European Space Agency

Two European astronauts are following the traces of a treasure trove of rare, Moon-like crystals in a Norwegian fjord as part of the PANGAEA geology training course. View the full article

As the 2023 summer holiday season gets under way, ESA and Amsterdam’s international airport are once again giving travellers a chance to discover some out-of-this-world destinations. View the full article

Space-based solar power could provide Earth with clean and reliable energy, 24 hours a day. As part of its SOLARIS initiative, ESA is inviting researchers to help advance our knowledge of key aspects of collecting solar power in space and wirelessly transmitting it to Earth. View the full article

Data from ESA’s exoplanet mission Cheops has led to the surprising revelation that an ultra-hot exoplanet that orbits its host star in less than a day is covered by reflective clouds of metal, making it the shiniest exoplanet ever found. View the full article

Week in images: 03-07 July 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will bring a different kind of chocolate to the International Space Station on his Huginn mission, created by the Danish chef Thorsten Schmidt. View the full article

Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission captured this image of the powerful Cyclone Mocha on 13 May 2023 as it made its way across the Bay of Bengal heading northeast towards Bangladesh and Myanmar. View the full article

Last week, members of ESA’s astronaut support teams participated in a helicopter underwater escape training. This training is mandatory for people involved in astronaut landing operations, including flight surgeons and photographers, who capture the key moments of an astronaut mission. View the full article

When the RIME antenna on ESA’s Juice mission failed to deploy a few days after launch, the engineering teams faced the mighty challenge to understand the fault and rectify it. At stake was a chance to see inside Jupiter’s mysterious icy moons. View the full article

Commercial air passengers across Europe will soon experience fewer flight delays and greener travel thanks to pilots being able to use satellites to route their planes. View the full article

Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket has completed its final flight, placing two payloads – the German aerospace agency DLR’s Heinrich Hertz experimental communications satellite and the French communications satellite Syracuse 4b – into their planned geostationary transfer orbits. View the full article

Video: 00:04:49 Discover the first results from Europe’s first Lightning Imager onboard the Meteosat Third Generation. The Lightning Imager can continuously detect rapid flashes of lighting in Earth’s atmosphere whether day or night from a distance of 36 000 km. This is the first time a geostationary weather satellite has the capability to detect lightning across Europe, Africa and the surrounding waters. Each camera can capture up to 1000 images per second and will continuously observe lightning activity from space. The data will give weather forecasters greater confidence in their predictions of severe storms. More information on the Lightning Imager first data. Access all the MTG Lighning Imager animations. View the full article

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The first ever satellite instrument capable of continuously detecting lightning across Europe and Africa has now been switched on. New animations from the innovative ‘Lighting Imager’ confirm the instrument will revolutionise the detection and prediction of severe storms. View the full article

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen will be commander of the International Space Station (ISS) during his Huginn mission, becoming the sixth European astronaut to fulfil this role. View the full article

ESA’s Euclid spacecraft lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA, at 17:12 CEST on 1 July. The successful launch marks the beginning of an ambitious mission to uncover the nature of two mysterious components of our Universe: dark matter and dark energy, and to help us answer the fundamental question: what is the Universe made of? View the full article

Video: 00:05:59 ESA’s latest astrophysics mission, Euclid, lifted off on a Space X Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, at 17:12 CEST on 1 July 2023. Euclid has now started its month-long journey to Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2, located 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, in the opposite direction from the Sun. The telescope will survey one third of the sky with unprecedented accuracy and sensitivity. By observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, it will create the most extensive 3D-map of the Universe, with the third dimension representing time. ESA's Euclid mission is designed to explore the composition and evolution of the dark Universe. Euclid will chart how the Universe has expanded and how large-scale structure is distributed across space and time, revealing more about the role of gravity and the nature of dark energy and dark matter. Four weeks after launch, Euclid will enter its orbit around L2. Once in orbit, mission controllers will start the activities to verify all functions of the spacecraft, check out the telescope and finally turn the instruments on. Following this, scientists and engineers will be engaged in an intense two-month phase of testing and calibrating Euclid’s scientific instruments, and preparing for routine observations. The telescope begins its early phase of the survey of the Universe three months after launch. Find out more about Euclid in ESA’s launch kit Access the related broadcast quality video material here (mission footage) and here (mission animations). View the full article

Image: Euclid ore-launch briefing complete at ESA's mission control View the full article

Week in images: 26-30 June 2023 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Video: 00:02:23 ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence will perform a close-up survey of the Dimorphos asteroid in deep space. But first Hera needs to cross millions of kilometres of space to get there. That is the task of Hera’s Propulsion Module, forming around half of the overall spacecraft, which has been prepared by Italy’s Avio company. Formed of a central tube plus a supporting structure, the Module has been fitted with propellant tanks, piping and thrusters (inside the red protective covers). But before it can be joined to Hera’s other element, the Core Module, this Propulsion Module had to undergo its crucial ‘global leak test’ – as seen here. The Module has been filled with gaseous nitrogen, then placed inside its container. Sensors added to the interior can detect any pressure change inside the container over the course of the night. Success means Hera is ready to travel to OHB in Germany to be mated with the Core Module. At this point the Hera spacecraft will be complete, and the mission will come a major step nearer to space. Next rendezvous for Hera is the Environmental Test campaign at ESTEC, to make sure Hera survives in the harsh launch and space environment… Access the related broadcast quality video material. View the full article

ESA’s mission Euclid is getting ready for lift-off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, with a target launch date of 1 July 2023. View the full article

The team working on ESA’s Hera asteroid mission have glimpsed its destination. Last September NASA’s DART mission returned images of the boulder-strewn Dimorphos moonlet just before it impacted it, in an audacious and ultimately successful attempt to shift its orbit around its parent asteroid Didymos. Following on from DART, Hera will carry with it a pair of shoebox-sized ‘CubeSats’ that conclude their own observations by landing on Dimorphos. Team members have been using DART images to help visualise this process of touchdown. And in the process they can't help but imagine: what would it be like for human explorers to one day follow in these CubeSats’ footsteps? View the full article

Image: Testing the Lunar Equipment Support Assembly (LESA) investigation during a partial gravity parabolic flight. View the full article

Image: Rotterdam and part of the Zeeland province in southwest Netherlands are featured in this radar image acquired by Copernicus Sentinel-1. View the full article

Video: 00:46:06 Watch the replay of the media briefing following the 316th ESA Council which takes place on 28 and 29 June in Stockholm. ESA Council Chair Anna Rathsman (Sweden) and ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher will share the outcome of the meeting and provide an update on the launch of new ESA Earth observation missions, upcoming astronaut missions, the Space Summit planned for 6-7 November 2023 in Sevilla (Spain), as well as the decision on the public release of official ESA documents. View the full article