E-USOC (Spanish User Support and Operations Centre) is a centre of

Polytechnic University of Madrid The Technical University of Madrid or sometimes called Polytechnic University of Madrid (, UPM) is a public university, located in Madrid, Spain. It was founded in 1971 as the result of merging different Technical Schools of Engineering and Arc ...

(UPM) specialized in

Research and Development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

(R&D) activities in the fields of space science and technology. On behalf of the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

, the centre offers the necessary assistance for the preparation, execution and post-flight analysis of space experiments concerning the Fluid Science Laboratory on board the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

, in the european module Columbus. E-USOC is the point of contact for the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

user teams developing experiments which require

microgravity Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight, i.e., zero apparent weight. It is also termed zero g-force, or zero-g (named after the g-force) or, incorrectly, zero gravity. Weight is a measurement of the fo ...

environment. Another aim of E-USOC is to provide with information and to promote activities in the field of space sciences and fluid mechanics, giving technical and operation support to researchers and investigation groups which want to carry out experiments in microgravity environments or related space-science. The headquarters is located at Campus de Montegancedo, a research and technological park of the

. This building is located on the outskirts at the west of

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, in the town of

Pozuelo de Alarcón Pozuelo de Alarcón () is a municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain. Bordering the Moncloa-Aravaca district of Madrid proper to its west, Pozuelo de Alarcón is surrounded by large Mediterranean pine-tree forests: the Casa de Campo, the M ...

Pedro Duque Pedro Francisco Duque Duque, Order of Friendship, OF, Medal "For Merit in Space Exploration", OMSE (born Madrid, 14 March 1963) is a Spanish astronaut and aeronautics engineer who served as Ministry of Science (Spain), minister of Science from ...

, Spanish

astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

and Minister of science, was the E-USOC operations director between 2003-2006.

References

External links

*
ESA Human Spaceflight and Exploration

Science and technology in Spain {{space-stub

See also

References

External links