On 15 September, two spacecraft will leave Earth together aboard the same launcher from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou: FLEX, ESA’s photosynthesis mission, and Sentinel-3C, Copernicus’ newest satellite monitoring Earth’s oceans, land, ice and atmosphere.
At ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), two independent mission teams are preparing to operate the spacecraft in parallel in a closely coordinated effort. As launch approaches, they are rehearsing side by side to prepare not only for their own missions, but also for the moments when the two operations intersect.