Waltzing celebration for half a century of European satellite tracking

Written by Copernical Team Monday, 26 May 2025 07:00

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2025 marks a landmark year for Europe’s ‘bridge between Earth and space’. The European Space Agency’s Estrack satellite tracking network turns 50 – and with it, its deep space antenna in Cebreros, Spain, celebrates 20 years of connecting Earth to the agency’s most distant missions.

Fittingly, this celebration of technological excellence coincides with the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II and the 50th anniversary of the ESA. To honour this convergence of milestones, ESA and the Vienna Tourist Board are orchestrating a unique mission: broadcasting The Blue Danube Waltz to its destined home among the stars.

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On Saturday, 31 May, the Cebreros station will make history by transmitting a concert performance of TheBlue Danube Waltz into deep space – a gesture that symbolically places this 'anthem of space' among the stars, alongside the Golden Record on NASA’s Voyager.

Celebrations on Earth will echo this concert amongst the stars. A performance by the famous Vienna Symphony will be organised the MAK (Museum of Applied Arts) in Vienna, with public screening in Madrid, New York and Vienna. Moreover the 15-minutes live stream of the transmission of The Blue Danube Waltz into deep space can be watched on space.wien.info and the Vienna Instagram channel.

A parallel, special event at ESA’s Cebreros station – including media, ESA experts, dignitaries, and international partners – will mark the moment with pride with guest speakers Carole Mundell, ESA's Director of Science, Simon Plum, ESA Head of the Mission Operations Department, and Enno Drofenik, Ambassador of the Republic of Austria to Spain.

“We are delighted that Cebreros station can support this artistic project using spare capacity to transmit a signal to the Universe,” said Octave Procope-Mamert, responsible for ground infrastructure for spacecraft operations at ESA. “Sending a work of musical genius to the stars highlights the technical genius that we apply every day in flying and communicating with European missions discovering new knowledge throughout the Solar System.”