European Space Agency
The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organization of 22 member states dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, ESA has a worldwide staff of about 2,200
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Today, the European Commission, ESA, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (Eumetsat) celebrated the official launch of the Destination Earth initiative: an ambitious project that involves creating a digital replica of Earth to help us move towards a sustainable future. View the full article
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New views from ESA’s Mars Express reveal fascinating ice-related features in Mars’ Utopia region – home to the largest known impact basin not only on the Red Planet, but in the Solar System. View the full article
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Video: 00:04:06 On 24 March, over a dozen engineers gathered at Euclid’s industrial prime contractor, Thales Alenia Space in Turin, to carefully attach the two main parts of the Euclid spacecraft together. This task required such extreme precision that it took a whole day, followed by two days of connecting electronic equipment and testing that Euclid’s instruments still work. Euclid is ESA’s mission to unveil the mysteries of the dark Universe. Read more here. View the full article
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ESA is now one step closer to unveiling the mysteries of the dark Universe, following the coming together of two key parts of the Euclid spacecraft – the instrument-carrying payload module and the supporting service module. View the full article
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ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher today underscored the Agency’s determination to ensure that ESA’s work in space is not derailed by the tragic events in Ukraine. Mr Aschbacher stresses that work continues to assess the impact on each ongoing programme, including on missions affected by Roscosmos' withdrawal of Soyuz launch operations from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. View the full article
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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is launching two pioneering scientific spacecraft this year, one to study the Sun, and one to land on the Moon – the nation’s first soft landing on another celestial body. ESA’s global deep-space communication antennas will provide essential support to both missions every step of the way, tracking the spacecraft, pinpointing their locations at crucial stages, transmitting commands and receiving ‘telemetry’ and valuable science data. View the full article
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Video: 00:04:25 ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, is set to embark on an eight-year cruise to Jupiter starting April 2023. The mission will investigate the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants and the Jupiter system as an archetype for the numerous giant planets now known to orbit other stars. This animation depicts Juice’s journey to Jupiter and highlights from its foreseen tour of the giant planet and its large ocean-bearing moons. It depicts Juice’s journey from leaving Earth’s surface in a launch window 5–25 April 2023 and performing multiple gravity assist flybys in the inner Solar System, to arrival at Jupiter (July 2031), flybys of the Jov…
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ESA is going to the Moon – in collaboration with its international partners – and seeks to build a lasting lunar link to enable sustainable space exploration. View the full article
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The poles of the Moon have emerged as enticing goals for future exploration, given their potential for harbouring water and other volatiles. So ESA and the European Space Resources Innovation Centre, ESRIC, challenged European and Canadian engineering teams to develop vehicles capable of prospecting resources within in these shadowy regions – then put their designs to the test in a realistic lunar analog environment. Five winning teams have now been selected from this challenge, receiving €75 000 contracts each to move their rovers forward to the next phase of the contest. View the full article
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Week in images: 21 - 25 March 2022 Discover our week through the lens View the full article
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Video: 00:01:00 The James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) will observe the Universe in the near-infrared and mid-infrared – at wavelengths longer than visible light. By viewing the Universe at infrared wavelengths with an unprecedented sensitivity Webb will open up a new window to the cosmos. With infrared wavelengths it can see the first stars and galaxies forming after the Big Bang. Its infrared vision also allows Webb to study stars and planetary systems forming inside thick clouds of gas and dust that are opaque to visible light. The primary goals of Webb are to study galaxy, star and planet formation in the Universe. To see the very first stars and galaxies that …
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Image: We spy from way up high an ESA astronaut dangling from the International Space Station. Matthias Maurer performed his first spacewalk during his Cosmic Kiss mission yesterday with fellow astronaut Raja Chari of NASA. Extravehicular activity or EVA 80 lasted 6 hours and 54 minutes and was not without some excitement. An hour into the spacewalk, the camera and light assembly on Matthias’ helmet needed some readjustments, which Raja was able to fix using some wiring. The duo were then able to carry on with the tasks, which included installing hoses on a radiator beam valve module that helps regulate Space Station system temperatures, replacing an external camera on…
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The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Carrara – an Italian city known especially for its world-famous marble. View the full article
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Image: Solar Orbiter tracks solar features during closest approach View the full article
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Solar Orbiter’s latest images shows the full Sun in unprecedented detail. They were taken on 7 March, when the spacecraft was crossing directly between the Earth and Sun. View the full article
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Danish ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen has been assigned a long-duration mission to the International Space Station and is expected to fly as the pilot of a Crew Dragon spacecraft in mid 2023 or early 2024. View the full article
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Using data from ESA’s Gaia mission, astronomers have shown that a part of the Milky Way known as the ‘thick disc’ began forming 13 billion years ago, around 2 billion years earlier than expected, and just 0.8 billion years after the Big Bang. View the full article
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Image: Turning astronaut urine into fuel on Mars View the full article
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With extreme weather events threatening to be more frequent and more severe as the climate crisis takes grip, it’s never been more important to have fast and accurate forecasts. ESA and Eumetsat are working hard to ensure that there will be a constant stream of weather data from space for the next decades and that these data will arrive faster and be more accurate compared to what we have today. It is therefore fitting that on World Meteorological Day, ESA can be assured that the first of the next generation weather satellites, Meteosat Third Generation Imager, has passed a critical set of tests, paving the way for it to be launched in December. View the full article
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A newly released Android app will turn your smartphone into an instrument for crowdsourced science. Leave it by your window each night with your satnav positioning turned on and your phone will record small variations in satellite signals, gathering data for machine learning analysis of meteorology and space weather patterns. View the full article
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Tune in to ESA Web TV channel 2 from 12:30 CET (11:30 GMT) this Wednesday 23 March to watch ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer’s first spacewalk, known as US EVA 80, live from the International Space Station. View the full article
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Video: 00:04:15 ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti will return to the International Space Station in April 2022. Her second space mission is known as Minerva. Inspired by Roman mythology, Samantha says the Minerva mission name and patch pay homage to the competence and sophisticated craftmanship of all those who make human spaceflight possible. Samantha will travel to the Station alongside NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob “Farmer” Hines and Jessica Watkins. Collectively known as Crew-4, the astronauts will be launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. When Samantha arrives at the Station, her Minerva mission…
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Data from the Tropomi instrument onboard the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite has been used to detect methane plumes over some of Europe’s largest methane-emitting coal mines. View the full article
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Image: New picture, but a familiar face. ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer took this image of Earth’s natural satellite, the subject of exciting news this week, from the seven-windowed cupola of the International Space Station. Down on Earth, the rocket that will launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft with the European Service Module to the Moon has been moved to the launchpad in Florida, USA, for its first full test before the Artemis I launch later this year. The Space Launch Systems rocket (SLS), aka the Moon rocket, left the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at around 23:00 CET (22:00 GMT) on 17 March on a 6.5 km trip to Launchpad LC39B. Traveling at a m…
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