ESA Optical Ground Station

The ESA Optical Ground Station (on the left)
Alternative names	OGS Telescope
Location(s)	Tenerife,Atlantic Ocean, international waters
Coordinates	28°18′03″N16°30′43″W / 28.30096°N 16.51182°W /28.30096; -16.51182
Diameter	1 m (3 ft 3 in)
Focal length	13.3 m (43 ft 8 in)
Website	www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering_Technology/Space_Optoelectronics/Optical_Ground_Station_OGS
Location of ESA Optical Ground Station
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[edit on Wikidata]

TheESA Optical Ground Station (OGS Telescope orESA Space Debris Telescope) is theEuropean Space Agency's ground basedobservatory at theTeide Observatory onTenerife, Spain, built for the observation ofspace debris. OGS is part of theArtemis experiment and is operated by the IAC (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias) and Ataman Science S.L.U.

The observatory is a 1-meterCoudé telescope with a field of view of 0.7 degrees, supported by anEnglish cross-axial mount inside a dome 12.5-meters in diameter. Its main purposes are:

1. to be the optical ground station of theArtemis telecommunications satellite (the project from which the telescope takes its name)
2. to survey space debris in different orbits around the Earth,
3. to conduct surveys and follow-up observations ofnear-Earth objects as part of ESA'sSpace Situational Awareness programme, and
4. 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 21stmagnitude, which corresponds to a capability to detectspace debris objects as small as 10 cm in thegeostationary ring. As a large part of the observation time is dedicated to space debris surveys, in particular the observation ofspace debris in thegeostationary ring and ingeostationary transfer orbits, the term ESA Space Debris Telescope became used very frequently. Space debris surveys are carried out every month, centered on New Moon.^{[citation needed]}

Since 2006, the telescope has also been used as a receiver station for quantum communication experiments (such astesting Bell's inequality,quantum cryptography, andquantum teleportation), with the sender station being 143 km away in theobservatory on La Palma.^[1] 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.

EAS OGS has been credited by theMinor Planet Center with the discovery of 37minor planets.^[2] These are:

• List of largest optical telescopes in the 20th century
• List of minor planet discoverers § Discovering dedicated institutions

• 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

• Discoveries by ESA OGS
• Space Situational Awareness Programme
• Optical telescopes
• European Space Agency facilities
• Space debris

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