European Space Agency

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over part of Sindh – the third-largest province of Pakistan. View the full article

A contract signed with Arianespace secures the launch for the third Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite. Scheduled to lift off on ESA’s new Vega-C rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana in the first half of 2023, Sentinel-1C will continue the critical task of delivering key radar imagery for a wide range of services, applications and science – all of which benefit society. View the full article

Image: H a p p y W o r l d H e a l t h D a y Celebrated each year on 7 April, World Health Day shines a light on a health topic of concern. This year all eyes, including ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer’s, are on the health of our planet Earth. From on board the International Space Station 400 km above Earth, Matthias has a unique overview of our planet. Beautiful yet fragile, resilient yet under threat, our third rock from the Sun nevertheless needs looking after. Matthias work in space during Cosmic Kiss reinforces this. Besides taking numerous photos of Earth from space that compliment data taken by Earth observation satellites, he is also running many experiments exploring human health in space that benefits those on Earth. One such experiment is the joint ESA and German Aerospace Center’s Retinal Diagnostics project that monitors astronaut eyes while in space. Developed by young researchers from ESA’s Spaceship EAC initiative, the project uses images of astronauts’ optical discs in space to train an artificially intelligent (AI) model. This model will be used to automatically detect changes in the optic nerve of astronauts, known as Space-Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome (SANS). Matthias uses an ophthalmic lens attached to a tablet camera to take images of his retina to send to experts on the ground. The app is so compact and easy to use that it can be used for remote examinations of patients in remote locations on Earth, so that everyone can keep an eye on their retinal health. Follow Matthias on his Cosmic Kiss mission for more science and space on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube the Cosmic Kiss mission page and in regular Space Station updates from ESA. View the full article

Side-lit by the Sun, its heavily cratered surface mired in shadow, the south pole of the Moon represents a highly challenging lunar landing target. Italian ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori took to an advanced flight simulator to try out a mock polar touchdown as part of a project to design a ‘human-in-the-loop’ lunar landing system. View the full article

Want to find out about applying for a job at ESA? Want to hear about the projects our teams are working on? Interested in joining our online job fair? You can do all this and more at ESA Careers Week from 2 - 5 May — save the date! View the full article

Passionate, original and talented: that’s what the 2021 ESA Champions look like. After reviewing thousands of profiles, the jury selected 15 space enthusiasts who showed particular passion for space in Europe and skills for communication. Read more about the awards and watch the video to meet the Champions! View the full article

Today is the annual 406 Day, celebrating the life-saving importance of emergency beacons, named for the radio frequency they operate on, as well as the satellites that relay their signals – with Europe’s own Galileo constellation prominent among them. While Galileo’s main purpose is satellite navigation, the system also picks up distress messages from across the globe and relays them to regional search and rescue authorities. View the full article

Juice: Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer Juice: Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer View the full article

Image: Solar power down View the full article

Week in images: 28 March - 1 April 2022 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Barranquilla, the capital of the Atlántico department in northwest Colombia, is featured in this image taken by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. View the full article

An important milestone in the development of ESA’s tenth Earth Explorer satellite mission, Harmony, has been reached thanks to two aircraft flying in tight formation over the Dutch Wadden Islands collecting key data on sea state and currents. The main purpose of this tricky airborne experiment is to mimic the geometry at which the Harmony satellites will measure various aspects of ocean dynamics to understand how air and the ocean surface interact, which, in turn, will improve weather prediction and climate models. View the full article

Cultured meat could be a game changer for the environment, food security, human health and animal welfare. But some challenges prevent it from reaching its full potential. Now ESA is supporting researchers to explore the possibility of growing cultured meat to feed astronauts. Overcoming the challenges of growing meat in space could also help us find solutions to produce it sustainably and effectively on Earth. View the full article

ESA’s Ariane 6 and Vega-C will soon join the family of launch vehicles operating from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana to guarantee more opportunities for Europe to reach space. The P120C motor, which will power both Ariane 6 and Vega-C, will soon come into operations with the Vega-C inaugural flight. View the full article

Image: A record broken: Hubble finds the most distant star ever seen View the full article

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Jovian moons Europa, Callisto and Ganymede, orbital insertion at Ganymede (December 2034), and eventual impact on this moon’s surface (late 2035). An Ariane 5 will lift Juice into space from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou. A series of gravity assist flybys of Earth, the Earth-Moon system and Venus will set the spacecraft on course for its July 2031 arrival at Jupiter. These flybys are shown here in order – Earth-Moon (August 2024), Venus (August 2025), Earth (September 2026, January 2029) – interspersed by Juice’s continuing orbits around the Sun. Juice’s flyby of the Earth-Moon system, known as a Lunar-Earth gravity assist (LEGA), is a world first: by performing this manoeuvre – a gravity assist flyby of the Moon followed just 1.5 days later by one of Earth – Juice will be able to save a significant amount of propellant on its journey. Juice will start its science mission about six months prior to entering orbit around Jupiter, making observations as it approaches its destination. Once in the Jovian system, a gravity assist flyby of Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede – also the largest moon in the Solar System – will help Juice enter orbit around the gas giant. While in Jupiter orbit, the spacecraft will spend four years making detailed observations of Jupiter and three of its largest moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. During the tour, Juice will make two flybys of Europa (in July 2032), which has strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water under its icy shell. Juice will look at the moon’s active zones, its surface composition and geology, search for pockets of liquid water under the surface, and study the plasma environment around Europa, also exploring the moon’s tiny atmosphere and hunting for plumes of water vapour (as have been previously detected erupting to space). A sequence of Callisto flybys will not only be used to study this ancient, cratered world that may too harbour a subsurface ocean, but will also change the angle of Juice’s orbit with respect to Jupiter’s equator, making it possible to investigate the polar regions and environment of Jupiter at higher latitudes (2032–2034). A sequence of Ganymede and Callisto flybys will adjust Juice’s orbit – properly orienting it while minimising the amount of propellant expended – so that it can enter orbit around Ganymede in December 2034, making it the first spacecraft to orbit another planet’s moon. Juice’s initial elliptical orbit will be followed by a 5000 km-altitude circular orbit, and later a 500 km-altitude circular orbit. Ganymede is unique in the Solar System in that it is the only moon to have a magnetosphere. Juice will investigate this phenomenon and the moon’s internal magnetic field, and explore how its plasma environment interacts with that of Jupiter. Juice will also study Ganymede’s atmosphere, surface, subsurface, interior and internal ocean, investigating the moon as not only a planetary object but also a possible habitat. Over time, Juice’s orbit around Ganymede will naturally decay – eventually there will not be enough propellant to maintain it – and it will make a grazing impact onto the surface (late 2035). The animation concludes with an example of what the approach to impact could look like. The Juice launch itself will be a historical milestone for more reasons than one. It will be the final launch for Ariane 5, ending the launcher's nearly three-decade run as one of the world’s most successful heavy-lift rockets. Its duties are being taken over by Ariane 6. Access the related broadcast quality video material. View the full article

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