European Space Agency
The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organization of 22 member states dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, ESA has a worldwide staff of about 2,200
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Video: 00:01:25 Europe’s own satellite navigation system, Galileo, has become the world’s most precise, delivering metre-level accuracy, available anywhere on Earth. It is also saving lives, relaying distress calls for search and rescue. Today there are 26 Galileo satellites in orbit 23 222 km over our heads; the first of them were launched on 21 October 2011, with nine more launches in the following years. The satellites in space are supported by a globe-spanning ground segment. The system as a whole is set to grow, with the first of 12 ‘Batch 3’ about to join the current satellites in orbit and new ‘Galileo Second Generation’ satellites in development. Galileo h…
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As of today, ESA has appointed three new Directors - for Commercialisation, Industry and Procurement, Earth Observation Programmes and Navigation. The new Directors were appointed by ESA Council at its meeting on 21 October; they will support the Director General with responsibility for activities and overall objectives in their respective directorates. View the full article
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On 21 October 2011, the first pair of Galileo navigation satellites was launched by a Russian-built Soyuz rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. View the full article
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Image: Auroras make for great Halloween décor over Earth, though ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet snapped these green smoky swirls of plasma from the International Space Station in August. Also pictured are the Soyuz MS-18 “Yuri Gagarin” (left) and the new Nauka module (right). The Station saw quite some aurora activity that month, caused by solar particles colliding with Earth’s atmosphere and producing a stunning light show. Fast forward to October and space is quite busy. On 9 October the Sun ejected a violent mass of fast-moving plasma into space that arrived at Earth a few days later. The coronal mass ejection (CME) crashed into our planet’s magnetosphere and once a…
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While the climate crisis is, unfortunately, a reality, it is all too easy to assume that every aspect of our changing world is a consequence of climate change. Assumptions play no role in key environmental assessments and mitigation strategies such as we will see in the upcoming UN climate change COP-26 conference – it’s the science and hard facts that are critical. New research published this week is a prime example of facts that matter. Using model projections combined with satellite data from ESA’s Climate Change Initiative, this latest research shows that the global rise in the temperature of lake water and dwindling lake-ice cover can only be explained by the increas…
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ESA Impact October Council edition Great images and videos of climate change on view, BepiColombo flies by Mercury, Cheops gets a surprise, and more View the full article
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On 22 September, around midday, ESA’s Integral spacecraft went into emergency Safe Mode. One of the spacecraft’s three active ‘reaction wheels’ had turned off without warning and stopped spinning, causing a ripple effect that meant the satellite itself began to rotate. View the full article
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Video: 00:00:29 After the Sun ejected a violent mass of fast-moving plasma into space on 9 October, ESA waited for the storm to strike. A few days later, the coronal mass ejection (CME) arrived at Earth, crashing into our planet’s magnetosphere, and lighting up the sky. CMEs explode from the Sun, rush through the Solar System and while doing so speed up the solar wind – a stream of charged particles continuously released from the Sun’s upper atmosphere. While most of the solar wind is blocked by Earth’s protective magnetosphere, some charged particles become trapped in Earth’s magnetic field and flow down to the geomagnetic poles, colliding with the upper atmosphe…
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Week in images: 11 - 15 October 2021 Discover our week through the lens View the full article
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Video: 00:05:15 These are exciting days at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana and throughout several sites in ESA Member States as the development of Ariane 6 enters its final phase. Ariane 6 parts are being shipped from Europe for combined tests on the new Ariane 6 launch base. These tests rehearse all activities and systems involving the rocket and launch base on an Ariane 6 launch campaign. On the final test, the Ariane 6 core stage will perform a static hot firing while standing on its recently inaugurated launch pad. It will be from this new launch base that ESA’s Ariane 6 rocket will soon be launched for the first time. Meanwhile in Europe, Ariane 6’s upper…
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The magnetic and particle environment around Mercury was sampled by BepiColombo for the first time during the mission’s close flyby of the planet at 199 km on 1-2 October 2021, while the huge gravitational pull of the planet was felt by its accelerometers. The magnetic and accelerometer data have been converted into sound files and presented here for the first time. They capture the ‘sound’ of the solar wind as it bombards a planet close to the Sun, the flexing of the spacecraft as it responded to the change in temperature as it flew from the night to dayside of the planet, and even the sound of a science instrument rotating to its ‘park’ position. View the full article
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New Delhi, the capital and second-largest city of India, is featured in this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. View the full article
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How can a digital replica of Earth help us understand our planet’s past, present and future? As part of the fourth edition of Φ-week taking place this week, a group of European scientists have put forward their ideas on the practical implementation of Digital Twins and the potential application areas for a Digital Twin Earth in the real world. View the full article
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Between September 1982 and December 2020, at least 51 512 people were rescued on land and at sea with help from a network of Earth-orbiting satellites able to detect and locate emergency distress beacons. View the full article
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What do high-tech sponges, aircraft shaped like falcons and 3D printers on the Moon have in common? They can all be found among the topics of the 87 research and development activities funded by ESA's Discovery & Preparation programme between November 2020 and April 2021. View the full article
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Image: The second European Service Module is prepared for shipment to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA this week at Airbus facilities in Bremen, Germany. Made up of components from ten European countries, ESM-2 will power the first crewed flight to the Moon on the Artemis II mission. The European Service Modules are a key element of the Orion spacecraft, the first to return humans to the Moon since the 1970s. Built by the brightest minds in Europe, the module provides propulsion, power and thermal control and will supply astronauts with water and oxygen. The ESM is installed underneath the Crew Module Adapter and Crew Module and together they form the Orion …
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The second European Service Module for NASA’s Orion spacecraft is on its way to USA. It is the last stopover on Earth before this made-in-Europe powerhouse takes the first astronauts around the Moon on the Artemis II mission. View the full article
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An upgrade to ESA’s three 35-metre deep-space antennas will boost science data return by 40% by cooling the ‘antenna feed’ to just 10 degrees above the lowest temperature possible in the Universe. View the full article
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Webb brochure Interactive or PDF, available in six languages View the full article
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Image: Tethered satellites for propulsion without fuel View the full article
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The James Webb Space Telescope has arrived safely at Pariacabo harbour in French Guiana. ESA in close collaboration with NASA will now prepare this once in a generation mission for its launch on Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport this December. View the full article
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Video: 00:02:07 The James Webb Space Telescope will be the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. Webb’s flight into orbit will take place on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Webb is the next great space science observatory, designed to answer outstanding questions about the Universe and to make breakthrough discoveries in all fields of astronomy. Webb will see farther into our origins – from the formation of stars and planets, to the birth of the first galaxies in the early Universe. During the first month in space, on its way to the second Langrange point (L2), Webb will undergo a complex unfolding sequence. Key st…
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Since the Cumbre Vieja volcano began erupting on 19 September 2021, lava has burned through homes, roads and farmlands causing mass destruction on the west part of the Canary Island of La Palma. Satellite imagery has helped authorities monitor and manage the ongoing crisis. From capturing images of the rivers of lava, to measuring gas emissions and assessing damage, the fleet of Copernicus Sentinel satellites have been providing crucial data for local teams. View the full article
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Kicking off with a bold flourish, Φ-week 2021 promises to bring space even closer to the forefront of addressing society’s biggest challenges, namely issues associated with the climate crisis, while boosting the economy through transformative New Space, artificial intelligence, and quantum and cognitive computing. View the full article
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The new heart of ESA’s Planetary Defence Office was inaugurated today, heralding a new chapter in the Agency’s work to protect Earth from dangerous near-Earth objects, aka asteroids. View the full article
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