The ESA Optical Ground Station (''OGS Telescope'' or ''ESA Space Debris Telescope'') is 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 ...

's ground based

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...

at the

Teide Observatory Teide Observatory (), IAU code 954, is an astronomical observatory on Mount Teide at , located on Tenerife, Spain. It has been operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias since its inauguration in 1964. It became one of the first major ...

Tenerife Tenerife ( ; ; formerly spelled ''Teneriffe'') is the largest and most populous island of the Canary Islands, an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain. With a land area of and a population of 965,575 inhabitants as of A ...

, Spain, built for the observation of

space debris Space debris (also known as space junk, space pollution, space waste, space trash, space garbage, or cosmic debris) are defunct human-made objects in spaceprincipally in Earth orbitwhich no longer serve a useful function. These include dere ...

. OGS is part of the

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

experiment and is operated by the IAC (

Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is an astrophysical research institute located in the Canary Islands, Spain. It was founded in 1975 at the University of La Laguna. It operates two astronomical observatories in the Canary Islands: ...

) and Ataman Science S.L.U. At Tenerife 2023 699

The observatory is a 1-meter Coudé telescope with a field of view of 0.7 degrees, supported by an English cross-axial mount inside a dome 12.5-meters in diameter. Its main purposes are: # to be the optical ground station of the Artemis telecommunications satellite (the project from which the telescope takes its name) # to survey space debris in different orbits around the Earth, # to conduct surveys and follow-up observations of

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body orbiting the Sun whose closest approach to the Sun ( perihelion) is less than 1.3 times the Earth–Sun distance (astronomical unit, AU). This definition applies to the object's orbit a ...

s as part of ESA's

Space Situational Awareness programme The Space Safety Programme, formerly the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme, is the European Space Agency's (ESA) initiative to monitor hazards from space, determine their risk, make this data available to the appropriate authorities and w ...

, and # to make scientific astronomical night observations. It is equipped with a cryogenically cooled mosaic CCD-Camera of 4k×4k pixels. The detection threshold is between 19th and 21st

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

, which corresponds to a capability to detect

objects as small as 10 cm in the geostationary ring. As a large part of the observation time is dedicated to space debris surveys, in particular the observation of

in the geostationary ring and in

geostationary transfer orbit In space mission design, a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) or geosynchronous transfer orbit is a highly elliptical type of geocentric orbit, usually with a perigee as low as low Earth orbit (LEO) and an apogee as high as geostationary orbit ...

s, the term ESA Space Debris Telescope became used very frequently. Space debris surveys are carried out every month, centered on New Moon. Since 2006, the telescope has also been used as a receiver station for quantum communication experiments (such as testing Bell's inequality,

quantum cryptography Quantum cryptography is the science of exploiting quantum mechanical properties to perform cryptographic tasks. The best known example of quantum cryptography is quantum key distribution, which offers an information-theoretically secure soluti ...

, and

quantum teleportation Quantum teleportation is a technique for transferring quantum information from a sender at one location to a receiver some distance away. While teleportation is commonly portrayed in science fiction as a means to transfer physical objects from on ...

), with the sender station being 143 km away in the observatory on La Palma. This is possible because this telescope can be tilted to a near-horizontal position to point it at La Palma, which many large astronomical telescopes are unable to do.

List of discovered minor planets

EAS OGS has been credited by the

Minor Planet Center The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Funct ...

with the discovery of 37

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

s. These are:

References

External links

* http://www.iac.es/eno.php?op1=3&op2=6&lang=en&id=7 * http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=36520 * http://vmo.estec.esa.int/totas {{Planetary defense * Space Situational Awareness Programme Optical telescopes European Space Agency facilities Space debris

List of discovered minor planets

See also

References

External links