The world-class control centre we know today started out humbly, when the European Space Research Organisation – one of the parent organisations of ESA – decided to establish its data analysis centre at a government institute in Darmstadt in 1963, in part because they had a computer.
Fifty years ago tomorrow, the European Space Operations Centre was inaugurated in Darmstadt, Germany. Since then, the centre has become known worldwide as Europe’s ‘Gateway to Space’.