European Space Agency

Image: Proba-3: seeing in the dark View the full article

ESA’s Mars Express has turned its trusty High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) towards Mars’s most imposing volcano, revealing its dramatic surroundings and turbulent past. View the full article

Video: 00:02:47 Crew-7 has arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, in the run-up to the International Space Station launch. Crew-7 consists of ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, taking the role of Dragon spacecraft pilot, NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli is commander, Satoshi Furukawa from JAXA and Konstantin Borisov from Roscomos are mission specialists. This video shows scenes of Crew-7 arriving at the Kennedy Space Center, during launch rehearsal, and Andreas Mogensen training for his mission in space. Andreas and Crew-7 will launch in the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance from launch pad 39A. This is the launch pad for all crewed flights of SpaceX to the International Space Station, and was previously used for the Shuttle and Apollo missions. As pilot of Crew-7, Andreas he will take one of the two middle seats next to commander Jasmin Moghbeli and monitor the Dragon’s systems and performance during the journey to the International Space Station. When the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endurance docks with the International Space Station, Andreas’s Huginn mission starts. Meaning ‘thought’ and originating from the raven of the Norse god Odin, the name brings together the story of the raven Huginn flying into the world to gather information, just as Andreas will go to International Space Station and collect information for science. The Huginn mission is Andreas’s second spaceflight to the International Space Station after his 10-day ‘iriss’ mission in 2015. Watch the launch live on ESA web TV: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/ESA_Web_TV You can follow Andreas and his Huginn mission on the Huginn mission page, on Andreas’s social media channels and ESA’s social media. Andreas’s channels: Andreas’s X (formerly Twitter) / Andreas’s Instagram/ Andreas’s Facebook / Andreas’s Flickr ESA channels: ESA Facebook / ESA X (formerly Twitter) / ESA Instagram Access the related broadcast quality footage. View the full article

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has observed the well-known Ring Nebula with unprecedented detail. Formed by a star throwing off its outer layers as it runs out of fuel, the Ring Nebula is an archetypal planetary nebula. The object is also known as M57 and NGC 6720, and is relatively close to Earth at roughly 2,500 light-years away. View the full article

Image: ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen with his Crew-7 colleagues on arrival at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, 20 August. View the full article

The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) is ready to launch on 26 August 2023 to observe the most energetic objects and events in the cosmos. In doing so, it will unveil the evolution of the Universe and the structure of spacetime. XRISM is a collaboration between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA, with significant participation from ESA. The launch will be streamed live in Japanese and English on JAXA’s YouTube channel. View the full article

Week in images: 14-18 August 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Huginn - piloting the Dragon Huginn View the full article

Video: 00:04:46 During Artemis I the European Service Module (ESM) surpassed expectations. Now, as we set our sights on Artemis II, the European Service Module is ready to once again serve as Orion’s primary power and propulsion component and keep the spacecraft at the right temperature and on course. And this time, with real astronauts on board. ESM-2 stands as a testament to ESA's contributions to NASA's Orion spacecraft and the Artemis programme, ensuring the crew will have the essentials – from electricity to temperature control – in the vastness of space. Next up, ESM-2 will be connected with the crew module to create the Artemis II vehicle. It will then be tAhoroughly tested before launch scheduled for next year. ESA is committed to send astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit and ultimately to the surface of the Moon and beyond. ESM is a key contribution to this joint international endeavour. This video features interviews with: Philippe Berthe, ESA’s European Service Module Project Coordination manager Kai Bergemann, Airbus deputy programme manager for Orion and the European Service Module Jeremy Hansen, Canadian Space Agency Artemis II astronaut Debbie Korth, NASA deputy programme manager for Orion View the full article

Explore ESA's activities in this unique album Space Ambition View the full article

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Image: Edge of earthquake zone View the full article

Following on from the launch of the first Meteosat Third Generation weather satellite, MTG-I1, last December, the focus is now on getting its partner satellite, MTG-S1, ready for liftoff next year – and a significant milestone has been reached. The satellite has been equipped with its main instrument, the Infrared Sounder, hence the satellite’s name, and also the Copernicus Sentinel-4 instrument, an ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared light spectrometer, or UVN for short. View the full article

Week in images: 07-11 August 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

A new stamp for the Huginn mission has been released, taking inspiration from the mission’s Nordic name, Huginn, it presents a colourful design with a deep history. View the full article

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Image: The Artemis II astronauts, set to launch on a trip around the Moon next year, stand in front of the Orion spacecraft’s European Service Module-2 (ESM-2) that will provide everything they need to thrive on their voyage to Earth’s natural satellite. From left, the skilled crew is composed of NASA’s Victor Glover, Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen, and NASA’s Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman. Their collective experience underscores the collaborative essence of space exploration, as they prepare for the challenges of deep space travel and return. The European Service Module-2 will provide crucial life support and necessary resources – water, air, electricity, communications and power – for their lunar voyage, ensuring their well-being and mission success. The made-in-Europe powerhouse encapsulates years of ingenuity and safeguards the crew from the harsh space environment. Later this year, it will be connected through the Crew Module Adapter (CMA) – the doughnut shaped structure which can be seen on top of ESM-2 in the picture – to the crew capsule at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, to form the complete Orion spacecraft for the journey forward to the Moon. Following the tradition of previous missions, the Artemis II crew exemplifies international partnership. United by purpose, they stand as a testament to humankind's pursuit of knowledge and adventure beyond our planet. With the European Service Module as their stalwart companion, the Artemis II astronauts are poised to etch their mark in the history of space exploration. View the full article

An overview of ESA's Space Environment Report 2023 View the full article

Take a journey around ESA’s sites One ESA: a journey through Europe's space program View the full article

The smallest radar to fly in space has been delivered to ESA for integration aboard the miniature Juventas CubeSat, part of ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence. The radar will perform the first radar imaging of an asteroid, peering deep beneath the surface of Dimorphos – the Great Pyramid-sized body whose orbit was shifted last year by the impact of NASA’s DART spacecraft. View the full article

Image: Before the vacuum View the full article

Video: 00:03:31 ESA’s Euclid mission will create a 3D-map of the Universe that scientists will use to measure the properties of dark energy and dark matter and uncover the nature of these mysterious components. The map will contain a vast amount of data, it will cover more than a third of the sky and its third dimension will represent time spanning 10 billion years of cosmic history. But dealing with the huge and detailed set of novel data that Euclid observations will produce is not an easy task. To prepare for this, scientists in the Euclid Consortium have developed one of the most accurate and comprehensive computer simulations of the large-scale structure of the Universe ever produced. They named this the Euclid Flagship simulation. Running on large banks of advanced processors, computer simulations provide a unique laboratory to model the formation and evolution of large-scale structures in the Universe, such as galaxies, galaxy clusters, and the filamentary cosmic web they form. These state-of-the-art computational techniques allow astrophysicists to trace the motion and behavior of an extremely large number of dark-matter particles over cosmological volumes under the influence of their own gravitational pull. They replicate how and where galaxies form and grow, and are used to predict their distribution across the celestial sphere. Explore the Euclid Flagship simulation in this video and get a sneak preview of the structure of the dark Universe, as we currently model it. New insights will be brought to you by the Euclid mission in the coming years. View the full article

Image: With Portugal in the grip of a heatwave, a wildfire broke out on 5 August south of Odemira in the Alentejo region in southern Portugal. This image, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission, shows the fire on 7 August. View the full article

According to the World Meteorological Organization, July 2023 is likely to have been the hottest month on record. While much of Europe, North America and Asia suffered the immediate consequences of these brutal temperatures, extreme events are also hitting hard far away in the icy reaches of Antarctica. In a paper published today, scientists highlight Antarctica’s vulnerability to extremes and the role that satellites play in monitoring this remote region. View the full article

Save the date: this year’s annual ESA Open Day in the Netherlands will take place on Sunday 8 October, at the Agency’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk. Registration to attend will be opened later this summer; keep an eye on this webpage and social media for further details. View the full article