FLUG REVUE August 2006: European Astronaut Center in Cologne

August 2006

THE EUROPEAN ASTRONAUT CENTRE IN COLOGNE

By Matthias Gründer

At this unusual teaching establishment not only astronauts but also their instructors and controllers are trained. A visit to the European Astronaut Centre. The man in charge of all the technical facilities of the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) is Klaus Wasserberg, and he has two business cards. The first one sports the logo of the German Aerospace Research Establishment (DLR) and recalls the fact that the ultra-modern buildings with all their classrooms, cabinets, the huge water tank and the hall containing simulators is built by the DLR on its site in Cologne Porz. The other one, which bears the symbol of the European Space Agency (ESA), gives “Head of Facilities and Infrastructure Unit” as Wasserberg's job title, and from this one begins to get an idea of the complexity of this unusual school.

“In Germany,” says Wasserberg, “there was a lot of knowledge and experience after the D-1 and D-2 Spacelab missions.” When in 1990 ESA decided to simplify the training of its astronauts and at the same time to elevate it to a higher level, naturally they were keen to win the work. Originally the centre was to have been built in Noordwijk, Holland, as the ESA Directorate of Manned Spaceflight and Microgravity is based there on the site of the ESTEC technical centre. But in the event, the Germans with their ingenious infrastructure, expertise and convincing overall concept succeeded in having this matter of prestige settled in their favour.

Today the EAC has four departments under its head, French astronaut Michel Tognini:

the Astronauts' Office, which is responsible for management and public relations;
the training department – this is the biggest unit, where basic training for all European astronauts and special training on the European components of the International Space Station are carried out;
the medical department, responsible for preparing for and evaluating every flight and for providing medical support during manned missions; and finally
the department for educational work and commercialisation, which in May 2006 was assigned to the EAC following the reorganisation of the Directorate of Manned Spaceflight. With its staff of 20, it is the only part to be located at the ISS Erasmus user centre in Noordwijk.

“Every ISS astronaut trains at some point in Cologne,” says Klaus Wasserberg proudly. After all, the astronauts from the USA, Russia, Japan and Europe have to be able to cope with working in the European space laboratory Columbus, with its complex and complicated experimental equipment, and also to handle the ATV shuttle, the Cupola platform and the ERA robotic arm practically in their sleep. “The necessary knowledge and ability are imparted to them by our staff of around 80 colleagues from nine countries in integrated teams.”

Since 1996 there has been no national Astronaut Corps any longer in Europe; since that time the astronauts, who are currently all men, have belonged organisationally to the EAC. But not all the astronauts in the big group photograph are still here, and the ESA website is no longer up-to-date in this matter. Some of them left the Corps, others have switched over temporarily to “non-flight status” but could be reactivated if their qualification required this. This is the current situation of Reinhold Ewald, who works at the Columbus Control Centre (CCC) in Oberpfaffenhofen, Pedro Duque, head of the Spanish user centre, Gerhard Thiele, head of the Astronauts' Office in Cologne, and the Swiss Claude Nicollier, who functions as Eurocom, that is, as the voice of Earth so-to-speak which maintains contact with the astronauts during a flight.

The only astronauts currently actively in training are Thomas Reiter and Hans Schlegel of Germany, Frank de Winne (Belgium), Leopold Eyharts (France), who will work as Reiter's second-in-command during the forthcoming Astrolab mission, Christer Fuglesang (Sweden) and André Kuipers of the Netherlands. Over the next few years they will all work on board the ISS – Schlegel and Fuglesang even before the launch of Columbus – but personnel will already be in short supply then. Although ESA's Aurora research programme lies in the too distant future for the astronauts and the European contributions to lunar and Mars research are viewed as too minor, the Directorate is already thinking about a new campaign for the selection of candidate astronauts.

“By around 2014 we will have plenty to do here with Columbus, the ATV and the external stores,” says Klaus Wasserberg. “Still, we should soon have six-man crews in orbit again, and for each of those we have to train one primary and one reserve crew. But we will soon miss the space shuttles. There will be no substitute for them in the foreseeable future.”

Spaceflight is determined by politics and money

What happens after that cannot be foreseen, as manned spaceflight has a lot to do with money and politics. This has meant that, whereas three Italians have already flown to the ISS, Thomas Reiter has had to wait to this year for his mission, as the Germans only recently agreed to pay for it. Such national thinking is alien to Klaus Wasserberg and his staff, who think of themselves as Europeans.

“At present we all have our hands full. Thomas Reiter's mission alone is adding a lot of work on top of training for the coming flights,” says Wasserberg. “It is all related to the fact that we have a special medical control centre here which in turn is attached to the CCC in Oberpfaffenhofen. In this way, we can provide medical support to our astronauts all around the clock.” And finally, it is in Cologne that the Control Centre controllers are trained and the instructors certified. Only examined staff are allowed to sit at the consoles and monitor space missions.

To this end a training course is first drawn up and confirmed by specialists. This “International Training Control Board” lays down the training content, simulations and examinations. The training team, who are largely permanent specialist staff, are supported by industrial operators from the hardware manufacturing companies. Others come, for example, from the French space research agency CNES for ATV or from EADS SPACE Transportation in Bremen for Columbus. “At the end are the universally dreaded examinations. But so far we have not had to send anyone back,” Wasserberg is pleased to report.

From FLUG REVUE 8/2006

Last updated 14 July 2006

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