European Space Agency

Global warming is driving the rapid melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, contributing to global sea level rise and disrupting weather patterns worldwide. Because of this, precise measurements of its changing shape are of critical importance for adapting to climate change. Now, scientists have delivered the first measurements of the Greenland Ice Sheet’s changing shape using data from ESA's CryoSat and NASA's ICESat-2 ice missions. View the full article

Video: 00:10:27 In 1975, 10 European countries came together with a vision to collaborate on key space activities: science and astronomy, launch capabilities and space applications: the European Space Agency, ESA, was born. In 2025, we mark half a century of joint European achievement – filled with firsts and breakthroughs in science, exploration and technology, and the space infrastructure and economy that power Europe today. During the past five decades ESA has grown, developing ever bolder and bigger projects and adding more Member States, with Slovenia joining as the latest full Member State in January. We’ll also celebrate the 50th anniversary of ESA’s Estrack network, 30 years of satellite navigation in Europe and 20 years since ESA launched the first demonstration satellite Giove-A which laid the foundation for the EU’s own satnav constellation Galileo. Other notable celebrations are the 20th anniversary of ESA’s Business Incubation Centres, or BICs, and the 30th year in space for SOHO, the joint ESA and NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. Sadly though, 2025 will mean end of science operations for Integral and Gaia. Integral, ESA's gamma-ray observatory has exotic objects in space since 2002 and Gaia concludes a decade of mapping the stars. But as some space telescopes retire, another one provides its first full data release. Launched in 2023, we expect Euclid’s data release early in the new year. Launch-wise, we’re looking forward to Copernicus Sentinel-4 and -5 (Sentinel-4 will fly on an MTG-sounder satellite and Sentinel-5 on the MetOp-SG-A1 satellite), Copernicus Sentinel-1D, Sentinel-6B and Biomass. We’ll also launch the SMILE mission, or Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer, a joint mission with the Chinese academy of science. The most powerful version of Europe’s new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, is set to fly operationally for the first time in 2025. With several European commercial launcher companies planning to conduct their first orbital launches in 2025 too, ESA is kicking off the European Launcher Challenge to support the further development of European space transportation industry. In human spaceflight, Polish ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański will fly to the ISS on the commercial Axiom-4 mission. Artemis II will be launched with the second European Service Module, on the first crewed mission around the Moon since 1972. The year that ESA looks back on a half century of European achievement will also be one of key decisions on our future. At the Ministerial Council towards the end of 2025, our Member States will convene to ensure that Europe's crucial needs, ambitions and the dreams that unite us in space become reality. So, in 2025, we’ll celebrate the legacy of those who came before but also help establish a foundation for the next 50 years. Join us as we look forward to a year that honours ESA’s legacy and promises new milestones in space. View the full article

Year in images 2024 Our year through the lens: a selection of our favourite images for 2023 View the full article

Image: Hera asteroid mission in your house View the full article

Image: With the festive season approaching, even Earth-observing satellites are getting into the spirit, capturing a stunning compilation of European cities that resemble stars. View the full article

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Image: The southern lights at Concordia station in Antarctica View the full article

Video: 00:01:22 An ethereal dance of misty clouds of interstellar dust with a myriad of distant stars and galaxies speckled like paint drops over a black canvas. This is a sonification of a breathtaking image king image taken by ESA's Euclid space telescope of the young star-forming region Messier 78. The sonification offers a different representation of the data collected by Euclid, and lets us explore the stellar nurseries in M78 through sound. Close your eyes and listen to let the cosmic image be drawn by your mind’s eye, or watch as the traceback line in this video follows the sounds to colour the image from left to right. The twinkling sounds of various pitches and volumes represent the galaxies and stars in the frame. The pitch of the sound points towards where we see the dot of light in the image. Higher pitches tell us that a star or galaxy appears further at the top in the image along the traceback line. The brightness of these objects in and around M78 are represented by the volume of the twinkles. Whenever we hear a particularly loud clink, the star or galaxy that Euclid observed appears particularly bright in the image. Underlying these jingling sounds, we can hear a steady undertone, made up of two chords which represent different regions in Messier 78. This sound intensifies as the traceback line approaches first the brightest, and later the densest regions in the nebula. The first two deeper crescendos in this undertone indicate two patches in the image where the most intense colour is blue/purple. These appear as two ‘cavities’ in M78, where newly forming stars carve out and illuminate the dust and gas in which they were born. The chords intensify a third time at a slightly higher pitch corresponding to the red-orange colours in the image, as the sound draws over the densest star-forming region of the frame. This stellar nursery is hidden by a layer of dust and gas that is so thick that it obscures almost all the light of the young stars within it. As the sound traces over the entire Euclid image, these different tones together form a cosmic symphony that represents the image of Messier 78, and the stars and galaxies that lie behind and within it. You can read more about this image that was first revealed to the eyes of the world earlier this year here. Many thanks to Klaus Nielsen (DTU Space / Maple Pools) for making the sonification in this video. If you would like to hear more sonifications and music by this artist, please visit: https://linktr.ee/maplepools View the full article

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Video: 00:00:00 Watch the replay of the media information session in which ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and ESA Council Chair Renato Krpoun (CH) update journalists on the key decisions taken at the ESA Council meeting, held at ESA Headquarters in Paris on 17 and 18 December 2024. View the full article

Step into the holidays with this picturesque ‘winter wonderland’ scene at the south pole of Mars, captured by ESA’s Mars Express. View the full article

Video: 00:11:10 In 2024, ESA continued to drive Europe’s innovation and excellence in space, equipping the continent with advanced tools and knowledge to address global and local challenges. The year saw pioneering missions, cutting-edge satellites and the pivotal restoration of Europe’s independent access to space. The first Ariane 6 launch was perhaps ‘the’ highlight of the year but it was only one of many achievements. We saw the last Vega launch and then the return to flight of Vega-C, the more powerful, upgraded version carrying Sentinel-1C. Far away in our Solar System, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft performed twoMercury flybys in 2024, needed so that it can enter orbit around Mercury in 2026. Juice also performed a crucial gravity assist, this time becoming the first spacecraft to conduct a Moon-Earth double flyby on its way to Jupiter. Twenty years after ESA’s Rosetta was launched and 10 years since its historic arrival at the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, we launched another spacecraft to a small body, the Hera planetary defence mission to investigate asteroid Dimorphos. 2024 was an important year for Europe’s Galileo constellation which continued to expand with the launch of four new satellites and an updated Galileo ground system. The year also saw the launch of ESA’s Proba-3 mission: two precision formation-flying satellites forming a solar coronagraph to study the Sun’s faint corona. In human spaceflight, Europe continues to contribute to science from the ISS as Andreas Mogensen’s Huginn mission continued into 2024. Andreas even met up in space with ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt who was launched on his Muninn mission, making it the first time two Scandinavians were in space together. Meanwhile the latest class of ESA astronauts completed basic training and graduated in April. Two of them, Sophie and Raphaël, were then assigned to long-duration missions to the ISS in 2026. We made crucial steps for Europe in gaining access to the Moon: the inauguration of our LUNA facility with DLR, and the delivery of a third European Service Module for NASA’s Orion spacecraft as part of the Artemis programme. Europe is also contributing to the international Lunar Gateway and developing and ESA lunar lander called Argonaut. These landers will rely on ESA Moonlight, the programme to establish Europe’s first dedicated satellite constellation for lunar communication and navigation. As 2024 draws to a close, ESA’s achievements this year have reinforced Europe’s role in space. ESA’s journey continues to explore new frontiers, shaping the space landscape for generations to come. View the full article

Image: Fit for service: Themis reusable rocket stage demonstrator View the full article

Submarines are emerging as a unique research platform to study human adaption to extreme environments – from ocean depths to outer space. View the full article

Our understanding of planet formation in the Universe’s early days is challenged by new data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Webb solved a puzzle by proving a controversial finding made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope more than 20 years ago. View the full article

A multi-orbit constellation of about 300 satellites that will deliver resilient, secure and fast communications for EU governments, European companies and citizens will be put in orbit after two contracts were confirmed today in Brussels. View the full article

Relive Europe’s greatest space achievements of the year View the full article

Image: These summer images from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 missions showcase different satellite views of Greenland’s west coast. View the full article

A key element of ESA’s role as Europe’s space agency is the expansion of space knowhow, by encouraging new actors into the field. Case in point: a Polish software company previously specialising in smartphone apps took on the challenge of designing the operating system for the main instrument of Proba-3 – an ambitious double spacecraft mission to reveal secrets of the Sun’s fiery atmosphere, the corona. View the full article

On 4 December 2024, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) signed an agreement that will see ESA provide ground station support to the missions in ISRO’s Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme. View the full article

For the first time, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has detected and ‘weighed’ a galaxy, in the early Universe, that has a mass that is similar to what our Milky Way galaxy’s mass might have been at the same stage of development. Found at around 600 million years after the Big Bang, this lightweight galaxy, nicknamed the Firefly Sparkle, is gleaming with star clusters – 10 in total – that researchers examined in great detail. Other galaxies Webb has detected at this period in the history of the Universe are significantly more massive. View the full article

Video: 00:04:04 English Paxi explores ice Join Paxi on an adventure to the North and South poles, to learn more about ice and its role in keeping Earth cool. Italian Paxi osserva il ghiaccio Unisciti a Paxi in un'avventura ai poli Nord e Sud, per saperne di più sul ghiaccio e sul suo ruolo nel mantenere la Terra fresca. German Paxi erforscht das Eis Begleiten Sie Paxi auf ein Abenteuer zum Nord- und Südpol, um mehr über Eis und seine Rolle bei der Kühlung der Erde zu erfahren. French Paxi explore la glace Rejoignez Paxi dans une aventure aux pôles Nord et Sud, pour en savoir plus sur la glace et son rôle dans le refroidissement de la Terre. Spanish Paxi explora el hielo Únete a Paxi en una aventura a los polos Norte y Sur, para aprender más sobre el hielo y su papel en mantener la Tierra fría. Portuguese Paxi explora o gelo Junte-se a Paxi numa aventura aos pólos Norte e Sul, para aprender mais sobre o gelo e o seu papel na manutenção da Terra fresca. Greek Ο Πάξι εξερευνά τον πάγο Ελάτε μαζί με τον Paxi σε μια περιπέτεια στο Βόρειο και το Νότιο Πόλο, για να μάθετε περισσότερα για τον πάγο και το ρόλο του στη διατήρηση της ψύξης της Γης. Polish Paxi bada lód Dołącz do Paxi podczas przygody na biegunie północnym i południowym, aby dowiedzieć się więcej o lodzie i jego roli w chłodzeniu Ziemi. Swedish Paxi utforskar is Följ med Paxi på ett äventyr till Nord- och Sydpolen för att lära dig mer om is och dess roll för att hålla jorden sval. Norwegian Paxi utforsker is Bli med Paxi på et eventyr til Nord- og Sydpolen for å lære mer om is og dens rolle i å holde jorden kjølig. Danish Paxi udforsker is Tag med Paxi på eventyr til Nord- og Sydpolen for at lære mere om is og dens rolle i at holde Jorden kølig. Romanian Paxi explorează gheață Alăturați-vă lui Paxi într-o aventură la polii Nord și Sud, pentru a afla mai multe despre gheață și rolul său în menținerea Pământului rece. Finnish Paxi tutkii jäätä Lähde Paxin mukaan seikkailulle pohjois- ja etelänavoille ja opi lisää jäästä ja sen roolista maapallon viileänä pitämisessä. Estonian Paxi avastab jääd Liitu Paxiga seiklusel põhja- ja lõunapoolusele, et õppida rohkem jääst ja selle rollist Maa jahedana hoidmisel. Czech Paxi zkoumá led Vydejte se s Paxi na dobrodružnou výpravu na severní a jižní pól, abyste se dozvěděli více o ledu a jeho úloze při udržování chladu na Zemi. Dutch Paxi onderzoekt ijs Ga mee met Paxi op avontuur naar de Noord- en Zuidpool om meer te leren over ijs en de rol die ijs speelt bij het koel houden van de aarde. View the full article

Launched in May 2024, ESA’s EarthCARE satellite is nearing the end of its commissioning phase with the release of its first data on clouds and aerosols expected early next year. In the meantime, an international team of scientists has found an innovative way of applying artificial intelligence to other satellite data to yield 3D profiles of clouds. This is particularly news for those eagerly awaiting data from EarthCARE in their quest to advance climate science. View the full article

Image: Space design chamber made in LEGO View the full article

Less than a week after its launch, the Copernicus Sentinel-1C satellite has delivered its first radar images of Earth – offering a glimpse into its capabilities for environmental monitoring. These initial images feature regions of interest, including Svalbard in Norway, the Netherlands, and Brussels, Belgium. View the full article