European Space Agency

Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Alaska’s Columbia Glacier, one of the fastest changing glaciers in the world. View the full article

Video: 00:10:19 ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt launched together with the rest of the Axiom-3 crew at 22:49 CET on 18 January 2024, from launch pad 39A, NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA. Marcus will start his Muninn mission when he enters the International Space Station on Friday 19 January, where he will spend up to 14 days conducting science and testing technology that can one day help people on Earth. You can follow Marcus mission on his social media: https://twitter.com/astro_marcus https://www.instagram.com/esaastro_marcus/ And learn more about his Muninn mission on ESA Muninn page: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/muninn View the full article

ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt from Sweden blasted into space tonight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA, at 21:49 GMT (22:49 CET, 16:49 local time). A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) crew of four astronauts from launch pad 39A. View the full article

Windswept piles of dust, or layers of ice? ESA’s Mars Express has revisited one of Mars’s most mysterious features to clarify its composition. Its findings suggest layers of water ice stretching several kilometres below ground – the most water ever found in this part of the planet. View the full article

Image: Heart of ESA vacuum testing View the full article

Video: 00:02:22 From the International Space Station to Earth, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen talks about what kind of person his fellow Scandinavian and ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt is. The Axiom-3 mission with Marcus onboard is planned to launch in mid-January 2024 to the International Space Station for a 14-day mission, where Marcus will join Andreas, marking the first time two Scandinavians are in space together. View the full article

Week in images: 08-12 January 2024 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Tune in from Wednesday 17 January from 20:15 GMT/21:15 CET to see ESA project astronaut Marcus Wadnt take off to the International Space Station for his first mission, Muninn. Live coverage will run on ESA Web TV channel two. View the full article

ESA won the Best Merchandise award at Space Creator Day 2023, a significant recognition by a community of space enthusiasts. The award highlights ESA’s efforts to promote its activities through innovative and attractive designs that appeal to the public. View the full article

Video: 01:16:00 Watch the replay of ESA's start-of-the-year press briefing looking ahead to 2024. Director General Josef Aschbacher presents this year's key milestones from ESA HQ in Paris: in 2024, Europe will regain its autonomous access to space, with the inaugural flight of the heavy-lift launcher Ariane 6 from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. Hear more about Hera, the planetary defence mission which will be launched at the end of 2024 and EarthCARE, ESA’s Earth observation mission studying the role that clouds and aerosols play in reflecting solar radiation. Updates are also provided on how commercial European space companies will compete to deliver supplies to the International Space Station by 2028. Access the presentation 'ESA Milestones in 2024' View the full article

Image: Micro-world within atomic clock View the full article

Join ESA's start-of-the-year press briefing with Director General Josef Aschbacher on 11 January from 10:00 CET. View the full article

Image: The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) spacecraft Einstein Probe lifted off on a Chang Zheng (Long March) 2C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China at 15:03 CST / 07:03 GMT / 08:03 CET on 9 January 2024. With the successful launch, Einstein Probe began its mission to survey the sky and hunt for bursts of X-ray light from mysterious objects such as neutron stars and black holes. Einstein Probe is a collaboration led by CAS with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), Germany. “I would like to congratulate our colleagues at CAS on the successful launch of an innovative mission that is set to make great strides in the field of X-ray astronomy”, says Professor Carole Mundell, ESA’s Director of Science. “At ESA, we value international collaboration to advance science and deepen our understanding of the cosmos. I wish the Einstein Probe team a very successful mission.” To efficiently monitor the entire sky and routinely discover new X-ray sources, Einstein Probe is equipped with two instruments that together deliver a wide and sensitive view of the celestial sphere: the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) and the Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT). The design of WXT’s optics is inspired by the eyes of lobsters; in a modular layout, it employs hundreds of thousands square fibres that channel light onto the detectors. This gives Einstein Probe the unique capability to observe nearly one-tenth of the celestial sphere in a single glance. New X-ray sources spotted by WXT will be immediately targeted with FXT, which has a narrower view but is more sensitive and will capture more details. ESA supported testing and calibrating the X-ray detectors and the optics of WXT and developed the mirror assembly of one of FXT’s two telescopes in collaboration with MPE and Media Lario (Italy). MPE contributed the mirror assembly for the other telescope of FXT, as well as the detector modules for both FXT units. ESA also provided the system to deflect unwanted electrons away from the detectors (the electron diverter). Throughout the mission, ESA’s ground stations will be used to help download the data from the spacecraft. In return for these contributions ESA will get access to 10% of the data generated by Einstein Probe’s observations. The mission’s capability of spotting new X-ray sources and monitoring how they change over time is fundamental to improving our grasp of the most energetic processes in the Universe. Powerful blasts of X-rays occur when neutron stars collide, supernovas explode, and matter is swallowed by black holes or ejected from the crushing magnetic fields that envelop them. “I am looking forward to the discoveries that Einstein Probe will enable,” says Erik Kuulkers, ESA’s Einstein Probe Project Scientist. “Thanks to its uniquely wide gaze, we will be able to catch the X-ray light from collisions between neutron stars and find out what is causing some of the gravitational waves we detect on Earth. Often, when these elusive space-time ripples are registered, we cannot locate where they are coming from. By promptly spotting the burst of X-rays, we will pinpoint the origin of many gravitational wave events.” After launch, Einstein Probe reached its orbit at an altitude of approximately 600 km. The spacecraft circles the Earth every 96 minutes with an orbital inclination of 29 degrees and it is able to monitor almost the full night-sky in just three orbits. In the next six months, the operation team will be engaged in testing and calibrating the instruments. After this preparation phase, Einstein Probe will spend at least three years attentively watching the entire X-ray sky. View the full article

Visitors to ESA’s cutting-edge visitor centre are being captivated by virtual reality trips to the International Space Station, interactions with a globe showing Earth from space, and displays of astronaut suits, launchers and ESA memorabilia – before getting the chance to buy a souvenir from the ESA space shop. View the full article

Video: 00:06:06 As 2024 kicks into gear, we invite you to look ahead with ESA and see what awaits us in the coming 12 months. After Ariane 5’s retirement in 2023, Europe’s new and versatile heavy-duty launcher Ariane 6 will continue the Ariane legacy of excellence and reliability. After years of development and construction,Ariane 6 will be ready for its first flight from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou. In 2024, we’ll see a return-to-flight for Vega-C. Vega-C will continue to provide Europe with its own affordable lightweight launcher. Together both projects guarantee Europe’s independent access to space. We also continue to collaborate internationally with NASA on the Artemis lunar programme. This Spring, another European Service Module, ESM-3, for the third Artemis mission will be shipped to the United States for mating with its Orion capsule. In 2024, Proba-3 will be launched, the first precision formation-flying mission. The Coronagraph and Occulter spacecraft will fly together forming a 144 m coronagraph studying the Sun’s corona closer to the solar rim than ever before. At the beginning of the year, the first scientific data gathered by our latest space telescope, Euclid, will be revealed. Euclid was designed to explore the composition and evolution of dark matter and dark energy. Another exciting mission that will launch later in 2024 is the Hera mission. This mission will fly to the binary asteroid system of Dimorphos and Didymos to observe the aftermath of the impact made by NASA’s Dart mission. In Earth observation, there are several satellites ready to be launched: the ESA/JAXA mission EarthCARE mission, the Arctic Weather Satellite mission and the European Union’s Copernicus Sentinel-1C and Sentinel-2C satellites. 2024 will bring new developments as well for Galileo: two more first-generation satellites are to be launched in April, followed by two more later in the year. These will expand the constellation and help guarantee Galileo’s optimal performance. Meanwhile, the first hardware deliveries will take place for the second-generation Galileo satellites. The five career astronauts from the 2022 astronaut class will finish their basic training this year and then be ready for mission assignments. For Swedish project astronaut Marcus Wandt, there is no such wait. In January, he will be launched to the Space Station as a mission specialist on the Axiom-3 commercial mission - just time to catch up in space with his Danish colleague, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who is scheduled to return to Earth after a six-month stay on the Space Station in February. View the full article

Image: So near, or so far? View the full article

Invisible to our eyes, X-rays emitted by the hot gas that fills much of the Universe can shed light on many cosmic mysteries. The 'first light' observations of this gas by JAXA’s X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) are now ready. They demonstrate that the mission will play a big role in unveiling the evolution of the Universe and the structure of spacetime. View the full article

An international team of astronomers has assembled and reprocessed observations of the exoplanet WASP-121 b that were collected with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in the years 2016, 2018 and 2019. This provided them with a unique dataset that allowed them not only to analyse the atmosphere of WASP-121 b, but also to compare the state of the exoplanet’s atmosphere across several years. The team found clear evidence that the observations of WASP-121 b were varying in time. Using sophisticated modelling techniques, they demonstrated that these temporal variations could be explained by weather patterns in the exoplanet's atmosphere. View the full article

Through exquisite, millimetre-scale, formation flying, the dual satellites making up ESA’s Proba-3 will accomplish what was previously a space mission impossible: cast a precisely held shadow from one platform to the other, in the process blocking out the fiery Sun to observe its ghostly surrounding atmosphere on a prolonged basis. View the full article

Image: It’s all relative View the full article

Video: 00:04:10 Embark on a cosmic journey with ESA as we explore the universe through the lens of ‘One Million’. From the scorching temperatures of the Sun's corona to the cosmic gaze of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope — discover the astronomical wonders that surround us. Join our space community in celebrating a momentous occasion — 1 MILLION subscribers on YouTube! Thank you for your enthusiasm and support. View the full article

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

Image: Gift wrapped for Ariane 6 View the full article

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The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) spacecraft Einstein Probe is ready to launch in January 2024. Equipped with a new generation of X-ray instruments with high sensitivity and a very wide view, this mission will survey the sky and hunt for powerful blasts of X-ray light coming from mysterious celestial objects such as neutron stars and black holes. Einstein Probe is a collaboration led by CAS with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), Germany. View the full article