The site in Darmstadt is composed of two GNSS stations (ESOC & ESOB) as well as one station mainly used for calibration activities (ESOT).
1) ESOC GNSS Station in Darmstadt (ESOC)
An internal (non-public) ESOC Navigation Support Office GNSS station.
Location
The receiver is situated in the Ground Segement Reference Facility (GSRF) of the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.
History and evolution
The station installation was performed on 17 July 2015 and its monument is located on the roof of ESOC's H-building.
On the 7th of July 2016, its antenna rod was exchanged. With the new antenna rod system, an exchange of the GNSS antenna is feasible without changing the North and East antenna offsets to the marker point.
Equipment
The ESOC station operates a Septentrio PolaRx4 TR timing receiver together with a Septentrio ChokeRing MC antenna, capable of providing multi-GNSS tracking data (GPS, Glonass, Galileo, Beidou), connected by a LMR-600 antenna cable (40m).
Furthermore, the corresponding GNSS receiver is connected to one of ESOC's active hydrogen masers (Type: T4Science iMaser) for GNSS time transfer as well as monitoring purposes of ESOC's local UTC realisation.
2) ESOC GNSS Station in Darmstadt (ESOB)
An internal (non-public) ESOC Navigation Support Office GNSS station.
Location
The receiver is situated in the Ground Segement Reference Facility (GSRF) of the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.
History and evolution
The station installation was performed on 17 July 2015 and its monument is located on the roof of ESOC's H-building.
On the 7th of July 2016, its antenna rod was exchanged. With the new antenna rod system, an exchange of the GNSS antenna is feasible without changing the North and East antenna offsets to the marker point.
Equipment
The ESOB station operates a JAVAD Delta-3 timing receiver together with a Trimble Zephyr GNSS Geodetic II antenna, capable of providing multi-GNSS tracking data (GPS, Glonass, Galileo, Beidou), connected by a LMR-600 antenna cable (40m).
Furthermore, the corresponding GNSS receiver is connected to one of ESOC's active hydrogen masers (Type: T4Science iMaser) for GNSS time transfer as well as redundant monitoring purposes of ESOC's local UTC realisation.
3) ESOC GNSS Station in Darmstadt (ESOT)
An internal (non-public) ESOC Navigation Support Office GNSS station for calibration and testing activites.
Location
The testing receivers are situated in the Ground Segement Reference Facility (GSRF) of the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.
History and evolution
The station installation was performed on 17 July 2015 and its monument is located on the roof of ESOC's H-building.
On the 7th of July 2016, its antenna rod was exchanged. With the new antenna rod system, an exchange of the GNSS antenna is feasible without changing the North and East antenna offsets to the marker point.
Equipment
The corresponding hardware of this station is not permanent installed due to OPS-GN's various calibration activities.
For the on-site calibration purposes, a LMR-600 antenna cable is routed from the antenna installations on the H-building roof to the GSRF and the frequency as well pulse signals of the available active hydrogen masers are used.
Calibration activities
April 2016: Calibration of ESOC's preliminary travelling receiver chain (Septentrio PolaRx4 TR (EST1) + LMR-600 antenna cable + Septentrio ChokeRing MC antenna)
June 2016: Calibration of ESOC's final travelling receiver chain (Septentrio PolaRx4 TR (ESOT) + LMR-600 antenna cable + NavXperience 3G+C antenna) used for calibration of F&T systems at ESA's Deep Space Stations in Cebreros, Malargue and New Norcia
Pictures
Please find below a picture from the antenna installation ESOC's H-building roof in Darmstadt.
Left: Septentrio ChokeRing MC (ESOC)
Center: NavXperience 3G+C (ESOT)
Right: Trimble Zephyr GNSS Geodetic II (ESOB)
