Serco awarded new contract to support ESA science missions

Image courtesy Serco

The company has recently won three new lots within an industrial framework contract to support science operations at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in Spain. As part of this framework contract, Serco is supporting ESA in ensuring maximum scientific return from astronomy, heliophysics, fundamental physics and planetary missions for a duration of 18 months, which will mark the end of the framework contract.

The overall framework contract was split into several lots commencing in July 2021 and involving over 70 scientists and engineers from different consortia of European companies.

For the lots awarded to Serco as prime contractor, Serco is leading industrial consortia including Telespazio, HE Space, ATG, ISDEFE and Quasar. The first lot will see the Serco consortium processing scientific data collected by science missions such as Gaia, Solar Orbiter, Euclid, XMM-Newton, PLATO and SMILE. As part of the second lot, the Serco consortium is delivering support services to ESA’s Science Operations Centres for planetary missions and downlink systems for the BepiColombo, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and JUICE missions. In the third lot, Serco is focussing on providing scientific guidance to the data archives and maintaining the project and applications area of the ESAC computing infrastructure, and is also supporting ESA’s European Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt in Germany.

This new contract is the latest example of the long-standing collaboration between Serco and the European Space Agency which started in 1980 and it widens the scope of services provided by the company within ESA’s activities.

Guido Vingione, Director of Space Business Development at Serco, says: “We are extremely proud to partner with ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre in their scientific missions and believe our experience in providing managed services will help us support ESA in transitioning to this service approach at ESAC.”