European Space Agency

Image: Unlimited 3D printing for space View the full article

Lunar caves are not only a geologically pristine record of the Moon's history, but they could also provide a safe home for future human explorers. Building upon ESA Discovery's OSIP call and SysNova challenge, ESA gathered a spectrum of over 60 experts in many different areas of science and engineering to design a mission to enter a pit on the Moon's surface and explore the entrance to a lunar cave. View the full article

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ESA Impact March Council edition Great images and videos of Webb and Galileo launches, Matthias Maurer on the ISS and progress on Ariane 6. View the full article

Week in images: 7 - 11 March 2022 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

The Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission takes us over the archipelago of Lofoten in northern Norway. View the full article

The time has come to register to attend the European Space Agency’s Living Planet Symposium – one of the largest Earth observation conferences in the world. Taking place on 23–27 May 2022 in Bonn, Germany, and jointly organised with the German Aerospace Center, this prestigious event allows all attendees to hear first-hand about the latest scientific findings on our planet. Attendees will also hear how observing Earth from space supports environmental research and action to combat the climate crisis, learn about novel Earth observing technologies and, importantly, learn about the new opportunities emerging in the rapidly changing sector of Earth observation. View the full article

Image: The long goodbye View the full article

Image: Backbone of Hera asteroid mission View the full article

Video: 00:31:09 Join ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer on a tour of Columbus, Europe’s science laboratory on the International Space Station. Cosmic Kiss is Matthias’s first mission to the Space Station and the Columbus module is one of his main workplaces. It is also where he sleeps in his crew quarters known as CASA. Columbus is Europe's largest contribution to the orbital outpost and the first European laboratory for permanent, multidisciplinary research in space. It houses 16 standardised payload cabinets, known as racks, which host laboratory equipment and technical systems. This allows the facility to support research across a wide range of different scientific disciplines. Work focuses on materials science, fluid physics, chemistry, remote sensing, biology, biotechnology, medicine and human physiology, as well as technology demonstrations to aid innovation on Earth. Once installed by an astronaut, many of the experiments that happen in Columbus can be remotely controlled and monitored by User Support Operations Centres on the ground. Matthias will live and work in orbit for approximately six months for his Cosmic Kiss mission. During this time, he will conduct and support more than 35 European and numerous other international experiments in microgravity. Follow Matthias Access the related broadcast quality video material. View the full article

It’s very difficult to know what lies beneath a blanket of kilometres-thick ice, so it is hardly surprising that scientists have long contested the shape and geology of the ancient supercontinent from which East Antarctica formed over a billion years ago. An ESA-funded study can now lay some of this conjecture to rest. Using sensors on aircraft to measure changes in the gravity and magnetic signatures of the different rocks under the ice, scientists have discovered a huge bay the size of the UK formed part of the edge of East Antarctica. View the full article

Discover ESA Explore the full range of ESA’s activities through a set of thematic journeys and virtual tours View the full article

Following a design competition, ESA has selected the industrial team that will design and build the first experimental payload to extract oxygen from the surface of the Moon. The winning consortium, led by Thales Alenia Space in the UK, has been tasked with producing a small piece of equipment that will evaluate the prospect of building larger lunar plants to extract propellant for spacecraft and breathable air for astronauts – as well as metallic raw materials for equipment. View the full article

The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft is speeding towards its historic first close pass of the Sun. On 14 March, the spacecraft will pass the orbit of Mercury, the scorched inner planet of our Solar System, and on 26 March it will reach closest approach to the Sun. View the full article

Week in images: 28 February - 4 March 2022 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

The dusty faces of the Moon and Mars conceal unseen hazards for future explorers. Areas of highly oxidising material could be sufficiently reactive that they would produce chemical burns on astronauts’ unprotected skin or lungs. Taking inspiration from a pioneering search for Martian life, a Greek team is developing a device to detect these ‘reactive oxygen species’ – as well as harvest sufficient oxygen from them to keep astronauts breathing indefinitely. View the full article

Today, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the Pyrenees Mountains in southwest Europe. The mountain range forms a natural border between France and Spain with the small, landlocked country of Andorra sandwiched in between. View the full article

Image: Aerial antenna for Venus mission test View the full article

Human-induced climate change is causing dangerous and widespread disruption in nature, affecting the lives of billions of people around the world, according to the latest state of the climate report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published this week. The report utilises satellite observations as crucial input, including several long-term datasets of key aspects of the climate, known as Essential Climate Variables, generated via Europe’s leading research teams working as part of ESA’s Climate Change initiative. View the full article

Video: 00:04:00 Twenty years ago, on the first of March 2002, ESA launched a new satellite to monitor our planet from space: Envisat. This research mission, which carried 10 instruments, would become a beacon for the development of future Earth observation satellites. In orbit for 10 years, double its projected lifespan, this flagship mission provided science with a wealth of data on the health of our planet and climate change – a treasure trove of data that is still used today. Thanks to the Heritage Space Programme, ESA ensures these precious data are preserved and made accessible for future generations. This report includes interviews with : - Simonetta Cheli, Director of Earth Observation, ESA–ESRIN, Frascati, Italy in English, French & Italian - Henri Laur, Former Envisat Mission Manager, ESA–ESRIN, Frascati, Italy in English & French Access the related broadcast quality video material. View the full article

Press Release N° 6–2022 We deplore the human casualties and tragic consequences of the war in Ukraine. We are giving absolute priority to taking proper decisions, not only for the sake of our workforce involved in the programmes, but in full respect of our European values, which have always fundamentally shaped our approach to international cooperation. View the full article

Video: 00:02:58 Europe’s Columbus laboratory is a hive of activity in this 360° timelapse as ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer works on an experiment called Fluidics and his NASA colleague Raja Chari carries out activity in the Veggie plant habitat. Developed by French space agency CNES and co-funded by Airbus, the Fluidics experiment investigates how liquids behave in space. It was first run by ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet in 2017 during his Proxima mission. Made up of six small, transparent spheres housed in the black centrifuge seen here, the experiment studies two phenomena. The first is ‘sloshing’ or how liquids move in enclosed spaces. The second is wave turbulence. Understanding the underlying physics of how liquids move in space will help improve the fuel economy of spacecraft and our knowledge of Earth’s oceans. By observing how surface forces behave in reduced gravity and singling out interactions, scientists aim to improve climate models for forecasting sea states and better understand wave formation on Earth. Fluidics is just one of many European and international science experiments Matthias is supporting throughout his six-month Cosmic Kiss mission. Visit the Cosmic Kiss mission page on the ESA portal to find out more about his activities in orbit. Access the other Cosmic Kiss 360º videos. View the full article

Image: Happy 100 days in space to ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer. The first-time space flier marked the milestone on 19 February 2022 and what a busy 100-days it been. In a Twitter post marking the milestone, Matthias wrote, “100 days may sound like a lot, but it feels like I've only just arrived.” Even before launching for his Cosmic Kiss mission on a SpaceX Dragon as part of Crew-3, Matthias was on the science, providing researchers with pre-flight measurements for a variety of experiments. Since arriving, Matthias has continued to be poked and prodded while working, exercising and even sleeping, all in the name of science and exploration. Experiments like Myotones and EasyMotion are tracking the biochemical properties of his muscle properties as well as optimising them for fitness in space. Matthias sports a breathing mask and devices strapped to his chest during cycling exercises for DLR’s Metabolic Space experiment, aimed at improving cardiopulmonary diagnostics. Other wearables like thermal sensors monitor his core temperature and circadian rhythms – known to alter in microgravity – for long-standing studies tracking this change in astronauts on the Space Station. Matthias is even being studied in his sleep. He wears a headband to bed that monitors different sleep phases and sleep efficiency for the DREAMS experiment. Of course, astronauts aren’t the only subjects of space experiments. Matthias and his fellow Crew-3 mates have facilitated a host of other studies on materials science, acoustics, biofilms and more. Read a more in-depth breakdown of the science on board here. What does Matthias have to say about all that? “There is still so much to learn & discover. I'm enjoying every #CosmicKiss moment up here & looking forward to many more mission highlights.” Keen to share his mission with everyone, Matthias has been prolifically posting exciting content across his platforms. Make sure to follow Cosmic Kiss on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube the Cosmic Kiss mission page and in regular Space Station updates from ESA. View the full article

Week in images: 21 - 25 February 2022 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

To celebrate the recent data release from Landsat 9, this week we take a closer look at a part of Washington state – the northwesternmost state of the US – through the lens of Landsat 9. View the full article