European Space Agency

The largest parachute set to fly on Mars has completed its first successful high-altitude drop test, a critical milestone for ensuring the ExoMars mission is on track for launch in 2022. Both the first and second stage parachutes have now successfully flown this year. View the full article

ESA Highlights: images and achievements from 2021 ESA Highlights 2021 is available online in this interactive format, which can be read on your desktop computer, laptop, tablet or phone. View the full article

We’re already exploring Mars, with two spacecraft in orbit and an ambitious rover mission planned for launch next year – but now you can join in these martian adventures with your own PLAYMOBIL Mars Expedition! View the full article

ESA Impact 2021 Q4 edition Great images and videos of climate change on view, BepiColombo flies by Mercury, Cheops gets a surprise, and more View the full article

Week in images: 6 - 10 December 2021 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Video: 00:00:57 The James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) is designed to answer fundamental questions about the Universe. One of Webb’s key science goals is to study the nearby cosmos: uncovering hidden parts of our Solar System, peering inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming, and revealing the composition of exoplanets in more detail. Exoplanets Thanks to its powerful capabilities at infrared wavelengths, Webb will offer a unique view of the outer planets in our own magnificent Solar System. Looking beyond, Webb will study in detail the atmospheres of a wide diversity of exoplanets. Webb can study exoplanets as they pass in front of their respective host stars (known as transiting). The tiny fraction of light that passes through the atmosphere interacts with atoms and molecules there. That light then carries information about them, which scientists use to infer conditions such as temperature, chemical composition and formation history. Webb will search for atmospheres similar to Earth’s, and for the signatures of key substances such as methane, water, oxygen, carbon dioxide and complex organic molecules, in the exciting hope of finding the building blocks of life. In this way, Webb will complement ESA’s Ariel mission, a space telescope scheduled for launch in 2029 that will study what exoplanets are made of, how they form and how they evolve. The lifecycle of stars Webb will determine how and why clouds of dust and gas collapse into stars, or become gas giant planets or brown dwarfs. Observing in the infrared part of the spectrum, Webb will be capable of peering through the dusty envelopes around newly born stars, and its superb sensitivity will allow astronomers to directly investigate the faint, earliest stages of starbirth, known as ‘protostellar cores’. Throughout their lifetimes, stars transform the Universe’s simple elements into heavier elements and spread them throughout the cosmos through stellar winds and supernova explosions, along with the precious heavy metals that enrich the cosmos to form new generations of stars. Webb will study such supernova explosions, which are explosive deaths of massive stars and are among the most energetic events in the Universe. Webb will also study brown dwarfs: astronomical objects that are more massive than a planet but less massive than a star. Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). View the full article

The city of Fairbanks, the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska, and its surroundings, are featured in this Copernicus Sentinel-2 image. View the full article

Applicants to ESA’s astronaut selection are being thanked for their patience as thousands of acceptance or rejection notifications are distributed to candidates across Europe. View the full article

Image: The James Webb Space Telescope was transferred to the final assembly building at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 7 December 2021, to meet its Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Stowed inside a special 23-tonne transport container, Webb was protected and monitored throughout the transfer. Ariane 5 was already moved to the same building on 29 November. Here, adjustable platforms allow engineers to access the launch vehicle and its payload. The next steps are to hoist Webb to the upper platform which has been prepared so that Webb can be integrated on Ariane 5’s upper stage and then encapsulated inside Ariane 5’s specially adapted fairing. Webb is scheduled for launch on 22 December from Europe’s Spaceport. Ground teams have already successfully completed the delicate operation of loading the spacecraft with the propellant it will use to steer itself while in space. Webb will be the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. As part of an international collaboration agreement, ESA is providing the telescope’s launch service using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Working with partners, ESA was responsible for the development and qualification of Ariane 5 adaptations for the Webb mission and for the procurement of the launch service by Arianespace. Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Find out more about Webb in ESA’s launch kit and interactive brochure. View the full article

ESA is calling on industry to come forward with ideas for crew and cargo transportation, operations, payloads, research, living quarters and even astronaut training. All of this could develop into new services in an effort to enlarge the space ecosystem to the commercial sphere. View the full article

Image: Blood disc for astronaut diagnosis View the full article

The Ariane 5 launch vehicle which will launch the James Webb Space Telescope was moved to the final assembly building at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 29 November 2021. View the full article

Image: Mirror, mirror, on the Moon, how far away are you? MoonLIGHT or Moon Laser Instrumentation for General relativity/geophysics High-accuracy Tests is seeking the answer to this and more questions on general relativity, the gravitational dynamics of the Earth-Moon system and the deep lunar interior. MoonLIGHT is a laser retroreflector, imaged here, which allows laser beams sent from Earth to be reflected back from the Moon to receivers on our planet. This allows very precise measurement of the distances between the reflector and the ground station. Known as lunar laser ranging, this technique has been in use since the Apollo missions to investigate Einstein’s theory of general relativity, lunar geophysics and the Earth-Moon dynamics, among other fields of study. However, data from retroreflectors of the Apollo era is not as precise due to lunar vibrations, or the perceived lagging and wanning of the Moon when viewed from Earth, caused by its eccentric and tilted orbit of our planet. The MoonLIGHT retroreflector can reduce this error thanks to its next-generation compact design. The single, larger reflector with a front face 100mm in diameter can improve accuracy to within millimeters. Developed by the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics and managed by ESA, MoonLIGHT will launch in 2024 on NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative to the Reiner Gamma region of the Moon, which has one of the most distinctive and enigmatic natural features on the Moon, called lunar swirl, characterized by high surface luminosity (albedo) and the very rare presence of a local magnetic field. View the full article

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Video: 00:04:00 The world’s next generation cosmic observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, is due for launch on an Ariane 5 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana in late December. Developed and constructed over more than 30 years, Webb is a remarkable feat of engineering and technology – with the largest astronomical mirror ever flown in space, sophisticated new scientific instruments, and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Webb is a joint project between NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency and will reveal the Universe in a whole new light. Optimised for infrared wavelengths, its detectors will be able to look back to shortly after the very dawn of time, revealing the formation of the first galaxies, as well as study stars and planets in our own Milky Way. The A-roll contains interviews with ESA’s Senior Advisor for Science and Exploration, Mark McCaughrean, Kai Noeske, ESA Science Communication Programme Officer, and NIRSpec Instrument Scientist, Giovanna Giardino. B-roll contains additional soundbites and images. View the full article

ESA and Airbus have signed a contract to move forward with the design and construction of the Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, Ariel, planned for launch in 2029. View the full article

Image: Webb fuelled for launch View the full article

Europe’s largest satellite constellation has grown even bigger, following the launch of two more Galileo navigation satellites by Soyuz launcher from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 5 December. Galileo satellites 27-28 add to an existing 26-satellite constellation in orbit, providing the world’s most precise satnav positioning to more than 2.3 billion users around the globe. View the full article

Week in images: 29 November - 3 December 2021 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Video: 00:01:09 The ExoMars rover used in the Earth-based Mars Terrain Simulator makes escaping from a sand trap look easy in this exercise. The rover initially has its front two wheels almost completely buried in sand, but easily escapes using its unique wheel-walking mode. It takes about 20 minutes to complete the 2 m drive – slow and careful being the key to getting out of a difficult situation. Rovers on Mars have previously been caught in sand, and turning the wheels dug them deeper, just like a car stuck in mud or snow. To avoid this, the ExoMars rover Rosalind Franklin – and its replica – has a unique wheel walking locomotion mode. Similar to leg movements, wheel-walking combines motions of the deployment actuators (the legs) with the rotation of the wheels to progress without slippage. This motion gives very good traction in soft soils and high slopes, such as dunes. “We hope to never need to use wheel walking on Mars to escape dangerous sand traps, but we are glad to have such functionality to potentially safeguard the mission,” comments Luc Joudrier, ESA ExoMars Rover Operations Manager. “From a rover operational point of view, this is really our insurance again difficult terrains.” In the test run seen here, the back wheels drag once the front four wheels have gained good traction on firmer terrain. The reason is that the wheel-walking sequence tested here has rather been optimised for climbing steep slopes with loose soils. In this sequence of commands, a short rotation of the wheel follows each movement of the legs. This is to anchor the wheels, digging them a little bit into the soil, before moving the rest – like when you climb a slope with snow and firm up each step before making a new one. On firmer soils, the anchoring rotation is not as effective (it can create the dragging effect) and therefore can be excluded from the command sequence. The activity took place in the Mars Terrain Simulator at the Rover Operations Control Centre at the ALTEC premises, at Thales Alenia Space facilities in Turin, Italy in November 2021. It is from here that rover science operations will take place once Rosalind Franklin lands on Mars in June 2023. In the meantime, the facility is being used for training rover operators and simulating science operations that will be expected in the main mission. More about ExoMars. Related: ExoMars – Moving on Mars ExoMars – Testing locomotion Moving on Mars View the full article

A part of the White Nile state in Sudan is featured in this false-colour image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. View the full article

Image: Tiny crystal of power View the full article

By performing a series of real and 'fake' flybys, ESA’s Mars Express has revealed how Mars’ largest moon, Phobos, interacts with the solar wind of charged particles thrown out by the Sun – and spotted an elusive process that has only been seen at Phobos once before. View the full article

The launch of Europe’s latest Galileo satellites is now due to take place tonight, very early on Friday morning. The original launch date was postponed due to adverse weather conditions at the launch site. View the full article