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: 00:41:36 The reconfigurable satellite will launch this summer from the European Space Port in French Guiana. Eutelsat Quantum will be capable of being reprogrammed after launch. It will provide data, communications and entertainment exactly where and when it is wanted. Watch the replay of this Q&A with the media to learn more and hear from the key players behind its development. View the full article
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ESA will enhance the versatility of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket with a kick stage called Astris in a €90 m development contract with prime contractor, ArianeGroup. This is part of ESA’s strategy to extend Ariane 6’s capabilities to serve a wider range of space transportation requirements. View the full article
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Image: A fortnight after the 21 June winter solstice in Antarctica, the crew at Concordia Research Station are slowly welcoming the return of sunlight. This photo was taken by ESA-sponsored medical doctor Nick Smith on 1 July at noon. The 12-member crew at Concordia, located at the mountain plateau called Dome C, have spent the last few months in complete darkness: the sun disappeared in May and will not be fully visible again until mid-August. This image of high noon signals the beginning of the end of winter on the remote continent. Confined in extreme conditions, the crew at Concordia – one of three Antarctic stations inhabited all year long – find solace in traditi…
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Video: 00:04:12 Soon Eutelsat Quantum will be launched into a geostationary orbit on board an Ariane 5 from Kourou. This advanced telecommunications satellite is revolutionary as it offers its users the ability to reconfigure the satellite while in orbit. This offers a previously unknown degree of flexibility during its 15-year lifetime. It allows for satellites of this type to be mass-produced, making them extremely interesting for commercial parties and industry. The satellite was developed as an ESA partnership project with operator Eutelsat and prime contractor Airbus working together with ESA to share the risk of developing this innovative piece of technology…
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The 40-year-old mystery of what causes Jupiter’s X-ray auroras has been solved. For the first time, astronomers have seen the entire mechanism at work – and it could be a process occurring in many other parts of the Universe too. View the full article
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Week in images: 05 - 09 July 2021 Discover our week through the lens View the full article
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Using measurements from ESA’s Earth Explorer Swarm mission, scientists have developed a new tool that links the strength and direction of the magnetic field to the flight paths of migrating birds. This is a huge step forward to understanding how animals use Earth’s magnetic field to navigate vast distances. View the full article
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The Gulf of Martaban, an arm of the Andaman Sea located in southern Myanmar, is featured in this false-colour image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. View the full article
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Trying to explain satellite communication to children is no easy task, so why not let robot host ROBert help? In the third of the ROBert Knows videos created by ESA and PLAYMOBIL, ROBert examines how satellite communication works with a little help from our own expert Director of TIA, Elodie Viau. View the full article
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Webb launch kit Interactive infographics and background information to prepare for Webb's launch View the full article
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Image: A touch of sun View the full article
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For the hundreds of millions of people living in coastal regions around the world, rising seas driven by climate change pose a direct threat. In order for authorities to plan appropriate protection strategies, accurate information on sea-level rise close to the coast is imperative. For various reasons, these measurements are difficult to get from satellites. However, new ESA-funded research demonstrates how a specific way of processing satellite altimetry data now makes it possible to determine sea-level change in coastal areas with millimetre per year accuracy, and even if the sea is covered by ice. View the full article
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Image: The heart of the Exospheric Mass Spectrometer (EMS) is visible in this image of the key sensor that will study the abundance of lunar water and water ice for upcoming missions to the Moon. This spectrometer is being delivered to NASA today as part of the PITMS instrument for its launch to the Moon later this year. EMS is based on an ‘ion trap’, an ingenious detector device that allows researchers to identify and quantify sample atoms and molecules in a gas and allows to establish a corresponding mass spectrum. Scientists at The Open University and RAL Space are developing EMS under an ESA contract. Lunar molecules entering the sensor are bombarded by electrons e…
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Video: 00:05:12 The European Robotic Arm (ERA) will be launched to the International Space Station together with the Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module, called ‘Nauka’. ERA is the first robot able to ‘walk’ around the Russian segment of the Space Station. It has the ability to anchor itself to the Station and move back and forward by itself, hand-over-hand between fixed base-points. This 11-metre intelligent space robot will serve as main manipulator on the Russian part of the Space Station, assisting the astronauts during spacewalks. The robot arm can help install, deploy and replace elements in outer space ERA is 100% made-in-Europe. A consortium of European…
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Week in images: 28 June - 02 July 2021 Discover our week through the lens View the full article
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After several weeks of bad weather and strong winds, the latest pair of high-altitude drop tests of the ExoMars parachutes took place in Kiruna, Sweden. The 15 m-wide first stage main parachute performed flawlessly at supersonic speeds, while the 35 m-wide second stage parachute experienced one minor damage, but decelerated the mock-up of the landing platform as expected. View the full article
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Part of the Frisian Islands, a low-lying archipelago just off the coast of northern Europe, is visible in this image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. View the full article
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Image: The heatwave now hitting parts of western Canada and the US has been particularly devastating. This Copernicus Sentinel-3 image shows land surface temperature. View the full article
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The international James Webb Space Telescope has passed the final mission analysis review for its launch on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. View the full article
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Three more nano-satellites have been launched as part of ESA’s efforts to boost the European space industry, fostering innovation and creating jobs. View the full article
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ESA is diversifying its online presence with the launch of a Pinterest channel and is reaching out to this highly creative audience to plan a space-themed Halloween party around the launch of the international Webb mission later this year. View the full article
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Image: For Asteroid Day, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the Shoemaker Impact Structure (formerly known as Teague Ring) in Western Australia. View the full article
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Image: Eye of ESA’s asteroid mission View the full article
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As ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence probes the Didymos twin asteroid system, it will be joined by a pioneering pair of breadbox-sized ‘CubeSats’. Juventas will perform radar soundings while Milani will image the bodies in a wider range of colours beyond what human eye can see, to prospect the mineral makeup of individual asteroid boulders. View the full article
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