European Space Agency

Image: The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) spacecraft Einstein Probe lifted off on a Chang Zheng (Long March) 2C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China at 15:03 CST / 07:03 GMT / 08:03 CET on 9 January 2024. With the successful launch, Einstein Probe began its mission to survey the sky and hunt for bursts of X-ray light from mysterious objects such as neutron stars and black holes. Einstein Probe is a collaboration led by CAS with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), Germany. “I would like to congratulate our colleagues at CAS on the successful launch of an innovative mission that is set to make great strides in the field of X-ray astronomy”, says Professor Carole Mundell, ESA’s Director of Science. “At ESA, we value international collaboration to advance science and deepen our understanding of the cosmos. I wish the Einstein Probe team a very successful mission.” To efficiently monitor the entire sky and routinely discover new X-ray sources, Einstein Probe is equipped with two instruments that together deliver a wide and sensitive view of the celestial sphere: the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) and the Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT). The design of WXT’s optics is inspired by the eyes of lobsters; in a modular layout, it employs hundreds of thousands square fibres that channel light onto the detectors. This gives Einstein Probe the unique capability to observe nearly one-tenth of the celestial sphere in a single glance. New X-ray sources spotted by WXT will be immediately targeted with FXT, which has a narrower view but is more sensitive and will capture more details. ESA supported testing and calibrating the X-ray detectors and the optics of WXT and developed the mirror assembly of one of FXT’s two telescopes in collaboration with MPE and Media Lario (Italy). MPE contributed the mirror assembly for the other telescope of FXT, as well as the detector modules for both FXT units. ESA also provided the system to deflect unwanted electrons away from the detectors (the electron diverter). Throughout the mission, ESA’s ground stations will be used to help download the data from the spacecraft. In return for these contributions ESA will get access to 10% of the data generated by Einstein Probe’s observations. The mission’s capability of spotting new X-ray sources and monitoring how they change over time is fundamental to improving our grasp of the most energetic processes in the Universe. Powerful blasts of X-rays occur when neutron stars collide, supernovas explode, and matter is swallowed by black holes or ejected from the crushing magnetic fields that envelop them. “I am looking forward to the discoveries that Einstein Probe will enable,” says Erik Kuulkers, ESA’s Einstein Probe Project Scientist. “Thanks to its uniquely wide gaze, we will be able to catch the X-ray light from collisions between neutron stars and find out what is causing some of the gravitational waves we detect on Earth. Often, when these elusive space-time ripples are registered, we cannot locate where they are coming from. By promptly spotting the burst of X-rays, we will pinpoint the origin of many gravitational wave events.” After launch, Einstein Probe reached its orbit at an altitude of approximately 600 km. The spacecraft circles the Earth every 96 minutes with an orbital inclination of 29 degrees and it is able to monitor almost the full night-sky in just three orbits. In the next six months, the operation team will be engaged in testing and calibrating the instruments. After this preparation phase, Einstein Probe will spend at least three years attentively watching the entire X-ray sky. View the full article

Visitors to ESA’s cutting-edge visitor centre are being captivated by virtual reality trips to the International Space Station, interactions with a globe showing Earth from space, and displays of astronaut suits, launchers and ESA memorabilia – before getting the chance to buy a souvenir from the ESA space shop. View the full article

Video: 00:06:06 As 2024 kicks into gear, we invite you to look ahead with ESA and see what awaits us in the coming 12 months. After Ariane 5’s retirement in 2023, Europe’s new and versatile heavy-duty launcher Ariane 6 will continue the Ariane legacy of excellence and reliability. After years of development and construction,Ariane 6 will be ready for its first flight from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou. In 2024, we’ll see a return-to-flight for Vega-C. Vega-C will continue to provide Europe with its own affordable lightweight launcher. Together both projects guarantee Europe’s independent access to space. We also continue to collaborate internationally with NASA on the Artemis lunar programme. This Spring, another European Service Module, ESM-3, for the third Artemis mission will be shipped to the United States for mating with its Orion capsule. In 2024, Proba-3 will be launched, the first precision formation-flying mission. The Coronagraph and Occulter spacecraft will fly together forming a 144 m coronagraph studying the Sun’s corona closer to the solar rim than ever before. At the beginning of the year, the first scientific data gathered by our latest space telescope, Euclid, will be revealed. Euclid was designed to explore the composition and evolution of dark matter and dark energy. Another exciting mission that will launch later in 2024 is the Hera mission. This mission will fly to the binary asteroid system of Dimorphos and Didymos to observe the aftermath of the impact made by NASA’s Dart mission. In Earth observation, there are several satellites ready to be launched: the ESA/JAXA mission EarthCARE mission, the Arctic Weather Satellite mission and the European Union’s Copernicus Sentinel-1C and Sentinel-2C satellites. 2024 will bring new developments as well for Galileo: two more first-generation satellites are to be launched in April, followed by two more later in the year. These will expand the constellation and help guarantee Galileo’s optimal performance. Meanwhile, the first hardware deliveries will take place for the second-generation Galileo satellites. The five career astronauts from the 2022 astronaut class will finish their basic training this year and then be ready for mission assignments. For Swedish project astronaut Marcus Wandt, there is no such wait. In January, he will be launched to the Space Station as a mission specialist on the Axiom-3 commercial mission - just time to catch up in space with his Danish colleague, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who is scheduled to return to Earth after a six-month stay on the Space Station in February. View the full article

Image: So near, or so far? View the full article

Invisible to our eyes, X-rays emitted by the hot gas that fills much of the Universe can shed light on many cosmic mysteries. The 'first light' observations of this gas by JAXA’s X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) are now ready. They demonstrate that the mission will play a big role in unveiling the evolution of the Universe and the structure of spacetime. View the full article

An international team of astronomers has assembled and reprocessed observations of the exoplanet WASP-121 b that were collected with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in the years 2016, 2018 and 2019. This provided them with a unique dataset that allowed them not only to analyse the atmosphere of WASP-121 b, but also to compare the state of the exoplanet’s atmosphere across several years. The team found clear evidence that the observations of WASP-121 b were varying in time. Using sophisticated modelling techniques, they demonstrated that these temporal variations could be explained by weather patterns in the exoplanet's atmosphere. View the full article

Through exquisite, millimetre-scale, formation flying, the dual satellites making up ESA’s Proba-3 will accomplish what was previously a space mission impossible: cast a precisely held shadow from one platform to the other, in the process blocking out the fiery Sun to observe its ghostly surrounding atmosphere on a prolonged basis. View the full article

Image: It’s all relative View the full article

Video: 00:04:10 Embark on a cosmic journey with ESA as we explore the universe through the lens of ‘One Million’. From the scorching temperatures of the Sun's corona to the cosmic gaze of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope — discover the astronomical wonders that surround us. Join our space community in celebrating a momentous occasion — 1 MILLION subscribers on YouTube! Thank you for your enthusiasm and support. View the full article

Year in images 2023 Our year through the lens: a selection of our favourite images for 2023 View the full article

Image: Gift wrapped for Ariane 6 View the full article

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The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) spacecraft Einstein Probe is ready to launch in January 2024. Equipped with a new generation of X-ray instruments with high sensitivity and a very wide view, this mission will survey the sky and hunt for powerful blasts of X-ray light coming from mysterious celestial objects such as neutron stars and black holes. Einstein Probe is a collaboration led by CAS with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), Germany. View the full article

Last week, members of ESA’s astronaut class of 2022 embarked on their first overseas field trip. They visited NASA’s facilities at the Johnson Space Centre (JSC) in Houston, Texas, USA, to get familiar with the environment where they will spend a significant part of their training once assigned to a mission. View the full article

Image: Pinhole propulsion for satellites View the full article

This year has been a whirlwind of captivating Earth observation stories and news, spanning from dramatic volcanic eruptions to powerful earthquakes to witnessing icebergs on the run. Join us as we revisit some of the most memorable stories from 2023. View the full article

ESA Impact 2023 – Quarter 4 Welcome to this edition of ESA Impact, an interactive publication covering stories and images from the last quarter of 2023. View the full article

The latest international group to employ ESA’s hypergravity-generating Large Diameter Centrifuge is an all-female team from Bolivia, with access sponsored by the United Nations and ESA. The researchers are investigating whether the high gravity levels experienced during rocket launches might contribute to the anemia afflicting many astronauts in space. View the full article

Image: Ten years ago, on 19 December 2013, ESA’s billion star-mapping satellite Gaia launched. Since then, Gaia has been scanning the sky and gathering an enormous amount of data on the positions and motions of 1.8 billion stars, enabling numerous discoveries about the history of our galaxy. Gaia’s catalogue is ever-growing containing data on stars and other cosmic objects such as asteroids in our Solar System, exoplanets, binary stars, and other galaxies. The Gaia collaboration, consisting of about 450 people in 25 countries, prepares the data for scientific use. This has resulted in publications of over 10 000 scientific papers and 128 PhD theses. Find out more about Gaia’s first ten years of science here. View the full article

Image: Hera’s wings of power View the full article

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The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope recently trained its sights on weird and enigmatic Uranus, an ice giant that orbits on its side. What Webb found is a dynamic world with rings, moons, storms, and other atmospheric features – including a seasonal polar cap. The image expands upon a two-colour version released earlier this year, adding additional wavelength coverage for a more detailed look. View the full article

Video: 00:08:22 2023’s highlight was the highly anticipated launch of Juice, Europe’s Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer. The Juice spacecraft was placed on course to Jupiter on the second-to-last Ariane 5 launch vehicle in April. After an eight-year journey, Juice will begin observing the giant gas planet and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Calisto and Europa. The Euclid space telescope was launched in July with the aim of unravelling the enigmas of ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. Euclid’s first images were released in November, revealing razor-sharp astronomical images with detail never before seen by a telescope across such a large patch of the sky. After almost five years in space, ESA’s Aeolus wind mission was retired. This trailblazing mission was tasked with observing wind patterns from space thereby improving weather forecasts and climate models.. Aeolus data and technology will have an important role to play in the accuracy of future weather forecasting. On 28 July, it burned up in an assisted re-entry – the first assisted re-entry by a mission which was not designed to do so. As space debris becomes an increasingly serious issue, ESA is determined to search for solutions. Together with its commercial and institutional partners, ESA has developed the ‘Zero Debris Charter’, launched this year. By signing the Charter, space entities worldwide can register their intent to work together towards the sustainable use of Earth’s orbital environment. Earlier in in 2023, MTG-I1, the first of the Meteosat Third Generation missions, sent back its first images. The satellite was launched in 2022 and carries two instruments: a flexible combined imager and a lighting imager. Both instruments performed beyond expectation and a stunning combined image from both was revealed. Earth observation is key to keeping our planet and the population as a whole, safe. Today, monitoring earthquakes, forest fires or flooding from space already helps to coordinate rescue response but the data can also be used to better understand phenomena such as climate change and support the IPCC climate reports. Last year, NASA’s Dart mission impacted on a small moonlet of the asteroid Didymos, changing its course. We’ll soon be launching ESA’s Hera spacecraft to collect data on the aftermath of this collision. The Hera spacecraft was integrated and underwent testing this year in ESA ESTEC’s test centre in the Netherlands. 2023 also saw the first hardware tests for the second generation of Galileo satellites but even more importantly the Galileo High Accuracy Service was launched in January. This new service delivers centimetre accuracy from space further cementing Galileo’s reputation as the most accurate satellite navigation system in the world. View the full article

ESA is launching a competition which initiates a first phase of activities for European companies to eventually demonstrate a complete cargo delivery service to and from space stations in low-Earth orbit by 2028. View the full article

Week in images: 11-15 December 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article