ESA Optical Ground Station


The ESA Optical Ground Station is the European Space Agency's ground based observatory at the Teide Observatory on Tenerife, Spain, built for the observation of space debris. OGS is part of the Artemis experiment and is operated by the IAC and Ataman Science S.L.U.
The observatory is a 1-meter Coudé telescope with a 0.7 degree field of view, supported by an English cross-axial mount inside a dome 12.5-meters in diameter. Its main purposes are:
  1. to be the optical ground station of the Artemis telecommunications satellite
  2. to survey space debris in different orbits around the Earth,
  3. to conduct surveys and follow-up observations of near-Earth objects as part of ESA's Space Situational Awareness programme, and
  4. to make scientific astronomical night observations.
It is equipped with a cryogenically cooled mosaic CCD-Camera of 4k×4k pixels. The detection threshold is between 19th and 21st magnitude, which corresponds to a capability to detect space debris objects as small as 10 cm in the geostationary ring. As a large part of the observation time is dedicated to space debris surveys, in particular the observation of space debris in the geostationary ring and in geostationary transfer orbits, the term ESA Space Debris Telescope became used very frequently. Space debris surveys are carried out every month, centered on New Moon.
Since 2006, the telescope has also been used as a receiver station for quantum communication experiments, with the sender station being 143 km away in the observatory on La Palma. This is possible because this telescope can be tilted to a near-horizontal position to point it at La Palma, which many large astronomical telescopes are unable to do.

List of discovered minor planets

EAS OGS has been credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 37 minor planets. These are:
10 September 2009
23 March 2010
22 March 2010
22 March 2010
22 March 2010
22 March 2010
284891 Kona13 September 2009
13 September 2009
297005 Ellirichter22 March 2010
22 March 2010
1 September 2010
10 September 2009
1 September 2010
10 September 2009
1 September 2010
10 September 2009
332706 Karlheidlas13 September 2009
22 March 2010
22 March 2010
1 June 2011
22 March 2010
1 September 2010
13 September 2009
6 June 2010
13 September 2009
13 September 2009
13 September 2009
22 March 2010
22 March 2010
1 September 2010
420779 Świdwin11 April 2013
22 March 2010
10 September 2009
10 September 2009
15 September 2012
13 September 2009
1 September 2010