***The second Operations Industry Day took place virtually on 22 Feb 2022***

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for ESA’s Operations Industry Day! We had more than 500 participants and enjoyed a lively day with keynote speeches, plenaries and round-tables - thanks again to our fantastic speakers and panellists! 

ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) is proud to be an enabler of European Industry, fulfilling our mandate to boost European competitiveness and supporting ESA’s Agenda 2025.

The goal of the day was to jointly discuss major themes of strategic interest for both ESOC and Industrial partners in the context of mission operations, ground systems and space safety, including automation and AI, digitalisation and cybersecurity, and optical, laser and radar systems. It was great to hear the ideas, ambitions and needs of the European space industry and engage in productive discussions on our future cooperation. 

These are some of the key take-aways from the round tables:

•    Dialogue with all stakeholders is key – continue to develop joint roadmaps and provide platforms for exchange and sharing of long-term perspective.

•    Foster open source, agility and speed.

•    Lead standardisation at the level of systems and frameworks – to consolidate and focus, reduce risk and cost.

•    Increasing role of automation, from some automated operations fully supervised to proactive automation. Current level of automation still behind what is possible.

•    The adoption of AI for automation is still at its inception in mission operations. The potential and benefits in adopting AI at scale is significant. 

•    Security to be integral part of the system engineering process and system model. It requires easy-to-use secure system engineering tools and processes.

•    Digitalisation and model-based systems engineering MBSE are key to interoperability, interchangeability, information and decision management. Huge potential in operations.

•    Optical communication is an emergent field. A reference infrastructure to validate new products is instrumental.

We look forward to shaping our future together.

Follow our ESA Operations LinkedIn channel for the next steps!

 

***Original event invitation***

ESA cordially invites Delegates, Industry, Academia and Institutions to the second OPS Industry Day.

The first OPS Industry Day organised by ESA’s Operations Directorate was held in 2018 and helped secure 16MEUR funding at ESA’s Ministerial Council 2019 for a Compendium of 19 activities.

To build on this success, the Operations Directorate is now organising the second OPS Industry day as a platform for exchange to further sustain the alignment of its current and future activities with the needs of its stakeholders and partners. The outcome is expected to boost the commercial competitiveness of Member States’ Space Industries in the domains of Space Operations and Space Safety.

Over the last few exceptionally challenging years, Europe’s mission operations have continued to demonstrate the reliability, security and flexibility of existing ground segment infrastructure systems.

However, if we are to meet the future challenges highlighted in ESA’s Agenda 2025, a number of areas require urgent attention. These include digitalisation, cybersecurity, environmental protection, artificial intelligence and automation.

The OPS Industry Day will discuss joint priorities for the future. It also offers virtual networking opportunities to support the development of future partnerships.

These activities offer opportunities for industrial leadership at ground segment system, component and subcomponent levels, as well as for academia and institutions.

The OPS Industry Day will jointly define the themes and main activities in the to-be-updated OPS GSTP Compendium and in other complementary programmes, such as ARTES and S2P. It also offers virtual networking opportunities to support the development of future partnerships.

ESA and its Operations Directorate are looking forward to receiving ideas and contributions to better shape the “competitive element” of our future plans and support the needs of industry in the essential domains of Space Operations and Space Safety in Europe.