SITTI IN THE SPACE
ESOC is the European Space Operations Centre for ESA, the European Space Agency. The main task of ESOC is to coordinate all operations for European projects concerning space and satellites. Among these, coordination of the launch simulation and testing facilities, connection to satellites and communication ground stations all over the world, satellite control and maintenance activities, space observation, research studies, and many other related projects. Collection, analysis and distribution of geo-climatic, geographical and hydrological data is also among the tasks carried out by ESA/ESOC. Here is a link for further information about ESOC operations: www.esa.int/ops
ESOC had the need to migrate its connections to the outer world from their legacy analogue interfaces to modern, high-performance and robust VOIP interfaces, to be able to reliably connect to remote ground stations, other space agencies and space centres (e.g. NASA) for the coordination for all variegated, vast and complex ESOC projects. After comparing systems from different vendors, ESOC chose the solution proposed by SITTI as the most suitable for their needs.
SITTI has been providing ESOC with a large M800IP® MULTIFONO® Voice Communication System (VCS) made of 133 operative positions distributed in several buildings. Such positions allow ESOC staff to be connected to their partners worldwide through about 30 telephone gateways for IP PABX lines and further about 60 VOIP connections to ground stations, thus making communications mainly based on VOIP. The delivered VCS architecture is duplicated in all system components, making up an operative and an emergency system for possible contingency events. As a remarkable note, the installation of the new SITTI system did not require changes to the existing network infrastructure, thus reducing the migration costs for ESOC.
SITTI is very proud of contributing to the empowerment of ESOC, by supplying the switching and interface components needed for efficient communication. The use of M800IP® MULTIFONO® in a so challenging environment like a space agency furthermore confirms the flexibility and robustness of SITTI products.
