From the climate crisis to the management of the emergency linked to disasters, passing through data management and the digital change. The gaze on the earth comes from space and triangulates with Frascati in a system in which the study of the earth is followed by the processing and archiving of data. Specifically, the base in Italy is the Esrin Earth observation center near Rome. One of the main specialized agency sites in Europe. Leading it from January 1st will be Simonetta Cheli unanimously appointed during the 300th ESA Council in Paris as Head of Strategy, Program and Coordination of Earth Observation, after a long and rigorous selection. “I had prepared the candidacy – he says -, I did not count when I received confirmation of the appointment”. The new course envisages numerous challenges, even for the manager who has been working within ESA for thirty years. Which also depart from Frascati.
In the scientific structure, a European center of excellence for the exploitation of earth observation missions, not far from the capital, the mission and payload operations of the ESA Earth observation satellites, and Esrin (primary sources) are managed and non-ESA satellites and therefore the distribution and exploitation of data. All while maintaining the largest archive of environmental data in Europe and “coordinating over 20 ground stations and structures of the ground segment in Europe”.
Not only that, as the new director explains, among the programs also «the small launcher Vega, the Vega project team of space riders for the shuttle». Without forgetting the agency’s corporate activities, “that is, those related to information technology, security, the archive and also communication and for a few weeks also the center that deals with asteroids”.
In the research and experimentation center, which can be compared to a sort of “country” of science and scientific research and a “point of reference in the international scenario”, around 800 people work daily, including ESA officials and contractors from European and Canadian companies. “During Covid the presence was reduced to 10 and then to 30 percent – says Cheli – but now it is returning to normality and will settle at about 800 people”. Inside, the staff is responsible for data collection, “distribution to users, data storage and management of the entire ground segment to promote programs for scientific application demonstration of earth observation data”.
The 50,000 visitors who pass through the doors of the Esrin in Frascati every year demonstrate the interest aroused outside.