Taking up from where we left off earlier this month, our latest opening of material includes the record of participants in the historic Giotto cometary encounters of both 1986 and 1992, in the ESOC signature book. Browse its 350 pages for a thirty-year tour of events for groundbreaking activities hosted at ESOC from 1972 until 2002, during the first three decades of ESA.
In reality, the origins of the signature book can be traced back to the days of ESA prehistory, when ESOC was still part of its predecessor ESRO, the European Space Research Organisation. The first event listed is the launch of the ESRO IV satellite, which took place on 22 November 1972 from the Western Test Range, California, USA (even if the date is not included in the entry), three years prior to the creation of ESA in May 1975.
Next up is the official ‘Introduction’ of Professor (Gianni) Formica, the third Director of ESOC, on 10 May 1973, followed by another milestone with the tenth anniversary celebrations for ESRO on 21 March 1974. Formal introductions were clearly an ESOC convention in the early years, taking place for subsequent directors in 1979 (Reinhold Steiner) and 1984 (Kurt Heftman).
Other anniversary celebrations include those for both 20 and 25 years of European Space, in 1984 and 1989 respectively, for ten years of Meteosat images in 1987 and for 25 years of ESOC in 1992.
Many landmark missions and ESA firsts are also represented, with the earliest being the launch of ESA’s first satellite – Cos-B - in August 1975 and a presentation on ESOC activities for Meteosat, the first meteorological satellite, in Dec 1977, following its successful launch on 23 November. Later events include the ECS-2 handover ceremony (to Eutelsat) in October 1984 and, naturally for the home of ESA Operations, those for the launches of Hipparcos (1989), ERS-1 (1991), the European Retrievable Carrier (Eureca, 1992), ERS-2 and ISO (1995), XMM Newton (1999), Cluster II (2000) and Envisat, MSG-1 and Integral (2002).
These span the years from the Ariane 1 to Ariane 5 launchers and are complemented by 1992 visits by the crews of two Space Shuttle missions: STS-42 (with Ulf Merbold as ESA astronaut and the Spacelab module) and STS-46 (which deployed EURECA, with Claude Nicollier as ESA astronaut). Interestingly the former appears out of the usually chronological sequence, sandwiched between events from 1989.
As for Giotto, the watchnight event which took place at ESOC for the1986 encounter with Comet Halley features on page 82 of the book. It comprises 12 pages of signatures, accompanied by special envelopes and postmarks and two images of Comet Halley taken by the Halley Multicolour Camera. Notable names that can be made out include Horst Uwe Keller from the Max Planck Institute, the Principal Investigator for the Halley Multicolour Camera, and Fred L. Whipple, the American astronomer best known for his comet research and his ‘dirty snowball’ theory, who attended both the launch of Giotto in July 1985 and this 1986 encounter. They are joined by other important figures from the space community including Italian physicist Edoardo Amaldi, who was instrumental in the creation of ESRO, Harry Atkinson, Chairman of the ESA Council at the time, ESA’s first Director General Roy Gibson in his subsequent role as first Director General of the British National Space Centre, ESA Swiss delegate Peter Creola and Charles Bigot, Director General of Arianespace.
As part of the Giotto Extended Mission, a second flyby, of Comet Grigg-Skjellerup, took place on 10 July 1992. Again, the main event for this second encounter was planned at ESOC, which appears on page 158, along with logos, a copy of the invitation, photos of an artwork created for the occasion by German artist and photographer Charles Wilp and six pages of signatures. Among these are several who signed themselves ‘Giotto contest 1986’, either as entrants or more likely winners of an ESA children’s art competition inspired by the original Giotto mission.
The affiliations listed show that the guests who took part in events ranged from journalists and broadcasters (from local, national and international outlets) to politicians, industry representatives, partners and collaborators, the latter from other international organisations such as EUMETSAT and EUTELSAT, universities or research institutes and national space agencies.
Weaved among the signatures are also some humorous or personal comments, such as the following, left during the second Giotto flby in 1992: “A great event. When is encounter of the third kind planned?”
Beyond the names and comments, the book also maps out changes in the formats for invitations and use of languages for them. German was used almost exclusively during the 1970s and 1980s with a small number in French or English, while from the 1990s this had switched to English or multi-language invitation material.
The ESOC signature book also represents an important element in the wider story of the transfer of the ESOC archives to the European Centre for Space Records at ESRIN, in 2021. This transfer included the collections of PR material on operations which had been created by the ESOC Corporate Communications Office. One of its key figures, Bettina Braunstein, began her career in the years spanned by this book, with one of her first events being the 1986 Giotto Encounter. She was probably also instrumental in the preservation of the children’s art (from the ESA competition of 1986), which was stored at ESOC prior to being handed over to the ESA Archives and transferred to the Historical Archives of the European Union at the Villa Salviati in Florence, where it remains in deposit today.
Further reading:
Browse the ESOC Signature Book in the SHIP database
EUI online exhibition of the Giotto children’s drawings
