What is the B.USOC?

The B.USOC (Belgian User Support and Operation Centre) is a USOC set up by ESA and the Belgian Ministry of Science. The main role of the Centre is to promote space research programmes and flight opportunities to Belgian scientific community in universities, federal and regional institutes as well as in industry. Subsequently, it provides support to scientists concerning the definition, the development and the operation of their experiments conducted in the different space research fields:

• Microgravity,
• Earth observations,
• Space Sciences and
• Space technology.

The activities of the B.USOC are integrated into the BIRA-IASB (Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy) within the cell "Valorization and Exploitation". Of this position, the B.USOC has a double function of mandate:

• the B.USOC will completely form part of the Service activities of the BIRA-IASB
• it has a function of mandate towards the SPP Science Policy (BELSPO) for all ISS related activities

Within the Columbus general framework, B.USOC will assume the management of the FRC (Facility Responsible Centre) for the external Solar Monitoring Observatory and of the FSC (Facility Support Centre) for European Drawer Rack (EDR) / Protein Crystallization Diagnostics Facility (PCDF) in collaboration with the ERASMUS Centre (USOC located at ESTEC) as FRC.

The management of the B.USOC Centre is based on the following functional and contractual aspects:

1. The B.USOC is administered by a steering committee composed of members representative of Belgian Federal Science Policy (BELSPO), Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BISA) and the Belgium contractor. Jacques Wisemberg as representative of the steering committee is the B.USOC/Iasb-Bira Program Manager
2. The implementation of the B.USOC is managed and controlled by the B.USOC.
3. The implementation of the B.USOC is mainly covering the commissioning, integration, and testing of the Agency (ESA) Furnished Equipment (AFE) and USOC Furnished Equipment (UFE) as far as needed to reach an operational readiness state.

For the preparation and execution of ISS payload operations, B.USOC works together with Space Applications Services with an integrated team of operations engineers, operators and ground controllers.

Financial support by the PRODEX programme of the European Space Agency.