What a ride! From helping to plan ESA’s #Sentinel2Go Social Space event to hanging out (all night!) with the most inspiring space enthusiasts and social media users; from touring ESA Operations mission control and other facilities to covering another successful Earth Observation launch and celebrating with yummy cake. We had the time of our socmed lives! Here’s what our editors had to say about the event:
Image credit: ESA/J. Mai
“This was the first SocialSpace event that we’ve helped ESA organise on campus at ESOC, the mission control centre in Darmstadt, Germany. The buzz in the air was amazing! There was excitement and enthusiasm from a hundred tweeps from almost 30 countries, while at the same time, the engineers, mission controllers and technical people who met the participants were also excited and enthusiastic. Everyone had a story to share and the overall feeling was just amazing. I’d rate this as one of the best-ever social space events I’ve attended.”
—Daniel Scuka, Senior Editor for Operations and the tallest tweep you’ve ever seen.
Image credit: ESA/J. Mai
“Sentinel-2B is my first ever launch. The thing I found most compelling was the tension after the launch, when everybody was waiting for the first signal of life from the satellite. If the launch was childbirth, the beep of confirmation of the solar array deployment was Sentinel-2B’s wail, her cry to say: I’m alive and well! Then, and only then did everybody in the control room in Kourou exchange hugs. This was a really moving moment and my favourite one by far.”
—Beppe Roncari, Social Media Expert for Earth Observation and EJR-Quartz’ newest recruit.
#Image credit: ESA/RPalmari
“I was blown away by the enthusiasm of the #Sentinel2Go participants, who had come from 27 countries to stay up all night with us and share the launch event at ESOC. It makes us look at what we do with new eyes.”
—Erica Rolfe, Chief Online Publisher for ESA, EJR-Quartz managing director, and shortest member of our team.
Image credit: ESA/RPalmari
“It was an honour to spend the event with such an enthusiastic crowd – or #SentiNerds as they’ve dubbed themselves! The most gratifying part was seeing how people from so many different backgrounds have now formed friendships that they can maintain thanks to social media. Events like these provide the opportunity for like-minded people to meet, network and form bonds, all while taking part in a historical space occasion. I’m looking forward to the next!”
—Kelsea Brennan-Wessels, Senior Editor for Earth Observation and the host of the Earth from Space programme
Image credit: ESA/J. Mai
“The most rewarding part of the event was to see the enthusiasm and the gratitude of the participants. It was amazing how far some of them travelled to be a part of this.”
—Maria Bennett, Chief Social Media Publisher for ESA and international woman of mystery.
Thanks to all the spacetweeps who flew out from all over the world to attend this event. Thanks to our colleagues at ESA for all the hard work and planning that made an event of this scale so successful. And thanks to everyone who followed along on social media.
We’ll see you all at the next launch. In the meantime, enjoy photos from this one:
