European Space Agency

Image: All-in-one YPSat, Ariane 6 bound View the full article

To make the future of Galileo a reality, ESA and European industry are hard at work developing ultra-precise atomic clocks, system testbeds, ground mission and ground control segments and, of course, the satellites. Airbus Defence and Space, who is building six of the Galileo Second Generation constellation satellites, presented their first flight model structure to the programme’s stakeholders last week. View the full article

Video: 00:20:11 ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen called several ESERO establishments in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland where over 1000 students were waiting to ask questions about life in space and how science on the International Space Station can benefit life on Earth. Check it out to learn more about how water is recycled on the Space Station and what you need to be a good astronaut. View the full article

In a significant step towards a more sustainable future, ESA and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding during Earth Information Day at COP28 currently taking place in Dubai. The memorandum signifies a commitment to harness the power of space technology and data for environmental conservation, nature and biodiversity protection and restoration. View the full article

Delegates from around 200 countries are convened at the United Nations COP28 summit in Dubai to assess the action they are taking to combat the climate crisis. With satellites fundamental to understanding and monitoring climate change, ESA has awarded a contract to Airbus to take the TRUTHS satellite mission to its next development phase. TRUTHS is set to provide the gold reference for climate measurements, thereby giving decision-makers more confidence in the data they use for climate action. View the full article

Six years of hard work and dedication paid off in spectacular fashion today, as the Educational Irish Research Satellite, EIRSAT-1, successfully blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. Hitching a ride on a Space-X Falcon-9 launcher, the tiny satellite – measuring just 10.7cm x 10.7cm x 22.7cm – has now made history as Ireland’s first satellite! View the full article

Video: 00:04:04 On 1 December 2023, at 19:19 CET (18:18 GMT), Ireland's first satellite EIRSAT-1 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, USA. Built by students at University College Dublin under guidance of ESA’s Education Office, EIRSAT-1 is a 2-unit CubeSat carrying three experiments, including a novel gamma ray detector that will study some of the most luminous explosions in the universe. The mission has been in development since the team was accepted to the ESA Academy Fly Your Satellite! programme in 2017. Over the past six years, the students have worked with ESA experts and acquired the professional competences needed to design and build their satellite. They were accompanied through test campaigns at ESA Education’s CubeSat Support Facility in Belgium and other ESA sites, and were offered the opportunity to launch their satellite by ESA.  Learn more about EIRSAT-1 View the full article

Week in images: 27 November - 01 December 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission shows us an amazing view of the tropical island of Tutuila, the largest in the American Samoa archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean. View the full article

Image: After being grounded on the ocean floor for well over four decades, the largest iceberg in the world is on the loose. View the full article

Video: 00:12:34 Almost 200 countries are gathering in Dubai to attend the biggest climate event of the year. COP28 – the 2023 United Nations climate change summit – isn’t just another conference though. For the first time, country representatives will assess the progress they’ve made towards cutting their greenhouse gas emissions through a process called the ‘global stocktake’. Satellites are critical in the quest to tackle climate change as they give the robustness and transparency needed to monitor progress towards a lower-emissions and more resilient world. If undertaken effectively, the global stocktake can provide an opportunity to leverage decisions and accelerate ambition in climate action plans. This video contains interviews with ESA Director of Earth Observation Programmes, Simonetta Cheli, Antony Delavois, ESA Junior Professional, Atmospheric Composition and Yasjka Meijer, CO2M Mission Scientist. View the full article

An international team of astronomers have used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to provide the first observation of water and other molecules in the inner, rocky-planet-forming regions of a disc in one of the most extreme environments in our galaxy. View the full article

Image: Hera asteroid mission, shaken not stirred View the full article

Video: 00:08:29 Focus on Euclid with Laurent Brouard: “I’m going to show you what a telescope that we send into space looks like.” Laurent Brouard, Project Manager at Airbus Defence and Space, was responsible for building the Euclid payload module (PLM). In this interview, which took place in a clean room at the Airbus premises in Toulouse, he describes with words, gestures, and the Euclid PLM structural and thermal model how Euclid works. Did you know that Euclid sees the same part of the sky at the same time in both the infrared and visible wavelengths? Or that in space radiators keep the instruments cold? Have you ever wondered how light “travels” inside Euclid’s telescope? Listen to Laurent to know more about the technology behind the mission that will map the dark matter and the dark energy of the Universe. Space Team Europe is an ESA space community engagement initiative to gather European space actors under the same umbrella sharing values of leadership, autonomy, and responsibility. © ESA - European Space Agency Access the other Space Team Europe for Euclid videos View the full article

As global temperatures records are smashed and greenhouse gas emissions reach new highs, a new report from the UN Environment Programme finds that current pledges under the Paris Agreement put the world on track for a 2.5–2.9°C temperature rise this century – pointing to the urgent need for increased climate action. The report is timely as nearly 200 nations gather in the coming two weeks at the United Nations COP28 Climate Change Summit to conclude the world’s first ever ‘Global Stocktake’ on climate change. Swift and sustained climate action is needed to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Satellites are critical tools in the quest to tackle climate change and monitor progress towards a lower-emissions and more resilient world. View the full article

Video: 01:00:00 Watch the replay of the media briefing on Ariane 6 during which ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher outlines the progress achieved after the successful hot firing test on 23 November 2023 at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, as well as the upcoming steps in the Ariane 6 development test campaign, including ESA, CNES and ArianeGroup targeting the first launch of Ariane 6 between mid June and end of July 2024. Participants also includes Martin Sion, CEO, ArianeGroup ; Philippe Baptiste, President of CNES and Stéphane Israël, CEO, Arianespace. View the full article

Video: 00:02:16 Scenes from the combined hot-fire test held for Ariane 6 on 23 November 2023. Teams on the ground went through a complete launch countdown followed by a seven-minute full firing of the core stage’s engine, as it would fire on a launch into space. This video shows the Ariane 6 mobile building opening its doors, the building rolling away to leave the Ariane 6 test model on the launch pad and the seven minutes of firing. On the launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana, the Ariane 6 test model fired of its Vulcain 2.1 main stage engine for seven minutes. This engine, on a real flight, would work with the boosters to propel the 62-m-tall rocket off Earth and into space. For the test the rocket stayed firmly on the ground, but its engine burnt through 150 000 kg of supercooled liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel for the duration of a real flight. Not only was the core stage being tested, but all aspects of the launch pad and operations, too, from the delicate procedure of fuelling both the main engine and the orbital stage stacked above it to testing the thermal effects of a launch on mechanical and electrical components. Access the related broadcast quality video material. View the full article

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In around six months, ESA’s Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer mission will take to the skies to advance our understanding of the interactions between clouds, aerosols and radiation in Earth’s atmosphere. But how will it do that exactly? View the full article

Video: 00:03:39 Focus on Euclid with Guadalupe Cañas Herrera: “I’m exactly where I’ve always wanted to be.” Guadalupe Cañas Herrera, an ESA Internal Research Fellow currently working for ESA’s Euclid mission at ESTEC, the Netherlands, describes in this interview her personal and professional trajectory. Passionate about space since her early childhood, she has spent endless nights looking at the stars. Now, this theoretical physicist develops her activities within the Euclid Scientific Consortium to establish the quantity of dark matter and dark energy existing in the Universe. Listen to Guadalupe for a vivid account from a vocational scientist and an ardent defender of scientific collaboration. Space Team Europe is an ESA space community engagement initiative to gather European space actors under the same umbrella sharing values of leadership, autonomy, and responsibility. Access the other Space Team Europe for Euclid videos View the full article

Video: 00:02:07 We are all intricately interconnected to our Earth – from the trees that provide us with oxygen, to the natural sources that shape our landscape. ESA's Earth observation programme is at the forefront of monitoring our planet's dynamic changes. Using cutting-edge satellite technology, ESA captures invaluable data on Earth's atmosphere, land and oceans. From tracking climate patterns to assessing environmental health, ESA's Earth observation initiatives provide essential insights for scientific research, environmental management and disaster response. By harnessing space technology, ESA contributes significantly to our understanding of Earth – ensuring a sustainable future for generations to come. View the full article

With all eyes about to focus on the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, new scientific findings show, again, that the climate crisis is taking its toll on Antarctica – a continent, up to recently, thought better able to withstand the immediate effects of rising global temperatures. Using satellite data, scientists have discovered that the ice shelf extending into the ocean from Cadman Glacier on the west Antarctic Peninsula collapsed, leaving the glacier exposed to unusually warm ocean water, which caused the glacier to accelerate and retreat rapidly. View the full article

Video: 00:03:08 Henk Hoekstra, professor of observational cosmology at Leiden University, the Netherlands, shares his professional trajectory linked to weak gravitational lensing, a technique used by ESA’s Euclid mission. Henk explains how Euclid will reveal the dark side of the Universe. He uses enlightening examples involving a swimming pool and other terrestrial objects. Listen to Henk Hoekstra to understand how Euclid can make the invisible visible. Space Team Europe is an ESA space community engagement initiative to gather European space actors under the same umbrella sharing values of leadership, autonomy, and responsibility. View the full article

Image: This new Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals intricate details of the Herbig Haro object 797 (HH 797). Herbig-Haro objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars (known as protostars), and are formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shockwaves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. HH 797, which dominates the lower half of this image, is located close to the young open star cluster IC 348, which is located near the eastern edge of the Perseus dark cloud complex. The bright infrared objects in the upper portion of the image are thought to host two further protostars. This image was captured with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). Infrared imaging is powerful in studying newborn stars and their outflows, because the youngest stars are invariably still embedded within the gas and dust from which they are formed. The infrared emission of the star’s outflows penetrates the obscuring gas and dust, making Herbig-Haro objects ideal for observation with Webb’s sensitive infrared instruments. Molecules excited by the turbulent conditions, including molecular hydrogen and carbon monoxide, emit infrared light that Webb can collect to visualise the structure of the outflows. NIRCam is particularly good at observing the hot (thousands of degree Celsius) molecules that are excited as a result of shocks. Using ground-based observations, researchers have previously found that the for cold molecular gas associated with HH 797, most of the red-shifted gas (moving away from us) is found to the south (bottom right), while the blue-shifted gas (moving towards us) is to the north (bottom left). A gradient was also found across the outflow, such that at a given distance from the young central star, the velocity of the gas near the eastern edge of the jet is more red-shifted than that of the gas on the western edge. Astronomers in the past thought this was due to the outflow’s rotation. In this higher resolution Webb image, however, we can see that what was thought to be one outflow is in fact made up of two almost parallel outflows with their own separate series of shocks (which explains the velocity asymmetries). The source, located in the small dark region (bottom right of centre), and already known from previous observations, is therefore not a single but a double star. Each star is producing its own dramatic outflow. Other outflows are also seen in this image, including one from the protostar in the top right of centre along with its illuminated cavity walls. HH 797 resides directly north of HH 211 (separated by approximately 30 arcseconds), which was the feature of a Webb image release in September 2023. [Image Description: In the lower half of the image is a narrow, horizontal nebula that stretches from edge to edge. It is brightly coloured with more variety on its right side. In the upper half there is a glowing point with multi-coloured light radiating from it in all directions. A bright star with long diffraction spikes lies along the right edge, and a few smaller stars are spread around. The background is covered in a thin haze.] Release on esawebb.org View the full article

ESA’s first human spaceflight mission lifted off 40 years ago today. Accompanied by the first ESA astronaut, Ulf Merbold, the Spacelab module took flight inside the Space Shuttle’s cargo bay, turning NASA’s ‘space truck’ into a mini-space station for scientific research. Europe continues to be highly active in the crewed module business to this day. View the full article