Both ESOC and BACC have operated satellites successfully for many years using their own systems. ESOC were contracted to investigate possible ground station tracking support for China's first lunar probe, Chang'E-1. BACC, China's lunar exploration project mission control center, and ESOC were therefore faced with the problem of connecting two systems: the BACC missions control system and the ESOC groundstation network ESTRACK; this had to happen within the relative short period of one year. Fortunately ESOC had already provided cross support to other agencies such as NASA and JAXA and the proposal from ESOC was to provide the Chang'E-1 support based on CCSDS standards and therefore to provide systems interoperability without modifying the BACC system and the ESOC system. All interfaces would be based on CCSDS standards and each partner would then be responsible to bridge the CCSDS defined interfaces into their own system. This paper describes how this in practice was achieved, which CCSDS standards were utilized and how each party handled their interfaces. Test, validation and training is in this context very important. This is also explained and finally the actual support is described. The paper will also provide the lessons learned from this cross support and finally the paper will give the outlook of future cooperation between BACC and ESOC and the utilisation of the CCSDS standards for these supports.

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ESA operates a global TTC station network called ESTRACK. All ESTRACK stations support the Space Link Extension protocol (SLE) and all ESA missions have been migrated to SLE. ESTRACK also supports non-ESA missions. Economic considerations result in a growing number of missions that take advantage of cross-support from partner agencies or outsourced services from commercial service providers. This implies that the ground segment encompasses elements and services provided by third party organizations that need to be included in the overall validation process. The test and validation in general is performed in a similar way for all missions that are supported by ESTRACK.In order to validate ESTRACK for a specific mission all systems, interfaces, configurations, procedures and service elements need to be tested. After that the end-to-end test needs to be executed. This test validates the overall interaction of the ground segment from the termination of the space link on ground to the spacecraft operator at the Mission Operations Center. The approach taken for integration and validation testing makes wide usage of a number of spacecraft and ground station system simulators.The paper describes the approach adopted by ESTRACK to ensure that an end-to-end verification and validation process is implemented for the ESTRACK provided services including station cross-support and outsourced tracking services minimizing the risks to the mission/spacecraft but being compatible with budget and schedule constraints.

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Bleeding in early pregnancy and postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) bear substantial risks, with the former closely associated with pregnancy loss and the latter being the foremost cause of maternal death, underscoring the severity of these complications in maternal-fetal health. Here, we investigated the genetic variation underlying aspects of pregnancy-associated bleeding and identified five loci associated with PPH through a meta-analysis of 21,512 cases and 259,500 controls. Functional annotation analysis indicated candidate genes, HAND2, TBX3, and RAP2C/FRMD7, at three loci and showed that at each locus, associated variants were located within binding sites for progesterone receptors (PGR). Furthermore, there were strong genetic correlations with birth weight, gestational duration, and uterine fibroids. Early bleeding during pregnancy (28,898 cases and 302,894 controls) yielded no genome-wide association signals, but showed strong genetic correlation with a variety of human traits, indicative of polygenic and pleiotropic effects. Our results suggest that postpartum bleeding is related to myometrium dysregulation, whereas early bleeding is a complex trait related to underlying health and possibly socioeconomic status.