The Canary Islands Space Centre located in Maspalomas was created in the sixties by NASA to monitor the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft and has belonged to INTA since 1975, that is, in 2025 it will be 50 years old and the authorities of INTA and the south of Gran Canaria have planned some commemorative measures with the support of Hispasat, the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country and the Canary Islands Aerospace Observatory, among others, as Maspalomas24H already announced last October.
Over the past 50 years, the Maspalomas CEC has been expanded with numerous facilities, including the COSPAS-SARSAT rescue and salvage hub; a Centre for the Reception, Processing and Archiving of Earth Observation Data (CREPAD); two 10-metre diameter antennas for receiving data from Earth observation satellites; a 15-metre diameter antenna from the ESA ESTRACK network for tracking, remote control and remote measurement, especially for scientific satellites and for ATV launches using Ariane V; and various antennas for national and international programmes.
The CEC serves companies and institutions such as HISPASAT, a Spanish satellite operator; HISDESAT – a satellite service provider; EUMETSAT – the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites; the Japanese Space Agency JAXA; and, since the 80s, ESA's ESOC and ESRIN centres. The ESA antenna in Maspalomas is part of the core of the ESTRACK (European Space Tracking) network, made up of 13 antennas in nine stations distributed across six countries.
In 2008, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA) agreed to renew the joint use of the satellite tracking facilities at the Canary Islands Space Centre (CEC), located in Maspalomas (Gran Canaria). The centre houses the 15-metre antenna of ESA's ESTRACK network, which supports the fleet of four satellites of ESA's Cluster mission. The agreement was created in March 2000, and defines the terms of the collaboration between both organisations for the joint use of the CEC facilities. The agreement was signed in Maspalomas by the Director General of INTA, Fernando González García, and Gaele Winters, Director of Operations and Infrastructure at ESA. Its purpose is to meet the needs of current and future space programmes in the field of satellite Earth exploration and space research.
The agreement, valid until 2023, serves as a framework for relations between INTA and ESA in basic areas such as Earth exploration, through a contract with ESRIN (ESA's European Space Research Institute) for the joint use of a 10-metre antenna and CREPAD (the Centre for the Reception, Processing and Archiving of Earth Observation Data, which supports Earth Observation satellites such as ERS, ALOS, SPOT and LANDSAT). Space research, through a contract with ESOC (ESA's European Space Operations Centre) for the monitoring of the four Cluster satellites with the 15-metre antenna. It also establishes the basis for collaboration in future Spanish and ESA national programmes through the joint use of CEC facilities. This collaboration may be of particular importance for the Spanish National Earth Observation Programme, which has had the PAZ and INGENIO satellites since 2011.
