European space Security and Education Centre (ESEC)

Since 1968, an ESA operational centre is located in the province of Luxembourg, in Redu. The ESA site in Redu has been involved in the European space adventure from the very beginning.

Until 2017 the ESA station in Redu was operated in the frame of the ESA network of ground stations. Redu was responsible, among other things, for monitoring and testing different types of satellites.

The station then evolved under the impulse of BELSPO and the intermunicipal company IDELUX. Within the framework of ESA infrastructures, the station became the European reference centre for space security and education. Named ESEC, the new centre took its place in a hub between Transinne and Redu, two localities some 5 km apart.

The Redu site has some 40 controllable antennas. The main activity deployed in ESEC since many years is the operations of a number of small satellites, including PROBA-1, -2 and -V, and the centre has the ambition to become in the future the default mission operation centre for ESA's small satellites and Cubesats. ESEC is also where the data centre is located for the space weather activities developed by ESA's Space Safety Programme. In addition, part of the ESA Education programme is carried out in ESEC. And recently, activities are being developed in the field of cyber security. 

In 2018, the site in Redu celebrated its 50th anniversary and was renamed the ESEC (European Space Security and Education Centre) by the Director General of ESA. The aim is not to limit its mission to these new activities, but rather to strengthen the role it will play in this area and to link these activities to the role that the site is already playing.

With regard to security, the first European cyber-security training centre for space systems was set up in ESEC, which is now operational. This training centre will become a centre of excellence in cyber security. ESEC should become a reference in Europe in this respect.

Since 2018, ESEC has concentrated all its operational and cyber security activities in Redu, while its educational activities take place in the Galaxia centre, in nearby Transinne where the Walloon Business Incubation Centre (BIC), the Vitrociset company, the Galileo Integrated Logistic Support Centre (GILSC) and the Euro Space Centre, which welcomes young space enthusiasts , are already based). Galaxia is the centre of the ESA Academy, which is responsible for all ESA training sessions for university students.