Editing Mars Express (section)

== Operations of the spacecraft ==
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Operations for ''Mars Express'' are carried out by a multinational team of engineers from ESA's Operation Centre ([[European Space Operations Centre|ESOC]]) in [[Darmstadt]]. The team began preparations for the mission about 3 to 4 years prior to the actual launch. This involved preparing the ground segment and the operational procedures for the whole mission.

The Mission Control Team is composed of the Flight Control Team, Flight Dynamics Team, Ground Operations Managers, Software Support and Ground Facilities Engineers. All of these are located at ESOC but there are additionally external teams, such as the Project and Industry Support teams, who designed and built the spacecraft. The Flight Control Team currently consists of:

* The Spacecraft Operations Manager
* Six Operations Engineers (including three Mission Planners)
* One Spacecraft Analyst
* Six spacecraft controllers (SpaCons), shared with [[ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter]], [[BepiColombo]] and [[Solar Orbiter]].

The team build-up, headed by the Spacecraft Operations Manager, started about four years before launch. He was required to recruit a suitable team of engineers that could handle the varying tasks involved in the mission. For ''Mars Express'' the engineers came from various other missions. Most of them had been involved with Earth orbiting satellites.