Gaia contributors

Peter Collins

European Space Operations Centre

Peter Collins is the Power and Thermal operations engineer in the Gaia Flight Control Team at ESOC.

He comes from Derbyshire in England, and graduated from the University of Manchester in 2002 with a Phyiscs with Astrophysics Masters degree. After graduation, Peter worked at EUMETSAT in Darmstadt, Germany, where he was a member of the Flight Control Team (FCT) for the MetOp-A mission, responsible for flight operations for several of the instruments on-board pre- and post-launch. From there, Peter moved to the Netherlands and joined the Herschel-Planck Project Team based at ESTEC. He spent an intensive year planning, preparing, and then helping execute the launch-and-early-orbit and commissioning phases for Herschel.

Following another spell at EUMETSAT, Peter then joined the Gaia FCT in ESOC. He is currently responsible for flight operations preparation for Gaia, specifically for the power and thermal subsystems, but less specifically he is involved in general testing and preparation of the mission control facilities that will be used post-launch to monitor and control the spacecraft. During the spring-summer of 2012, he was also a member of the LEOP B-team for the MetOp-B mission, enjoying an exciting three days of operations following the launch in September.

Outside of work, Peter is a keen football player and member of the ESOC football team. He is a big Manchester United FC fan. Peter also enjoys listening to music and attending music concerts.

Published: 01/02/2013