Part of the CNES’s multi-mission network of tracking stations across the globe. Built in the 1980s, and located 20 km South of Toulouse, France, the station remains a key facility for CNES, where it tracks and controls spacecraft and collects mission data. Today, the 15 satellites controlled by the French space agency use the Aussaguel receiving station. The station’s multi-mission antennas are also an integral part of the network that swings into action for each Ariane 5, Vega, and Soyuz launch from the Guiana Space Centre. In September 2015 the station opened a new 940-square-metre spacecraft tracking and control operations centre, named Claude Chappe after the man who invented the telegraph. The new centre is also fully integrated with the Toulouse Space Centre and the agency’s information and tracking system.