On 24 April 2016, the mission control team was in the Main Control Room at ESOC, ESA’s mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, preparing for the liftoff of Soyuz flight VS14. Their job was to assume control of the rocket’s main passenger, the Sentinel-1B radar-sensing satellite.
In this Periscope, video host Thomas Ormston, a spacecraft operations engineer at ESOC, spoke with some of the team working ‘on console’ to find out details on how they get ready to send a satellite into space.
NOTE: About 75 minutes after recording this Periscope, the launch countdown was halted due to an an anomaly with the launcher. The countdown was restarted the next day, with liftoff set for 23:02 CEST, 25 April 2016.