its regular activities of management, training and support as well as

the implementation of crew operations for ESA astronauts, the European Astronaut Centre has again demonstrated to ESAs international partners that Europe possesses a firstclass facility and the competences required to support, with confidence, new challenges in human spaceflight.

Harwell
In 2010, the United Kingdom launched its Space Innovation and Growth Strategy. The strategy is strongly supportive of the presence of ESA in the UK. After the general election in May, this strategy and the commitments made in 200809 by the UK toward the ESA Harwell Centre were confirmed and reinforced by the newly elected government in a meeting at the Farnborough Air Show in July between the ESA Director General and the UK Minister responsible for space. The strategy is now being implemented via various vehicles for public policy, including the new UK Space Agency, the International Space Innovation Centre (located near the ESA Harwell Centre), the Space Leadership Council and the UK National Space Technology Plan. ESA teams resident at Harwell continued building networks among government, industry and academic organisations in the UK in order to catalyse the emergence of a clear vision for ESA programmes supported by and implemented from the UK. Consultations with the UK Space Agency were conducted to arrive at concrete proposals for the ESA Harwell Centre areas of competence and programmes in advanced preparation for

The EAC Neutral Buoyancy Facility team and the new astronauts after a pool training session

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the Ministerial Council in 2012. The guiding principle for this work is to arrive at the definition of a complementary role for the ESA Harwell Centre to enrich and extend ESA capabilities. To keep interested parties abreast of developments in Harwell, a newsletter is published quarterly. The various ESA teams at Harwell (the ESA Climate Office, the Ambassador Platform of the Integrated Application Promotion (IAP) programme and various ESA activities related to technology for exploration) were progressively strengthened and the team numbered 13 staff by the end of the year. The IAP programme initiated the deployment of an Applications Business Office during December. In the same period, the exploration programme started work on the definition of an optimum set of activities for ESA Harwell in this exciting area. Late in the year the ESA Business Incubation Centre was formally opened to begin operations in 2011.

The meeting at the Farnborough Airshow (from left): Enrico Saggese, President of ASI, Richard Peckham, Chair of UKspace, David Willetts, UK Minister of State for Universities & Science, David Williams, Acting Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, Mariastella Gelmini, Italian Minister for Education, Universities & Research, Keith Mason, STFC, Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General, and Andy Green, Chair UK Space Innovation & Growth Team

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accounts

Notes to the Financial Statements

The Financial Statements presented here are the first established under the basis of the new accounting and financial system introduced by the ESA Financial Management Reform (FINREF) as of 1 January 2010. The FINREF project launched an entirely new operating model based on the SAP ERP tool suite, covering extensively the operational management of all the Agencys projects and activities as well as its financial processes. Those processes are defined by the new ESA Financial Regulations, which entered into force on the same date, and which include the requirement for producing annual financial statements in accordance with international accounting standards for the public sector (IPSAS). This major change has been vigorously sponsored by the ESA Member States since the Ministerial Council in 2005. Subsequently, FINREF scope and definition phase was formally authorised to proceed in June 2007 by ESA Council and the development and implementation phase was adopted in March 2008. Accordingly, the FINREF reform project triggered a complete overhaul of the ESA financial management system including a fundamental change in the basis of accounting, evolving from a system still involving elements of the cash accounting method to a full-fledged accrual based system with the objective of providing ESA programmes with a common integrated model for the management of resources, promoting efficient and effective use of public funds and reinforcing transparency and trust with ESA stakeholders. The main features of the new model give recognition to and draw the clear distinction between the financial accounting, cost accounting and funding dimensions of the Agency resource management system, while maintaining the integration of those three axes, which are strictly monitored and cross-checked. The financial landscape of ESA is now structured along a standard chart of accounts and distinguishes, for the first time, running cost from capital expenditure as required by the accrual accounting
1

method. While fixed assets are recognised starting from 2010, their physical inventory and initial valuation of accumulated value over previous years is the subject of the ongoing Phaive project1. Accordingly, fixed assets will be progressively shown in ESA financial statements within a transition period of up to five years embodied in IPSAS standards themselves, covering the first introduction of asset accounting by public sector entities. The main ESA Financial Statements are the following: Statement of financial position, Statement of financial performance, Statement of changes in net assets/equity, Cash flow statement. The Statement of financial position is the equivalent of balance sheet or Statement of assets and liabilities; the Statement of financial performance corresponds to the Income and expenditure account. The fixed assets accounted for at the present stage of Phaive project are mainly represented by land and buildings controlled by the Agency, with a total balance of 238.9 million. The first recognition of Assets under construction in 2010 amounts to 1202.8million and the balance of work in progress and other stocks is 119million. The net surplus of 2010 amounts to 973.9million, after capitalisation of assets under construction and work in progress.

Physical Assets Inventory and Valuation Exercise

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Audit report to Council

We have audited the financial statements of the European Space Agency for 2010, issued under document reference ESA/AF(2011)1, dated 28 October 2011 which comprise the statement of financial position as at 31 December 2010 and the statement of financial performance, statement of changes in net assets, statement of cash flow for the year then ended and a summary of significant accounting policies and other explanatory information.

Director Generals responsibility for the Financial Statements

restatement of opening balances in accordance with the revised accounting policies, in particular for accruals and prepayments; the full and consistent application of the accrual concept for the accounting of costs and revenues; disclosure of related party transactions, post balance sheet events and recognition of provisions, given the requirements of IPSAS 20, IPSAS 14 and IPSAS 19 and the nature of the relationship between the Agency and Arianespace; segment reporting in accordance with IPSAS 18 for the purposes of transparency and accountability, to show the resources allocated to major activities; and presentation of budget information as required by IPSAS for the purpose of accountability.

The Director General of the European Space Agency is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of these financial statements in accordance with International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) and in accordance with the requirements of the financial regulations authorised by Council and for such internal control as management determines is necessary to enable the preparation of financial statements that are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.

Qualified opinion

Except for the effects on the financial statements of the noncompliance with IPSAS referred to above in our opinion the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the European Space Agency as at 31 December 2010 and of its financial performance and its cash flows for the year then ended in accordance with International Public Sector Accounting Standards. Further details of the qualification are set out in our detailed report on the audit of the European Space Agencys financial statements which we have issued in accordance with chapter X, article 1 of the financial regulations and chapters II and III of annex II to the financial regulations.

Auditors responsibility

Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the financial statements, including the material regularity of the transactions, based on our audit which has been performed in accordance with chapter X, article 1 of the financial regulations and chapters II and III of annex II to the financial regulations. We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing. Those Standards require that we comply with ethical requirements and plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free from material misstatement. An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. The procedures selected depend on the auditors judgement including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments, the auditor considers internal control relevant to the entitys preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances, but not for the purpose of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of the entitys internal control. An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that the audit evidence we have obtained is sufficient and appropriate to provide a basis for our audit opinion.

Emphasis of Matter in relation to the use of the transitional measures of IPSAS 17

As disclosed in the accounting policies and in note 2.5.3 to the financial statements the Agency has decided to apply a transitional period as provided by IPSAS 17 for the accounting of fixed assets. As a result the reported statement of financial position as at 31 December 2010 and associated impact on the statement of financial performance cannot be considered as complete and final. Our opinion is not qualified in respect of this matter.

Emphasis of Matter in relation to accounting for projects managed on behalf of the European Commission (EC)

Basis for qualified opinion lack of full compliance with the requirements of International Public Sector Accounting Standards

As disclosed in the introduction to the financial statements, the statement of financial performance excludes 407.1 million of incurred expenditure concerning the EC projects Galileo FOC, IOV Delta Cost and EGNOS exploitation for which the Agency manages the procurement on behalf of the EC under a delegation agreement. Project management and other internal costs for the same projects and procurement costs related to the grant agreement on Galileo In-Orbit Validation Completion (in total 157.9 million) are reported in the statement of financial performance as costs of the Agency. Our opinion is not qualified in respect of this matter.

Article VII.2.2 of the financial regulations requires that the financial statements shall be prepared in accordance with International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). However there are a number of areas where full compliance with IPSAS has not been achieved in particular in relation to:

Emphasis of Matter in relation to accounting for non-owned land

The financial statements include an asset of 173.3 million for land. This balance consists of the fair value of the land at Headquarters in Paris and the Agencys installations at ESTEC, ESOC, ESRIN, ESAC, REDU and Kourou. The Agency is the legal

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Accounts

owner only of the land in Paris, valued at 35.8 million. As disclosed in note 2.5.3 to the financial statements the Agency deems the land legally belonging to Member States to be under its control and therefore has recognised and valued it as a fixed asset of the Agency. However for the land on which the other installations are sited, legal title and therefore ultimate control remains with the Member States concerned. Our opinion is not qualified in respect of this matter.

Report on other legal and regulatory requirements

Emphasis of Matter in relation to the rate used to discount post-employment benefit obligations

Subject to the observations in chapter 4 of our detailed report on delegation of financial authority, segregation of duties and in-year reporting of financial and procurement information, in our opinion the transactions of the European Space Agency that have come to our notice as part of our audit of the financial statements have, in all significant respects, been in accordance with the financial regulations and legislative authority of the Agency. Signed in Paris, on 14 November 2011, by the Audit Commission

Note 2.8 to the financial statements states that the rate used to discount the post-employment benefits is the zero coupon rate curve of corporate bonds rated investment grade of the Euro zone at 31 December 2010 which is established at 5.2 per cent for the pension and 5.3 per cent for the health and long-term care coverage. The rate used also affects the current service cost and interest on obligations recognised in the statement of financial performance. Our opinion is not qualified in respect of this matter.

Graham Miller Philippe Roland Jari Sanakoski Mnica Garca Senz

Chairman Member Member Member

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Statement of fInancIal posItIon

2010 Million

Total assets Current assets Cash and cash equivalents Unrestricted cash and cash equivalents Restricted cash and cash equivalents Receivable from non-exchange transactions Outstanding contributions Member/Participating States Outstanding contributions EC Member States reimbursable taxes Receivable from exchange transactions Other customers Prepayments and other amounts receivable Inventories Non-current assets Long-term receivables from non-exchange transactions Financial assets Plant and equipment Land and buildings Vehicles Computers and administrative equipment Assets under construction

3,851.8 2 094.0 729.5 243.9 485.6 565.7 478.0 25.3 62.4 679.8 7.8 672.0 119.0 1 757.8 3.0 303.5 8.3 238.9 0.1 1.2 1 202.8

Total liabilities Current liabilities Payables under exchange transactions Contributions and other payables Prepaid contributions and other amounts payable to Member States Pre-financing Other payables Employee benefits Provisions Non-current liabilities Employee benefits

3 512.9 1 498.2 663.4 834.8 60.0 613.4 1.2 78.3 81.9 2 014.7 2 014.7

Net assets Reserves Amounts to be called from Member States Employee benefits Other amounts Net surplus for the period

338.9 996.0 1 631.0 1 630.9 0.1 973.9

Total net assets

338.9

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Accounts

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE

2010 Million

Operating revenues Contributions from Member/Participating States Other contributions & grants Revenues from exchange transactions Social security Pension schemes Other operating income Operating expenses Purchases External services Staff expenses Social security Pension schemes Other operating expenses Delegated procurement expenses transferred to amounts receivable Expenses transferred to work in progress Indirect costs transferred to fixed assets Depreciation and provisions

3 196.6 2 820.4 213.6 11.8 28.7 121.8 0.3 2 235.9 1 421.9 765.4 370.3 26.6 214.5 1.3 407.1 117.0 106.7 66.7

Net surplus from operating activities Financial activities Financial revenue Financial expenses

960.7 15.9 21.1 5.2

Net surplus from ordinarY activities Extraordinary items Extraordinary revenue Extraordinary expenses

976.6 2.7 163.5 166.2

Net surplus for the period

973.9

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STATEMENT OF CASH FLOW

2010 Million

Net cash flows Net cash flows from operating activities Surplus/(deficit) from ordinary activities Non-cash movements Depreciation Provisions (Increase)/decrease in inventories Increase/(decrease) in payable to Member/Participating States Increase/(decrease) in pre-financing Increase/(decrease) in other payables (Increase)/decrease in receivables from Member States (Increase)/decrease in other receivables (Increase)/decrease in other current assets Net cash flows from investing activities (Increase)/decrease in intangible and tangible fixed assets (Increase)/decrease in fixed assets in progress (Increase)/decrease in long-term investments Net cash flows from financing activities Increase/(decrease) in reserves

245.7 827.9 976.6 66.7 4.0 62.7 116.8 31.9 4.4 277.1 36.4 9.3 -321.1 1 496.3 252.5 1 184.4 59.4 422.7 422.7

Net increase/(decrease) in cash and cash eQuivalents Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of the year Cash and cash equivalents at year-end

245.7 975.2 729.5

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STATEMENT OF CHANGES In net assets/equItY

Million

Year 2009 Net assets eQuitY

Movements

A Year 2010

Year 2009

Movements

B Year 2010

A+B Net Assets

248.4

1 244.5 996.1 677.8 20.7 657.1 338.9

Member States capital and reserves 248.4 Revaluation differences 318.3 Reserves 17.7 Reserve Financial Management Reform 12.1 Currency Exchange Gains Reserve 4.9 Sundry reserves 21.9 Other reserves 13.3 Accumulated surplus/deficit Accumulated surplus Accumulated deficit Net surplus/deficit for the period Member States pension scheme receivable

406.6 158.2 413.8 95.5 0.1 17.8 12.1 0.0 3.9 1.0 0.0 21.9 8.7 22.0 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 979.3 5.4 973.9
Reserves

0.0 837.9 837.9 0.0 837.9 837.9

1 657.1 26.2

1 630.9
Amount to be called from Member States

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annex

Agreements signed in 2010

Extension of the Agreement between the European Space Agency and the Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) concerning the installation and utilisation of certain assets located at Lampoldshausen signed by exchange of letter dated 22 December 2009 and 12 January 2010 by ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and Johann-Dietrich Wrner, Chairman of the DLR Executive Board. (ESA/LEG/234, add. 6) European Cooperating State Agreement (ECS) between the European Space Agency and the Republic of Slovenia signed on 22 January 2010 in Noordwijk by ESA Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations Peter Hulsroj and Gregor Golobi, the Slovenian Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology. (ESA/LEG/370) Agreement between the European Space Agency and the Government of the Slovak Republic concerning Space Cooperation for peaceful purposes signed in Bratislava on 28 April 2010 by ESA Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations Peter Hulsroj and JnMikolaj, Minister of Education of the Slovak Republic. (ESA/LEG/371) Agreement between the European Space Agency and the European Maritime Safety Agency concerning cooperation for the use of space-based systems and data in support of maritime activities signed in Paris on 2 July 2010 by ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and Willem de Ruiter, Executive Director of the European Maritime Safety Agency. (ESA/LEG/372) Plan for European Cooperation State (PECS) Charter between ESA and the Republic of Estonia signed in Paris on 22 September 2010 by ESA Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations Peter Hulsroj and Ahti Kuningas, Deputy Secretary General of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. (ESA/LEG/373) Agreement between the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) concerning the cooperation on the EarthCare Mission, signed in Paris on 22 December 2009, and in Tokyo, on 5 January 2010 by ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and Dr Keiji Tachikawa, President of JAXA. (ESA/LEG/374)

Agreement between the European Space Agency and the Government of the Republic of Lithuania concerning space cooperation for peaceful purposes signed in Vilnius on 7 October 2010 by ESA Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations Peter Hulsroj and Dainius Kreivys, Minister of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania. (ESA/LEG/375) Accession to the Charter on cooperation to achieve the coordinated use of the space facilities in the event of natural or technological disasters by DLR signed on 19 October 2010 by Chairman of the DLR Executive Board Johann-Dietrich Wrner and Christoph Hohage, DLR Director Space Projects. (ESA/LEG/238, add.6) Plan for European Cooperation State (PECS) Charter between ESA and the Republic of Slovenia was signed in Ljubljana on 30 November 2010 by ESA Director of Legal Affairs and External Relations Peter Hulsroj and Gregor Golobic, the Slovenian Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology. (ESA/LEG/376) Cooperation Agreement between the European Space Agency and the Government of Canada signed in Paris on 15 December 2010 by ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and Steve MacLean, President of the Canadian Space Agency. (ESA/LEG/379)

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ESA PATENT APPLICATIONS FILED IN 2010

BREVETS ESA DPOSS EN 2010
PAT 533 A FLUID HEATING DEVICE AND ENGINE COMPRISING SAID DEVICE, IN PARTICULAR FOR A ROCKET European Application 10290333.3 Filed 21 June 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors C. Dujarric, A. Santovincenzo PAT 547 RECONFIGURABLE BEAM-FORMING NETWORK ARCHITECTURE US Application 12/879,420 Filed 10 October 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors P. Angeletti Other application EP 2296225 PAT 550 SOLAR ARRAY REGULATOR BASED ON STEP-UP AND DOWN CONVERSION AND SOLAR POWER SYSTEM COMPRISING THE SAME PCT W02010/146470 Filed 15 June 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors O. Mourra, F. Tonicello Other application EP 2267572 PAT 551 AUTOMATIC IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM RECEIVER AND SATELLITE PAYLOAD COMPRISING THE SAME PCT W02011/048502 Filed 19 October 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors P. Burzigotti, A. Ginesi Other application EP 2315366 PAT 552 SEQUENTIAL SWITCHING SHUNT REGULATOR CELL WITH NON-REDUNDANT RECTIFIER US 12/954,957 Filed 29 November 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors F. Tonicello, L.B. Llavona Other application EP 09290886.2 PAT 554 METHOD FOR ASSEMBLING A MIRROR PLATE STACK PCT Application W02011/023403 Filed 27 August 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors M. Bavdaz Other application EP 2290420 PAT 555 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ANALYZING TIME SERIES DATA US Application 2011/035188

Filed Applicant Inventors Other application

16 July 2010 European Space Agency J.A. Martinez Heras, A. Donati, K.L. Yeung EP 2284769

PAT 557 GNSS IntegritY Risk determination European Application 10193395.0 Filed 01 December 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors F.A. Fernandez PAT 558 COMPACT OMT DEVICE PCT Application Filed Applicant Inventors Other application PAT 559 power conditioning unit PCT Application EP Application Filed Applicant Inventors

PCT/EP 2010/007045 19 November 2010 European Space Agency P.S. Delgado EP 09178229.2

PCT/IB 2010/003534 10290004.0 8 January 2010 European Space Agency O. Mourra

PAT 560 method and telemetrIC DEVICE FOR RESAMPLING TIME EP Application 10170196.9 Filed 20 July 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors J.A. Martinez Hernandez, F. Tiago, A. Donati PAT 561 IMAGING OPTICS AND OPTICAL DEVICE FOR MAPPING A CURVED IMAGE FIELD EP Application 10170040.9 Filed 19 July 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors B. Guldimann PAT 562 flexible channel decoder PCT Application PCT/IB/2010/002537 USA 12/990,721 Filed 8 September 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors P. Burzigotti, G. Gentile PAT 565 RADIO FREQUENCY POWER AMPLIFIER WITH FAST ENVELOPE TRACKING EP Application 10290490.1 Filed 15 September 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors N. Le Gallou C. Delepaut

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PAT 567 APERIODIC AND NON-PLANAR ARRAY OF ELECTROMAGNETIC SCATTERERS, AND REFLECT ANTENNA COMPRISING THE SAME PCT Application PCT/FR 10/000627 Filed 16 September 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors A. Capozzoli, C. Curcio, G. DElia, A. Liseno, G. Toso, P. Vinetti Other Application EP 09425356.4 PAT 568 Low weight, COMPACTLY DEPLOYABLE SUPPORT STRUCTURE PCT Application PCT/EP 2010/007044 Filed 19 November 2010

Applicant Inventors

European Space Agency J. Santiago Prowald, M. Such Taboada

PAT 570 DUAL POLARISATION REFLECTARRAY ANTENNA WITH IMPROVED GROSS POLARISATION PROPERTIES EP Application EP 10290640.1 Filed 3 December 2010 Applicant European Space Agency Inventors J.A. Encinar Gares, M. Arrebola Baez, G. Toso, C. Mangenot Other application ES 200931140

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Chairs of Council, Programme Boards and other delegate bodies

Council
Chair Maurici Lucena (ES)* David Williams (UK)** Eric Beka (BE) David Williams (UK)* Jorge Lomba (ES)**

Vice-Chairs

Programme Boards
Joint Board on Communication Satellite Programmes Programme Board on Satellite Navigation Earth Observation Programme Board Launchers Programme Board Human Spaceflight, Microgravity and Exploration Programme Board Space Situational Awareness Programme Board Gerd Kraft (DE) Augusto Cramarossa (IT) Maurice Borgeaud (CH) Jan Droz (FR) Rolf de Groot (NL)

Monique Wagner (BE)* Dominique Fonteyn (BE)**

Other delegate bodies

Administrative and Finance Committee Industrial Policy Committee Science Programme Committee International Relations Committee Security Committee Agency Technology and Product Transfer Board Birgitte Sode-Mogensen (DK) Harald Posch (AT) Lennart Nordh (SE) Sylvie Callari (FR) Berndt Fredriksson (SE) Klaus Steinberg (DE)

Statutory bodies
Appeals Board Audit Commission Jean Massot (F) Staffan Nystrm (SE) Chairman Wim Schellekens (NL) Chairman Emeritus Graham Miller (UK) Philippe Roland (BE) Jari Sanaskoski (FI) Peter Urmston (UK)

Central Staff Association Committee

* Until 30 June 2010 ** From 1 July 2010

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National delegations to Council

AUSTRIA

Klaus Pseiner Harald Posch Andrea Kleinsasser

LUXEMBOURG
Pierre Decker Marc Serres

BELGIUM

NETHERLANDS

Eric Beka (Vice-chair) Dominique Fonteyn Agns Grandjean

Hans de Groene Johan Lindeman Linda van Duivenbode

CZECH REPUBLIC
Jan Kol Karel Dobe

NORWAY

Bo Andersen Ole Lindeman Geir Hovmork

DENMARK

Henrik Grage Birgitte Sode-Mogensen Gorm Petersen

PORTUGAL

Joo Sentieiro Mrio Amaral

FINLAND

SPAIN

Kari Tilli Kimmo Kanto Henrik Rih

Teresa Santero Maurici Lucena (Chair until 30.06.2010) Jorge Lomba (Vice-chair from 1.07.2010) Juan Luis Muoz

FRANCE

Yannick dEscatha Thierry Duquesne Franois Pellerin

SWEDEN

Olle Norberg Thorwald Larsson Per Engstrm

GERMANY

Jan Wrner Rolf Densing Karl-Friedrich Nagel

SWITZERLAND

Daniel Neuenschwander Raphal von Roten Urs Frei

GREECE

Achilleas Mitsos Stamatios Krimigis Ioannis Papadakis

UNITED KINGDOM

IRELAND

David Williams (Chair from 1.07.2010) Robert Canniff David Parker Emma Lord

Paul Shortt William OBrien Tony McDonald

CANADA

ITALY

Steve Mac Lean Hugues Gilbert David Kendall

Enrico Saggese Augusto Cramarossa Stefano Nicoletti

95

 ANNUAL REPORT 2010 SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters LAUNCHERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES EARTH OBSERVATION HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters LAUNCHERS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES EARTH OBSERVATION HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS ANNUAL REPORT 2010 SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT LAUNCHERS LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters EARTH OBSERVATION GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT EARTH OBSERVATION HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES EARTH OBSERVATION HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT LAUNCHERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LAUNCHERS LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT EARTH OBSERVATION TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS LAUNCHERS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & Industrial Matters TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS RESOURCES MANAGEMENT & INDUSTRIAL MATTERS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION EARTH OBSERVATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES LAUNCHERS HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE LEGAL AFFAIRS & EXTERNAL RELATIONS SCIENCE & ROBOTIC EXPLORATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS GALILEO & NAVIGATION-RELATED ACTIVITIES HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT TECHNICAL & QUALITY MANAGEMENT LAUNCHERS TELECOMMUNICATIONS & INTEGRATED APPLICATIONS ANNUAL REPORT 2010

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