Stations

INSA is responsible for the operation, maintenance, exploitation and technical support of the following centers for communications, tracking, acquisition and processing of spacecraft data:

• Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex (MDSCC): located in Robledo de Chavela and owned by NASA. INSA is responsible for its management, operations and maintenance.
• European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC): property of ESA, it is located in Villafranca del Castillo (Madrid). This centre holds important ESA facilities, operated and maintained by INSA staff.
• Cebreros Deep Space Ground Station: located in Ávila (Spain) and property of the European Space Agency (ESA). It has a 35m diameter deep space antenna which is part of the ESTRACK network.
• Canary Islands Space Centre (CEC): This centre is located in Maspalomas (Gran Canaria), and is owned by INTA. INSA provides the operation and maintenance relative to all the facilities, which supply services to several national and international space agencies.

The Stations Directorate also carries out other activities such as Quality Assurance for CNES at the Centre Spatial Guyanais in Kourou or such as frequency coordination.

Maintenance

Maintenance is carried out both under normal office timetable and shifts configurations. For the two types of maintenance (preventive and corrective), there are specific procedures prepared by INSA and/or its clients to solve the anomalies when they occur.

INSA has a strong commitment with the daily improvement of all the elements that compose the several maintenance groups, both from documentation and equipment points of view.

Mission Operations

Mission operations are programmed according to the tracking needs in each one of the space centres. When more than two satellites are to be tracked, it is usual to define staff shifting regardless of the satellite passes or the time of visibility. In this sense, the operations become continuous “24h a day, 365 days a year”.

Staff shifting is able to solve routine problems and to find solutions and alternatives with systems and equipment redundancy in order to minimize the impact of such problems and avoid data loss of scheduled satellite passes.