![](\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2015\/10\/nalla_the_persuader\/15640188-1-eng-GB\/Nalla_the_persuader_small.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\nThis fierce creature is Nalla, a female peregrine falcon, resting on her handler, Adrian Rubio Botello.\n<\/p>\n
\nHe brings her round to the Cebreros tracking station, near Madrid, Spain, every so often, and she ensures other birds \u2212 who might mistake our beautiful tracking antenna for a toilet or want to build their nests on it \u2212 behave.\n<\/p>\n
\nNalla possesses, let\u2019s say, certain \u2018persuasive abilities\u2019, and the local birds stay far away, and our station stays pristine and ready to communicate with missions voyaging out to 800 million km.\n<\/p>\n
\nWe call it \u2018the mediaeval art of falcon persuasion\u2019 \u2013 and it works.\n<\/p>\n
\nIn 2015, ESA is celebrating the 40th anniversary of Estrack, the Agency\u2019s ground station network.\n<\/p>\n
\nEstrack provides the indispensable communications link to spacecraft that are helping us to learn about our planet, our Solar System and our Universe.\n<\/p>\n
\nOver four decades, Estrack has expanded globally and today employs cutting-edge technology to link scientists and mission controllers with spacecraft orbiting Earth, watching our Sun, studying stars and voyaging deep into space.\n<\/p>\n
\nEstrack has stations on three continents, all remotely operated from the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe network is now tracking more than a dozen science and Earth observation missions, including Swarm, the Sentinels, Rosetta, Gaia and Mars Express.\n<\/p>\n
\nWatch our 40th anniversary music video: Ground station chillax<\/a>\n<\/p>\n \nMore information<\/b>\n<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.esa.int\/estrack<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t \nThis fierce creature is Nalla, a female peregrine falcon, resting on her handler, Adrian Rubio Botello.\n<\/p>\n \nHe brings her round to the Cebreros tracking station, near Madrid, Spain, every so often, and she ensures other birds \u2212 who might mistake our beautiful tracking antenna for a toilet or want to build their nests on it \u2212 behave.\n<\/p>\n \nNalla possesses, let\u2019s say, certain \u2018persuasive abilities\u2019, and the local birds stay far away, and our station stays pristine and ready to communicate with missions voyaging out to 800 million km.\n<\/p>\n \nWe call it \u2018the mediaeval art of falcon persuasion\u2019 \u2013 and it works.\n<\/p>\n \nIn 2015, ESA is celebrating the 40th anniversary of Estrack, the Agency\u2019s ground station network.\n<\/p>\n \nEstrack provides the indispensable communications link to spacecraft that are helping us to learn about our planet, our Solar System and our Universe.\n<\/p>\n \nOver four decades, Estrack has expanded globally and today employs cutting-edge technology to link scientists and mission controllers with spacecraft orbiting Earth, watching our Sun, studying stars and voyaging deep into space.\n<\/p>\n \nEstrack has stations on three continents, all remotely operated from the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany.\n<\/p>\n \nThe network is now tracking more than a dozen science and Earth observation missions, including Swarm, the Sentinels, Rosetta, Gaia and Mars Express.\n<\/p>\n \nWatch our 40th anniversary music video: Ground station chillax<\/a>\n<\/p>\n \nMore information<\/b>\n<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.esa.int\/estrack<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.esa.int\/cebreros<\/a>
http:\/\/www.esa.int\/Cebreros_webcam<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
\nhttp:\/\/www.esa.int\/cebreros<\/a>
http:\/\/www.esa.int\/Cebreros_webcam<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=235073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235131,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235073\/revisions\/235131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=235073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=235073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=235073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}