European Space Agency

ESA confirmed a contract signature yesterday with Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) to be the main customer for their Lunar Pathfinder satellite launching in 2024 that will provide communications services around the Moon. View the full article

While wildfires are a natural part of California’s landscape, a severe drought, coupled with extreme temperatures, have sustained several major fires for much of August. As of 14 September, more than 7000 wildfires have been recorded, burning over 900 000 hectares across the state. View the full article

While wildfires are a natural part of California’s landscape, a severe drought, coupled with extreme temperatures, have sustained several major fires for much of August. As of 14 September, more than 7000 wildfires have been recorded, burning over 900 000 hectares across the state. View the full article

Image: Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana is performing the first combined test in preparation for the inaugural flight of Ariane 6 View the full article

ESA’s Rosalind Franklin twin rover on Earth has drilled down and extracted samples 1.7 metres into the ground – much deeper than any other martian rover has ever attempted. View the full article

Image: If you are spacewalking and you know it, raise your hand. ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet (left) and JAXA astronaut Aki Hoshide (right) performed a spacewalk on Sunday 12 September to prepare another section of the International Space Station for its solar panel upgrade. The new solar arrays, called IROSA or ISS Roll-Out Solar Array, are being gradually installed over the existing arrays to boost the International Space Station’s power system. Thomas and NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough prepared and installed two IROSA solar panels across three spacewalks in June. The arrays were taken from their storage area outside the Space Station and passed from spacewalker to spacewalker to the worksite. There the rolled arrays were secured, unfolded, connected and then unfurled. Aki and Thomas prepared the P4 truss for its IROSA installation. This is the same area as where Thomas and Shane installed two IROSA’s but closer to the main body of the Space Station, in an area called the 4A channel. Only one new solar array will be installed here, on a later spacewalk. While Sunday’s extravehicular activity or EVA was already the fourth spacewalk during Thomas’ Alpha mission, it was his first with Aki and the first time a spacewalking pair did not feature a US or Russian astronaut. Aki and Thomas made good time preparing the 4A channel for the next IROSA and were able to complete a second task to replace a floating potential measurement unit that was faulty. This unit measures the difference between the Space Station’s conductive structures and the atmospheric plasma. Thomas and Aki completed their spacewalk in six hours and 54 minutes, which hands Thomas the ESA record for longest time spent spacewalking. How did he celebrate? With ice cream! Thomas reminds us that, “Spacewalks last seven hours and are like top sport, so we need the calories afterwards!” As this image shows, the International Space Station is a huge, complex spacecraft. Built by international partners and in operation for over 20 years now, the only human outpost in space (so far!) is a sight to behold and requires spacewalks to maintain. But as Thomas notes, fixing up the Space Station is not just a maintenance job, it is also “improving the station and what it stands for.” Follow Thomas during his Alpha mission. View the full article

In June 2021, more than 4300 participants from 132 countries and territories came together to solve challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic. ESA, NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are pleased to announce CleverChart and TRACER as the winners of the Open Science Award. View the full article

Video: 00:02:59 ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet takes you on a tour of the International Space Station like no other. Filmed with a 360 camera, the Space Station 360 series lets you explore for yourself alongside Thomas’s explanation – this is the Kibo module. Kibo is the Japanese module, also known as the Japanese Experiment Module or JEM. Thomas takes you through the hardware available for the astronauts and researchers on Earth and the unique airlock and storage space in Kibo. The video is part of a series with Thomas showing each module in full 360 surround video. Click and drag with your mouse or move your smartphone around to see different angles and feel like you are in space with Thomas. Follow Thomas: https://blogs.esa.int/exploration/it/category/astronauts/thomas-pesquet/ The video is in French, to activate the English subtitles, click on the CC icon at the bottom right of the YouTube player. Access the other Space Station 360 videos View the full article

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

Video: 00:03:30 Work is underway to sort and assess applications from more than 22 500 ESA astronaut hopefuls. The rigorous selection process will take around 18 months. Initial screening to ensure that basic criteria are met will be followed by medical and psychological tests, exercises and interviews. ESA plans to recruit 4-6 new astronauts through this 2021-22 selection round to support the future of European space exploration. This is likely to include missions to the International Space Station as well as the Moon. As part of the selection process, ESA is also assessing the feasibility of flying an astronaut with a physical disability. More information about the ESA Astronaut Selection is available online at https://esa.int/YourWayToSpace View the full article

Image: This image of the young volcanic region of Elysium Planitia on Mars [10.3°N, 159.5°E] was taken on 14 April 2021 by the CaSSIS camera on the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO). The two blue parallel trenches in this image, called Cerberus Fossae, were thought to have formed by tectonic processes. They run for almost one thousand km over the volcanic region. In this image, CaSSIS is looking straight down into one of these 2 km-wide fissures. The floor here is a few hundred metres deep and is filled with coarse-grained sand, likely basaltic in composition, which appears blue in the CaSSIS false-colour composite image. The flat volcanic plains nearby are punctured by small impact craters, which expose possibly the same basaltic materials that we see within Cerberus Fossae. TGO arrived at Mars in 2016 and began its full science mission in 2018. The spacecraft is not only returning spectacular images, but also providing the best ever inventory of the planet’s atmospheric gases, and mapping the planet’s surface for water-rich locations. It will also provide data relay services for the second ExoMars mission comprising the Rosalind Franklin rover and Kazachok platform, when it arrives on Mars in 2023. View the full article

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the Danube Delta – the second largest river delta in Europe. View the full article

The dates have been set for ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet’s upcoming command of the International Space Station, as ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer prepares to join him on board. View the full article

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide are set to leave the International Space Station on a spacewalk on Sunday 12 September. View the full article

Video: 01:23:15 Watch the full replay of ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer’s pre-launch news conference at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. Held in both English and German on 9 September 2021, the conference covers ESA’s vision for human and robotic exploration as well as the science and operations Matthias will support on the International Space Station during his six-month Cosmic Kiss mission. Cosmic Kiss is Matthias’s first space mission. He will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA as a member of US Commercial Crew-3 alongside @NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron. While in orbit, Matthias will support over 35 European experiments and many more international experiments. He will also be the first European to perform a Russian spacewalk since Thomas Reiter in the 1990s. Knowledge gained through the Cosmic Kiss mission will shape the future of space exploration and help enhance life on Earth. Conference panellists are: ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, ESA Director of Human and Robotic Exploration David Parker, ESA International Space Station Programme Manager and Head of EAC Frank De Winne, Director General of @DLR and Member of the DLR Executive Board Walther Pelzer, and ESA Astronaut Matthias Maurer. This conference was moderated by ESA Communication Programme Officer for Human and Robotic Exploration Marco Trovatello. Follow Matthias View the full article

Image: School is also back in session for ESA astronaut Andrea Mogensen (right) and NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins. Together with European Astronaut Centre engineer Robin Eccleston (far left), the trio are taking part in this year’s Pangaea field training campaign to become better field scientists. With all eyes set on the Moon, the three-week campaign has increasingly focussed on lunar geology. Now in its fourth edition, the course kicked off this week with background lessons by top planetary scientists on identifying rock samples of interest for exploration. In this image Andreas and his fellow students use a microscope to analyse samples. Later, the class went on a field trip to the Bletterbach canyon in the Italian Dolomites. The eight-km long and 400-m deep gorge contains around 10 billion tonnes of rock transported to the valley since the end of the glacial age, around 18 000 years ago. The gorge is the result of sedimentary processes quite similar to those found on Mars and is an ideal site to put classroom knowledge into practice. In later sessions, the trainees will also visit the Ries Crater in Germany and the volcanic landscapes of Lanzarote, Spain, to unravel not only lunar but also martian features on Earth. They will use more sophisticated tools that will allow them to explore their geography from the microscopic to the macroscopic level. The participants will wear a virtual reality headset to immerse themselves in a real martian landscape. Together with images and dozens of 3D maps, the trainees will see a combination of ground truth information and satellite images with the PLANetary MAPping project (PLANMAP) running behind the scenes. Follow Pangaea on social media for live updates and on the blog for more in depth articles. View the full article

ESA, NASA and Arianespace have jointly defined 18 December 2021 as the target launch date for Ariane 5 flight VA256. This third Ariane 5 launch of 2021 will fly the James Webb Space Telescope to space from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. View the full article

ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer will soon be launched to the International Space Station for his first mission, ‘Cosmic Kiss’. Tune in to ESA Web TV from 9:00 CEST (8:00 BST) to 10:00 CEST (9:00 BST) Thursday 9 September to watch his pre-launch news conference and learn what awaits him in orbit. View the full article

Image: EC Commissioner Breton visits ESTEC View the full article

Video: 00:02:27 Space is changing fast. ESA wants to open up space to start-ups, new companies, new actors – basically to everyone. Our aim today is to help European businesses to use space technology to innovate and grow services and products that ultimately will change all our lives. And, instead of doing everything ourselves, it means we at ESA can be customers too. Commercialisation marks a fundamental change to the traditional rules of the space game, with the market providing more of what we need, and competition slashing costs and sharpening efficiency. It’s already happening in everything from micro-launchers to Earth-Moon communication, and orbital research. By boosting the commecialisation of space, ESA is providing opportunities for new ventures, new markets and generating new jobs, while we focus on expanding horizons. Read the DG’s latest OpEd on the Commercialisation of Space View the full article

Video: 00:18:05 Thomas Pesquet took part in a discussion with the EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton, and the EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevicius. The inflight call took place during their visit to ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands, where they were accompanied by ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher. View the full article

The tenth annual ESA Open Day is confirmed for the weekend of 2-3 October. A combination of in-person and virtual events, this is your chance to meet Europe’s astronauts and space experts and see spacecraft, hardware and test equipment in close-up. On Saturday people with disabilities will have a special chance to tour ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands, while the following day’s virtual event will be open to all. View the full article

Finding and collecting the best lunar samples will be a major task for the next astronauts on the Moon. ESA’s Pangaea training campaign launches today to equip astronauts with a geologist’s eye on the Moon – humanity’s next space destination to help us understand more about our Solar System. View the full article

Week in images: 30 August - 3 September 2021 Discover our week through the lens View the full article

Video: 00:06:16 The ExoMars team have performed important parachute drop tests as crucial preparation for a safe touchdown on Mars in 2023. The European Rosalind Franklin rover will search for signs of past life beneath the surface of Mars with its unique two metre drill and onboard laboratory. The Russian surface science platform Kazachok will study the environment at the landing site. Landing on Mars is always a challenging endeavour and all possible parameters are taken into account. More information on ExoMars: http://www.esa.int/exomars View the full article