May 9 1978
From The Space Library
ESA announced that on May 12 the Villafranca del Castillo ground station near Madrid would be inaugurated by H .M. Juan Carlos, king of Spain. ESA had designed the station, built under an Aug. 2, 1974, agreement between ESA and Spain, to monitor and control the IUE satellite launched in Jan. 1978, OTS-2 to be launched the first half of May, and Marots to be launched in 1980. The station had antennas measuring 15m for IUE 12m for Marots, and 3m for OTS-2. ESA also would use the station beginning the end of 1978 to control the U.S. meteorological satellite Goes. Like other ESA ground stations, Villafranca would be linked with the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) at Darmstadt in West Germany, which housed control and computer facilities for all European satellites. (ESA Release May 9/78)
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