Paolo Ferri on the culture at mission control | ESA Masterclass

Step inside the Main Control Room at ESOC, ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, and one thing becomes immediately clear: teams that operate space missions are highly hierarchical, and the Flight Director is indisputably in charge.

How does this work, and why is this the case? In the last of his Masterclass series, Paolo Ferri delves into the culture of operations, from written rules and procedures to equally important unwritten principles that guide the day-to-day working lives of those flying Europe’s spacecraft.

Paolo explains that on rare occasions, an internal battle takes place when protocols, procedures and flight rules don’t seem up to the task, and someone must assume the huge responsibility of deciding whether or not they need to be violated to keep a mission functioning.

With 36 years’ of experience at ESA, Paolo Ferri is responsible for mission operations, and he has played a leading role in ensuring the success of missions like Eureca, ESA’s first-ever reusable satellite; Cluster, one of the longest-flying science missions; Venus Express, Europe’s first exploration of Earth’s ‘evil twin’; and Rosetta, humanity’s first landing on a comet.

In five episodes of ‘Leadership at Mission Control’, Paolo takes us through major events in his career at ESA, covering cornerstone missions, first attempts, overcoming technical challenges, building diverse teams, working under pressure and solving the unexpected problems that are part of any space endeavour.

This is the last episode of the ESA Masterclass series with Paolo Ferri. Thank you very much for watching!

★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.

Check out our full video catalog: http://bit.ly/SpaceInVideos
Follow us on Twitter: http://bit.ly/ESAonTwitter
On Facebook: http://bit.ly/ESAonFacebook
On Instagram: http://bit.ly/ESAonInstagram
On Flickr: http://bit.ly/ESAonFlickr

We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.

Copyright information about our videos is available here: http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Terms_and_Conditions

#ESA
#MasterClass
#MissionControl

Similar Posts:

• 
  
  
  Paolo Ferri on leadership, coaching, learning | ESA Masterclass
• 
  
  
  Paolo Ferri on thinking outside the box | ESA Masterclass
• 
  
  
  Paolo Ferri on working under pressure | ESA Masterclass
• 
  
  
  Paolo Ferri on communication and teamwork | ESA Masterclass