The successful launch and operation of any ESA mission requires a multi-disciplinary team working right across the agency and supported by industry and academia. However, it is the Spacecraft Operations Manager, the ubiquitous 'SOM', who is immediately responsible for day-to-day flight activities and for solving the myriad problems that inevitably arise when complex spacecraft voyage into the Solar System.

About 19 men and women are presently working as SOMs on current and future ESA missions, comprising some of the most talented and qualified engineers in Europe. A SOM is assigned to each ESA mission, and he/she assembles a group of spacecraft engineers in each of the specialist areas, including power, thermal, telemetry and telecommand, to become the Flight Control Team, or FCT.

"SOMs must form a team and then take responsibility; they must really care. You are responsible to both internal and external customers and your mission might be valued between about 400 million and 1 billion euro. We don't want to lose any of these missions, so the flight control team must be highly motivated and it's the SOM who makes that happen," says Manfred Warhaut, Head of ESA's Missions Operations Department at the agency's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.

Career as SOM includes education and experience

There is no fixed path to becoming a SOM; while leadership and fundamental technical skills are shared in common, their educational and career backgrounds are as varied as ESA's expanding range of space missions demands.

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