European Space Agency Transmits First Ever Commands to Chinese Spacecraft

For the first time ever, European Space Agency tracking stations have sent commands up to a Chinese spacecraft. The Chinese confirmed today that the commands, sent up from the tracking station in Spain's Canary Islands, were all received successfully by the Chang'e-1 moon mission.

ESA ground tracking support to China's Chang'e-1 lunar orbiter mission successfully kicked off with the first receipt of telemetry data from the Chinese spacecraft at ESA's 35m dish in
Australia. Almost three hours later, the first telecommands sent to Chang'e-1
were transmitted via ESA's 15m station in the Canary Islands, Spain. ESA
station in Kourou, French Guiana,South America also successfully received telemetry data and transmitted commands to Chang'e-1.

China's Chang'e-1 mission, just like Apollo, needs tracking stations around the world to be able to communicate to and from the spacecraft on its way to the moon.

Australia, the Canary Islands and Kourou stations are all part of ESA's ESTRACK ground station network, and are remotely controlled from the European Space Operations
Centre (ESOC), in Darmstadt, Germany.

According to the Space Mart article:

In addition to receipt of telemetry and transmission of telecommands, the Maspalomas [Spain] and Kourou stations also performed ranging and Doppler measurements used to determine the spacecraft's location and direction.

"The support began as planned and without any problems. We were confident it would work given the extensive preparations and intensive testing we did in close cooperation with the Chinese," said Erik Soerensen, Head of the System
Requirements and Validation Section at ESOC.

Another Science Daily article says:

Hermann Opgenoorth, Head of ESA's Solar System Missions Division says, "Participation in Chang'e-1 gives European scientists and ESA experts a welcome opportunity to maintain and pass on their expertise and to continue their scientific work. Based on the experience gained with this first mission, we intended to cooperate on the next missions in
China's Chang'e line of lunar explorers."

Congrats to ESA and China for a successful test.

China and ESA Launch Moon Mission-- Chang'e-1 [Science Daily]
ESA Transmits First Ever Telecommands to Chinese Satellite [Space Mart]

Image: NASA's Goldstone tracking station