Since April 2003, Artemis has been fully operational in its orbital slot at 21.5 degrees East and is operating all of its communication services with a remarkable reliability. As such, it has become an essential contributing factor to the success of other ESA missions, such as ENVISAT and ATV.
Although Artemis itself is controlled by Telespazio from Fucino, Italy, the Artemis mission operations are run from ESA’s Redu centre. Redu houses the Artemis Mission Control Facility, the Ka-band ground terminal with a 13.5 m-diameter dish antenna, and serves as a user ground station with all the facilities used to test the status of the payloads.
Alongside the core satellite missions, the Artemis system is available to the European and Canadian space industry as an element of orbital infrastructure that can accommodate new experimental services thanks to the flexibility of its communication payload.
Today Artemis is not only a precursor of the coming up European Data Relay System (EDRS) but can be regarded as an integral part of its infrastructure for the first years of operation.
Artemis has provided communications between ground controllers and Europe’s ATVs as the cargo ferries flew to the International Space Station.
In 2008, Artemis leapt into service at short notice during the ferry’s first mission when NASA’s system was shut down as Hurricane Ike struck the country.the ATV Control Centre (ATV-CC) in Toulouse. The ATV team in Toulouse, France, and their Artemis counterparts in Redu, Belgium, sprang into action. With only a few hours to prepare, they held contact with the vessel throughout the night of 11 September.