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ESA's newly selected astronaut candidates of the class of 2022 arrived at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, on 3 April 2023 to begin their 12-month basic training.
The group of five candidates, Sophie Adenot, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Rosemary Coogan, Raphaël Liégeois, and Marco Sieber, are part of the 17-member astronaut class of 2022, selected from 22 500 applicants from across ESA Member States in November 2022.
The astronaut candidates will be trained to the highest level of standards in preparation for future space missions. During basic training, this includes learning all about space exploration, technical and scientific disciplines, space systems and operations, as well as spacewalk and survival training.
This image shows the candidates an Australian astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg, joining the group under agreement with Australian Space Agency, on their first day at the European Astronaut Centre, ready to embark on their journey to become certified ESA astronauts.
Credits: ESA-S. Corvaja
After arrival at the cleanroom at ESTEC, the European Space Agency’s Plato spacecraft was moved to a tent providing the clean air needed for its sensitive optical instruments. Here it is still covered by a protective film. The spacecraft can be seen in horizontal transport configuration on a rolling platform.
[Image description: Inside a cleanroom, several individuals wearing protective clothing and hairnets are working around a large spacecraft. The spacecraft has gold and black colours and is wrapped in plastic sheeting, and mounted on a white transport platform. The background features metallic walls, blue structural elements, and various pieces of laboratory equipment, contributing to the high-tech, clean environment.]
Credits: ESA-SJM Photography
Two views of Jupiter showcase the wealth of information provided by the spectral filters on the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) science instrument. At left, the RGB composite is created using three filters at wavelengths similar to the colors seen by the human eye. At right, the wavelength bounds are widened beyond the visible range to extend just into the ultraviolet (UV) and infrared regimes. Humans cannot perceive these extended wavelengths, but some animals are able to detect infrared and ultraviolet light. The result is a vivid disk that shows UV-absorbing lofty hazes as orange (over the poles and in three large storms, including the Great Red Spot), and freshly-formed ice as white (compact storm plumes just north of the equator). Astronomers, including the OPAL team, use these filters (and others not shown here) to study differences in cloud thickness, altitude, and chemical makeup.
[Image description: A two-panel image labeled “Jupiter, January 5, 2024, HST WFC3/UVIS” showcases the wealth of information provided by the spectral filters on the Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) science instrument. At left, this Hubble image of Jupiter is created using three filters at wavelengths similar to the colors seen by the human eye: F395N is blue, F502N is green, F658N is red. At right, the wavelength bounds are widened beyond the visible range to extend just into the ultraviolet (UV) and infrared regimes: F343N is blue, F467M is green, FQ889N is red. Humans can’t perceive these extended wavelengths. The result is a vivid disk that shows UV-absorbing lofty hazes as orange (over the poles and in three large storms, including the Great Red Spot), and freshely-formed ice as white (compact storm plumes just north of the equator). These filters (and others not shown here) allow astronomers to study differences in cloud thickness, altitude, and chemical makeup.]
Credits:NASA, ESA, A. Simon (NASA-GSFC), M. H. Wong (UC Berkeley), J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0
This Proba-V view shows all that is left of the Aral Sea, once one of the four largest lakes in the world and now one of the world’s major ecological disaster areas. It has shrunk into separate lakes, surrounded by Earth’s youngest desert.
The Aral Sea was once a large land-locked lake between Kazakhstan in the North and Uzbekistan in the South, possessing an area of 68 000 sq. km – twice that of Belgium.
However, the Aral Sea has dramatically shrunk since the 1960s when Soviet irrigation projects diverted water from the rivers supplying it. By the 2000s, the lake had shrunk to about 10% of its original size and by 2014 the horseshoe-shaped Southern Lake had virtually dried up.
Groundwater levels also fell, vegetation was laid waste and a once-thriving fishing industry collapsed. The exposed lakebed formed the newly-christened Aralkum Desert, spawning pesticide-laced sandstorms that can reach as far as the Himalayas.
Efforts to stabilise the situation are ongoing, including the replanting of hardy vegetation to reduce sandstorms. In 2005, the Kok-Aral Dam was completed to restore water levels in the Northern Lake –located at its bottom-east side. In addition, a sluice is periodically opened to replenish the Southern Lake.
Launched on 7 May 2013, Proba-V is a miniaturised ESA satellite tasked with a full-scale mission: to map land cover and vegetation growth across the entire planet every two days.
Its main camera’s continent-spanning 2250 km swath width collects light in the blue, red, near-infrared and mid-infrared wavebands at 300 m resolution and down to 100 m resolution in its central field of view.
VITO Remote Sensing in Belgium processes and then distributes Proba-V data to users worldwide. An online image gallery highlights some of the mission’s most striking images so far, including views of storms, fires and deforestation.
This 100 m-resolution image was acquired on 15 June 2018.
Proba-V is currently the subject of ESA’s latest ‘citizen science’ competition, requesting teams to produce ‘super-resolution’ images equivalent to its 100 m mode from sets of 300 m imagery.
Credits: ESA/Belspo – produced by VITO
Cosmic radiation could increase cancer risks during long duration missions. Damage to the human body extends to the brain, heart and the central nervous system and sets the stage for degenerative diseases. A higher percentage of early-onset cataracts have been reported in astronauts.
Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere protect us from the constant bombardment of galactic cosmic rays – energetic particles that travel at close to the speed of light and penetrate the human body.
A second source of space radiation comes from unpredictable solar particle events that deliver high doses of radiation in a short period of time, leading to ‘radiation sickness’ unless protective measures are taken.
Credits: ESA
ESA’s newly approved Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observer, Lumio, mission will orbit an Earth-Moon Lagrange point to detect meteoroid flashes on the night-time lunar farside. In addition Lumio will also perform an innovative autonomous navigation experiment – using its camera images to calculate the spacecraft’s current orbital position and distance from the Moon.
Shown here is the new variable magnification, hardware-in-the-loop testbed being used to develop and test the necessary vision-based navigation algorithms to accomplish this ambitious task. Known as ‘Retina’, or Realistic Experimental FaciliTy for vision-based Navigation, it is composed of several opto-mechanical parts installed along two parallel optical lines in an optical bench in a darkroom.
Both lines replicate the same setup. A high-resolution, high dynamic range microdisplay screen displaying synthetic scenes of the Moon is linked to a ‘collimator’ lens system that can project the observed scenes at infinity, a relay lens assembly to achieve variable magnification capabilities and a camera instrument mimicking the charactistics of real vision-based systems.
Retina has been developed by the Deep-space Astrodynamics Research and Technology, DART, group at Politecnico di Milano’s Department of Aerospace Science and Technology, overseeing the Lumio project for ESA.
Francesco Topputo, Professor of Space Science at Politecnico di Milano, explains: “If this experiment can indeed determine Lumio’s position without any ground station in the loop, it would pave the way for low-cost autonomous navigation in cislunar space.”
Lumio is a briefcase-sized 12-unit ‘CubeSat’ – a low-cost small spacecraft built up from standardised 10 cm boxes – which will be placed in orbit around the Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 2, a point of gravitational equilibrium between the two bodies.
The mission was one of two winning concepts from the ESA SysNova Lunar CubeSats for Exploration challenge which has now been given funding through the ‘Fly’ Element of ESA’s General Support Technology Programme, aimed at early demonstration of promising technology in space.
Lumio is being put together for ESA by a consortium including Politecnico di Milano, Argotec, Leonardo, IMT- Ingegneria Marketing Tecnologia, Nautilus, ECAPS, LMO and S&T Norway.
Credits: Politecnico di Milano
Ariane 6 launches to the sky on 9 July 2024 from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana.
Europe’s newest heavy-lift rocket, it is designed to provide great power and flexibility at a lower cost than its predecessors. The launcher’s configuration – with an upgraded main stage, a choice of either two or four powerful boosters and a new restartable upper stage – will provide Europe with greater efficiency and possibility as it can launch multiple missions into different orbits on a single flight, while its upper stage will deorbit itself at the end of mission.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
Ariane 5 VA 260 with Juice, start of rollout on Tuesday 11 April.
Juice is being prepared to launch from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 13 April 2023.
Juice – JUpiter ICy moons Explorer – is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. This ambitious mission will characterise Ganymede, Callisto and Europa with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.
Following launch, Juice will embark on an eight-year journey to Jupiter, arriving in July 2031 with the aid of momentum and direction gained from four gravity-assist fly-bys of the Earth-Moon system, Venus and, twice, Earth.
Flight VA260 will be the final Ariane 5 flight to carry an ESA mission to space.
Find out more about Juice in ESA’s launch kit
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
The BepiColombo spacecraft stack is transported for mounting in the launcher.
BepiColombo is a joint endeavour between ESA and JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter is seen at the top of the stack, ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter is in the middle, and ESA’s Mercury Transfer Module is at the bottom.
Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut
Europe’s first MetOp Second Generation, MetOp-SG-A1, weather satellite – which hosts the Copernicus Sentinel-5 mission – has launched aboard an Ariane 6 rocket from the European spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 13 August at 02:37 CEST (12 August 21:37 Kourou time).
MetOp-SG-A1 is the first in a series of three successive pairs of satellites. The mission as a whole not only ensures the continued delivery of global observations from polar orbit for weather forecasting and climate analysis for more than 20 years, but also offers enhanced accuracy and resolution compared to the original MetOp mission – along with new measurement capabilities to expand its scientific reach.
This new weather satellite also carries the Copernicus Sentinel-5 mission to deliver daily global data on air pollutants and atmospheric trace gases as well as aerosols and ultraviolet radiation.
Ariane 6 is Europe’s heavy launcher and a key element of ESA’s efforts to ensure autonomous access to space for Europe’s citizens. Ariane 6 has three stages: two or four boosters, and a main and upper stage. For this flight, VA264, the rocket was used in its two-booster configuration.
Credits: ESA - S.Corvaja
A special test campaign undertaken in this ESA lab well before the launch of the Agency’s Euclid mission to explore the dark Universe has helped support an important manoeuvre that the newly-launched spacecraft is currently undertaking in space.
On 4 July, as Euclid headed on to its set observing point in space, 1.5 million km from Earth, it turned in its course to face the Sun for a planned 96 hours in total.
Why does it need to do this? Mauricio Portaluppi – an ESA contamination control engineer, who has been at the launch site supporting cleanliness and contamination control of the satelllite before its launch – explains: “Euclid needs boil away any moisture that potentially might have ended up freezing on its telescope mirrors, obscuring its otherwise pristine views of the distant cosmos beyond our own Milky Way galaxy”.
Euclid’s payload module is passively cooled down to cryogenic temperatures, so any water vapour outgassed from onboard materials such as the multi-layer insulation covering the spacecraft might condense on detectors and mirrors.
“This was more than a purely theoretical concern, because a previous ESA astronomy mission, the 2013-launched Gaia mission to map the Milky Way, also had to deal with the problem of water ice on its optics early in the mission,” explains Bruno Bras, an ESA contamination control expert who also worked on the Gaia project.
“The Materials and Electrical Components Laboratory here at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre worked diligently to recreate this problem on the ground so we could fully model it. This in turn allowed the characterisation of the readings measured in orbit and supported the Gaia spacecraft team in evaluating potential decontamination options and their associated risks. In fact the Lab team ended up winning an ESA Team Excellence Award for our support to Gaia.”
Szilvia Szmolka, ESA materials test engineer, adds: “In the case of Euclid, another cryogenic astronomy mission with a similar flight profile, the aim was to get ahead of the risk in advance. Working in collaboration with the Euclid team and the wider Euclid science consortium we used representative mirror samples in our Yuta vacuum facility to predict the effects of the ice on the Euclid telescope’s optical path, and to see how much heating would be needed to clear this contamination.”
The Lab’s test campaign also amassed a extensive spectral performance database for ice contamination, right down to a single nanometre – or millionth of a millimetre – of thickness, which can be used to support future missions as well.
Credits: ESA
Nothing is entirely immune to the harsh environment of space. Out there, things and organisms degrade at a faster pace and in different ways. To understand how materials age beyond Earth’s atmosphere, up to 141 samples are spending a minimum of six months exposed to outer space for the Euro Material Ageing experiment.
Radiation, vacuum, temperature extremes and even space debris are hitting this selection of inorganic materials on Bartolomeo, Europe’s ‘front porch’ on the International Space Station.
No filters or protection allowed, each sample has a bare surface of 20 millimetres cramped between two aluminium plates. The diverse palette in this image shows metallic glass, ceramic composites, silicon, diamond-like carbon, carbon fibres and plastics, among others.
Europe has years of experience in sending biology samples to space, but this is the first time ESA and the French space agency CNES expose inorganic materials outside the Space Station.
NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Nick Hague used the Station’s 17-metre-long robotic arm last December to place the Nanoracks airlock on Bartolomeo, where the experiment is facing the full spectrum of space environment hazards.
As Nick Hague said in a social media post, “Materials research is critical to our exploration of space. Vacuum, extreme hot and cold, radiation – these are the harsh realities of the space environment. The right materials can help us survive in space and dare to go further, and can also improve life on Earth!”
Euro Material Ageing is testing how exposure to space can be bad for the health of spacecraft components. Whether a mission is orbiting Earth or operates in deep space, unwanted effects include discoloration, embrittlement and buckling.
The Space Station experiences frequent changes from sunlight to darkness while circling our planet. Materials go through drastic temperature shifts from up to 150°C in sunlight down to –150°C in the shade. Such thermal stresses lead to accelerated ageing, potential cracking and misalignment.
Samples are exposed to highly reactive atomic oxygen formed at the topmost fringes of the atmosphere and known to eat away satellite surfaces. Materials in this experiment will also cope with ‘outgassing’ in vacuum – the gradual boiling away of chemicals and solvents – which could contaminate sensitive satellite surfaces such as lenses.
Results from the Euro Material Ageing experiment could inform the design of fire-retardant and rust-resistant materials, and better protection for satellites could in turn help improve plastic siding for your house.
The exposure time is planned between six and 18 months. After completion, the facility will be transferred back inside the International Space Station. A new set of samples will be waiting for a second immersion into the harshness of space.
Credits: ESA/NASA
This Picture of the Week features the barred spiral galaxy NGC 3059, which lies about 57 million light-years from Earth. The data used to compose this image were collected by Hubble in May 2024, as part of an observing programme that studied a number of galaxies. All the observations were made using the same range of filters: partially transparent materials that allow only very specific wavelengths of light to pass through.
Filters are used extensively in observational astronomy, and can be calibrated to allow either extremely narrow or somewhat broader ranges of light through. Narrow-band filters are invaluable from a scientific perspective because certain light wavelengths are associated with specific physical and chemical processes. For example, under particular conditions, hydrogen atoms are known to emit red light with wavelength value of 656.46 nanometres. Red light at this wavelength is known as H-alpha emission, or the ‘H-alpha line’. It is very useful to astronomers because its presence acts as an indicator of certain physical processes and conditions; it is often a tell-tale sign of new stars being formed, for example.
Thus, narrow-band filters calibrated to allow H-alpha emission through can be used to identify regions of space where stars are forming.
Such a filter was used for this image, the narrow-band filter called F657N or the H-alpha filter. The F stands for filter, and the N stands for narrow. The numerical value refers to the peak wavelength (in nanometres) that the filter lets through. The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that 657 is very close to the 656.46 H-alpha line’s wavelength. Data collected using five other filters contributed to this image as well, all of which were wide-band filters; meaning that they allow a wider range of light wavelengths through. This is less useful for identifying extremely specific lines (such as the H-alpha line) but still enables astronomers to explore relatively specific parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. In addition, collectively the information from multiple filters can be used to make beautiful images such as this one.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy seen face-on, so that its many arms and its glowing, bar-shaped core can be easily seen. The arms are filled with bluish patches of older stars, pink patches where new stars are forming, and dark threads of dust. A few bright stars with cross-shaped diffraction spikes lie in the foreground.]
Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker; CC BY 4.0
Check our accessible text here.
Image description: Flashes on the Moon.
Every few hours, brilliant flashes of light can be seen through a telescope across the lunar surface. It is the result of a meteorite striking our rocky neighbour at great speed.
These impact flashes are called transient lunar phenomena.
The European Space Agency monitors space debris and lunar flashes using ground stations on Earth.
#ForwardToTheMoon
Credits: ESA
The JANUS camera onboard ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) is designed to take detailed, high-resolution photos of Jupiter and its icy moons.
JANUS will study global, regional and local features and processes on the moons, as well as map the clouds of Jupiter. It will have a resolution up to 2.4 m on Ganymede and about 10 km at Jupiter.
This image of our own Moon was taken during Juice’s lunar-Earth flyby on 19 August 2024. The main aim of JANUS’s observations during the lunar-Earth flyby was to evaluate how well the instrument is performing, not to make scientific measurements.
Credits: ESA/Juice/JANUS; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The foreground galaxy whose gravity is bending the light from more distant objects is seen as it was when the Universe was 6.4 billion years old. The more distant lensed galaxy, which appears as an arc, was invisible in previous NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations and has now been revealed by Webb’s sensitive infrared eyes. This discovery is crucial for studying star formation in distant galaxies.
This gravitational lens is one of eight featured in the September 2025 Picture of the Month.
[Image Description: This image shows a deep galaxy field as seen by Webb, with a distinct gravitational lens at the centre. A central glowing galaxy in the foreground has a warped galaxy from the background curving around its top-left side as an orange arc.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Gozaliasl, A. Koekemoer, M. Franco; CC BY 4.0
The performance of a lower limb prostheses has been tested in microgravity conditions for the first time during the latest ESA parabolic flight campaign on the ‘Zero G’ aircraft.
The 86th ESA parabolic flight campaign took off on 21 May 2025 from Bordeaux, France.
Parabolic flights create short windows of microgravity by flying an aircraft in a curved trajectory called a parabola. During each of the 31 parabolas per flight, John and the team experienced 22 seconds of weightlessness, simulating the conditions on the International Space Station.
Credits: ESA/Novespace
ESA's star-surveying Gaia mission has released a treasure trove of new data as part of its ‘focused product release’. As part of this data release Gaia explored Omega Centauri, the largest globular cluster that can be seen from Earth and a great example of a ‘typical’ cluster.
The team has revealed 526 587 stars that Gaia had not seen before, detecting stars that lie too close together to be measured in the telescope’s regular pipeline and those in the cluster core that are up to 15 times fainter than previously seen. The new data reveal 10 times more stars in Omega Centauri; this new knowledge will enable researchers to study the cluster’s structure, how the constituent stars are distributed, how they’re moving, and more.
This image is from Gaia’s Data Release 3 in 2022. It is contrasted in a new slider with an image from today’s data release, to highlight just how many new sources have been imaged in the cluster’s centre. Only faint stars within Omega Centauri are plotted here.
Alt-text: This image shows a star cluster, which appears as a collection of bright stars against a dark background. The roughly circular cluster appears like a doughnut with an empty centre.
Acknowledgments: Michele Trabucchi, Nami Mowlavi and Thomas Lebzelter
Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The third Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite, Sentinel-2C, has launched aboard the final Vega rocket, flight VV24, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 5 September at 03:50 CEST (4 September 22:50 local time).
Sentinel-2C will provide high-resolution data that is essential to Copernicus – the Earth observation component of the European Union’s Space programme. Developed, built and operated by ESA, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission provides high-resolution optical imagery for a wide range of applications including land, water and atmospheric monitoring.
The mission is based on a constellation of two identical satellites flying in the same orbit but 180° apart: Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B. Together, they cover all of Earth’s land and coastal waters every five days. Once Sentinel-2C is operational, it will replace its predecessor, Sentinel-2A, following a brief period of tandem observations. Sentinel-2D will eventually take over from Sentinel-2B.
Sentinel-2C was the last liftoff for the Vega rocket. After 12 years of service, Vega is being retired to make way for the upgraded Vega-C rocket.
Credits: ESA–S. Corvaja
This image covers a portion of the wall-terrace region of the 100 km-wide Columbus Crater located within Terra Sirenum in the southern hemisphere of Mars. The image was taken by the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) onboard the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter on 15 January 2019.
Layered rocks that appear in light-tones are found extensively on the northern crater walls, terraces and floor. These rocks have subsequently been eroded to expose successive layers in cross-section.
The CRISM spectrometer onboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has already revealed that these layers contain various hydrated minerals, such as sulphate salts that appear to cover the white-coloured rocks. The beige-coloured layered rocks, consistent with a sulphate salt signature, appear to line the crater wall, reminiscent of a high water mark.
These ‘bathtub rings’ are consistent with deposits formed by lakes that start to dry up and, through evaporation, begin to deposit specific minerals turn by turn. As the water evaporates, the minerals that are the least readily dissolved in water will begin to precipitate out of the dwindling solution.
The relatively small 1.6 km-wide impact crater towards the top of the image appears to have a small amount of white-coloured bedrock exposed in its wall, which CRISM indicates is aluminous clay-bearing material. This suggests that the clay-bearing rocks are older than the sulphate salts that occupy the central portion of this image section.
Sites like these could have once offered conditions suitable for life.
The image is centred at 28.79ºS/193.84ºE. North is up.
Credits: ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Over one-third of the ‘normal’ matter in the local Universe – the visible stuff making up stars, planets, galaxies, life – is missing. It hasn’t yet been seen, but it’s needed to make our models of the cosmos work properly.
Said models suggest that this elusive matter might exist in long strings of gas, or filaments, bridging the densest pockets of space. While we’ve spotted filaments before, it’s tricky to make out their properties; they’re typically faint, making it difficult to isolate their light from that of any galaxies, black holes, and other objects lying nearby.
New research is now one ofthe first to do just this, finding and accurately characterising a single filament of hot gas stretching between four clusters of galaxies in the nearby Universe. The astronomers used ESA’s XMM-Newton and JAXA’s Suzaku X-ray space telescope to make the discovery.
This image shows the new filament, which connects four galaxy clusters: two on one end, two on the other. These clusters are visible as bright spots at the bottom and top of the filament (four white dots encircled by colour). A mottled band of purple stretches between these bright dots, standing out brightly against the black surrounding sky; this is the filament of X-ray-emitting hot gas that had not been seen before, and contains a chunk of ‘missing’ matter.
The purple band comprises data from Suzaku. The astronomers were able to identify and remove any possible ‘contaminating’ sources of X-rays from the filament using XMM-Newton, leaving behind a pure thread of ‘missing’ matter. These sources can be seen here as bright dots studded through – and removed from – the filament’s emission.
[Image description: The image shows a cluster of bright, colourful spots against a black background. The spots are primarily purple with areas of intense brightness in the centre, transitioning from yellow to green and blue. These spots are connected by a faint purple structure, forming an irregular extended shape with hazy blobs at either end.]
CREDIT
ESA/XMM-Newton and ISAS/JAXA
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Migkas et al. (2025), ATG Europe; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
On the day of launching into space on a Soyuz, astronauts go through a number of traditions. ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst will be travelling to the International Space Station on the Soyuz MS-09 alongside NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Roscosmos commander Sergei Prokopyev from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 6 June 2018.
After signing the door of the hotel they spend their last day on Earth before launch, they get into their Sokol pressure suits. A Russian orthodox priest blesses the astronauts and launcher as per tradition.
This will be Alexander’s second spaceflight, called Horizons. He will also be the second ESA astronaut to take over command of the International Space Station. The Horizons science programme is packed with European research: over 50 experiments will deliver benefits to people on Earth as well as prepare for future space exploration.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
In recognition of World Asthma Day, here is ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst preparing to take preflight measurements for the Airway Monitoring experiment, which looks into inflammation of the airway.
Developed by researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, the Airway Monitoring experiment measures astronauts’ breath to determine the health of their lungs. The potential findings will go towards developing better diagnostic tools for airway disease in patients on Earth.
How does the experiment work? The analyser measures the amount of nitric oxide in exhaled air. Too much nitric oxide suggests inflammation. Causes can be environmental, like dust or pollution, or clinical, such as asthma – at least on Earth, but what happens in space?
To find out, astronauts breathe into an analyser at normal pressure and then in the reduced pressure of the Quest airlock, which simulates the pressure of future habitats on Mars and lunar colonies. The measurements are then compared to the same reduced and ambient pressure data taken before flight to understand the effects of weightlessness on airway health.
Can you spot the gloves hanging from the ceiling? They are handy low-tech visual indicators of air pressure. “The gloves give simple, low-tech feedback on the surrounding pressure and grow with increased altitude/reduced pressure," explains Principal Investigator Lars Karlsson.
In space, astronauts are essentially fish out of water. Understanding how to track, diagnose and treat lung inflammation is important for their safety.
The experiment draws on a study of airway inflammation that ran on the Station from 2005 to 2008. Preliminary results have been surprising. As expected, nitric oxide levels were lower when astronauts were in space, but they found that the levels initially decreased just before flight. Researchers are not yet sure why this is the case.
If what is considered a normal level of nitric oxide in humans on Earth could, in fact, be a sign of airway inflammation for astronauts in space, then researchers have a more accurate standard to conduct further research on lung health in space.
This information is key to ensuring the health and safety of astronauts on long missions taking them further from Earth.
The experiment began with ESA astronaut Samantha Cristofretti’s 2015 mission and measurements have been gathered by eight astronauts so far, including ESA astronaut Tim Peake, and soon Alexander.
Alexander will hitch a ride to the Space Station in a Soyuz spacecraft in June for the six-month Horizons mission. Be sure to follow Alexander during his mission to see more on Airway Monitoring and other top science experiments planned for Horizons.
Explore the Horizons brochure for more information.
Credits: L. Karlsson
In preparation for his Beyond mission, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano was at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, USA, in March 2019.
His training included working on a spacewalk, or Extravehicular Activity (EVA).
Luca already has two spacewalks under his belt but in ‘building 9’ of the Johnson Space Center, Luca worked with the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility and refreshed his skills on maintaining the US spacewalk suits called Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMU).
The training is important as Luca has some spacewalks planned that will see him repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-02 particle detector. The dark-matter hunter was launched 16 May 2011 on Space Shuttle Endeavour mission STS-134. It records over 17 billion cosmic rays, particles, and nuclei a year. The results from AMS-02 have shown unexpected phenomena not predicted by cosmic ray models—and changing our understanding of the cosmos.
The mission was initially meant to run for only three years but has been so successful that its mission life has been extended. Three of the four cooling pumps however have stopped functioning and require repair.
A series of spacewalks are planned to replace the cooling system for the $2 billion instrument but they were never designed to be replaced in space.
The first spacewalk is intended to determine just how and where to intervene, and what tools will be needed for the process.
Luca will go beyond Earth’s atmosphere when he returns to the International Space Station in 2019 as part of Expedition 60/61, alongside NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan and Roscosmos astronaut Alexander Skvortsov.
Luca was the first of the 2009 astronaut class to fly to the Space Station. His first mission Volare, meaning 'to fly' in Italian, took place in 2013 and lasted 166 days, during which time Luca conducted two spacewalks and many experiments that are still running today.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
In celebration of World Water Week, the ESA-sponsored medical doctor Carmen Possnig and plumber Florentin Camus pose with the water recycling facility that makes life possible at Concordia research station, located on Antarctica’s high plateau.
Also known as White Mars, Antarctica is the closest resemblance on Earth to a remote, inhospitable planet. It is extremely cold, with temperatures ranging between –30°C to –60°C.
Resources are scarce and difficult to come by. During winter, the crew is completely isolated and must solve any problems without outside help. Due to international treaties protecting the Antarctic all waste material must be removed from the continent.
This is quite the challenge at Concordia station, a joint venture between the French Polar Institute and the Italian Antarctic programme. The station houses approximately 14 people during winter and many more during the summer. Water usage varies but can roughly be estimated anywhere between 40 to 100 litres per person per day and generating enough water without causing environmental stress and using too much energy is a difficult task.
In Antarctica and off-planet we rely on technology to accommodate humans, and it all starts with working with what you have, and what Antarctica has is tonnes of snow.
The station produces a base amount of hygienic water by melting snow, adding minerals to it, and then exposing it to UV light to kill impurities.
Once the water is used, it goes through the treatment system that emerged from the Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative programme. Known as Melissa, the programme develops regenerative life support technologies for astronauts in space.
This ‘grey water’, a term indicating water that has been used for showers, washing up, and laundry, is processed to turn it back into hygienic water. The first step is nanofiltration: the water is forced through a ceramic honeycomb peppered with holes 700 times finer than a strand of human hair, followed by filtering through a pair of membranes. In the final step, diluted water molecules are further filtered out through the process of reverse osmosis.
The system is able to reclaim roughly 85% of the water, with freshly melted snow water replenishing the residual portion that is unfit for use. This concentrated residue is stored and eventually removed from Antarctica.
Developed by ESA and built by French company Firmus, the system was installed at Concordia in 2005. Since then it has operated without significant problems. It is also being used in other parts of the world to provide fresh water to communities in need.
Water recycling is just one arm of the Melissa project creating a closed regenerative life support system capable of converting biological waste such as urine and carbon dioxide into water, oxygen, and nutrients for long space missions.
Recent experiments on the International Space Station have demonstrated technology that recycles oxygen using microorganisms undergoing photosynthesis.
To read more about life at Concordia research station, follow the Chronicles from Concordia blog.
Credits: ESA/IPEV/PNRA-C. Verseux
This image shows examples of gravitational lenses that Euclid captured in its first observations of the Deep Field areas.
Using an initial sweep by artificial intelligence models, followed by citizen science inspection, expert vetting and modelling, a first catalogue of 500 galaxy-galaxy strong lens candidates was created, almost all of which were previously unknown. This type of lensing happens when a foreground galaxy and its halo of dark matter acts as a lens, distorting the image of a background galaxy along the line of sight towards Euclid.
With the help of these models, Euclid will capture some 7000 candidates in the major cosmology data release planned for the end of 2026, and in the order of 100 000 galaxy-galaxy strong lenses by the end of the mission, around 100 times more than currently known.
[Image description: A collage of fourteen by eight squares containing examples of gravitational lenses. Each example typically comprises a bright centre with smears of stars in an arc or multiple arcs around it as a result of light travelling towards Euclid from distant galaxies being bent and distorted by normal and dark matter in the foreground. In some rare cases the smearing is in a complete ring, creating a so-called Einstein Ring.]
Credits: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by M. Walmsley, M. Huertas-Company, J.-C. Cuillandre; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
After it's arrival at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana ahead of launch, the James Webb Space Telescope is unboxed inside a dedicated spacecraft preparation facility where it will be examined to ensure that it is undamaged from its voyage and in good working order.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG - P.Piron
This portrait of Timothy Peake by Sharon Zijlstra from the 2009 selection series was made in February 2016 using Acrylics on Acid-Free 3D linen with triple coated primer.
Measurements: 70 x 80cm (27.5" x 31.5")
An array of Saturn images depict real data from multiple filters mapped onto the RGB colors perceptible to the human eye. Each filter combination emphasizes the subtle differences in cloud altitude or composition. Infrared spectra from the Cassini mission suggested that Saturn’s aerosol particles may have even more complex chemical diversity than on Jupiter.
[Image description: A six-panel collage titled “Saturn, August 22, 2024, HST WFC3/UVIS.” This “Warhol-esque” array of Saturn images depict real data from multiple filters mapped onto the RGB colors perceptible to the human eye. Each filter combination emphasizes subtle differences in cloud altitude or composition. Infrared spectra from the Cassini mission suggested that Saturn’s aerosol particles may have even more complex chemical diversity than on Jupiter. The OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy) program extends Cassini’s legacy by measuring how the subtle patterns in the clouds vary over time.]
Credits:NASA, ESA, A. Simon (NASA-GSFC), M. H. Wong (UC Berkeley), J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0
The upper composite of the Soyuz that will lift ESA’s Cheops mission into space, along with the primary passenger, the Italian space agency’s Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation satellite, and three CubeSats: ESA’s OPS-SAT and the French space agency’s CNES's EYE-SAT and ANGELS satellites, is hoisted on top of the 3-stage rocket. Launch is scheduled for 18 December from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique vidéo du CSG/S Martin
NASA Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke on the ESA stand at the 53rd International Le Bourget Air & Space Show in Paris, France, on 18 June 2019.
Credits: ESA - P. Sebirot
ESA Astronaut Luca Parmitano in the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow, Russia, 19 June 2019 wearing the Sokol suit he will wear when he is launched to the International Space Station. Sokol suits, tailored to each astronaut, are worn in the Soyuz spacecraft as protection against air leaks.
Luca is training for his Beyond mission which will see him return to the International Space Station in 2019 as part of Expedition 60/61, alongside NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov.
Luca was the first of ESA’s 2009 astronaut class to fly to the International Space Station. His first mission Volare, meaning 'to fly' in Italian, took place in 2013 and lasted 166 days. Luca conducted two spacewalks and many experiments that are still running today.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
ESA Space Science Image of the Week: Dying star offers glimpse of our Sun’s future
This is a final act of celestial beauty before the long fade into cosmic history. Invisibly buried in the centre of this colourful swirl of gas is a dying star, roughly the same mass as the Sun.
This example is known as Kohoutek 4-55. Named after its discoverer, the Czech astronomer Luboš Kohoutec, it is located 4600 light years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Cygnus.
As a star ages, the nuclear reactions that keep it shining begin to falter. This uncertain energy generation causes the stars to pulsate in an irregular way, casting off its outer layers into space.
As the star sheds these outer gases, the super-hot core is revealed. It gives off huge quantities of ultraviolet light, and this radiation causes the gas shells to glow, creating the fragile beauty of the nebula.
Credits: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Acknowledgment: R. Sahai and J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Read more here.
The Vega rocket holding the Copernicus Sentinel-2C satellite on the launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport waiting for liftoff.
The Sentinel-2 mission is based on a constellation of two identical satellites, Sentinel-2A (launched in 2015) and Sentinel-2B (launched in 2017), flying in the same orbit but 180° apart to optimise coverage and revisit time. Once in orbit, Sentinel-2C will replace its predecessor, Sentinel-2A, while Sentinel-2D will later replace Sentinel-2B.
Sentinel-2C launches on Vega, Europe’s nimble rocket specialising in launching small scientific and Earth observation spacecraft such as to sun-synchronous polar orbits, following the Sun.
At 30 m tall, Vega weighs 137 tonnes on the launch pad and reaches orbit with three solid-propellant powered stages before the fourth liquid-propellant stage takes over for precise placement of Sentinel-2C into its orbit.
Credits: ESA–S. Corvaja
This new Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features an astounding number of galaxies. The objects in this frame span an incredible range of distances, from stars within our own Milky Way, marked by diffraction spikes, to galaxies billions of light-years away.
The star of this image is a group of galaxies, the largest concentration of which can be found just below the centre of this image. These galaxies glow with white-gold light. We see this galaxy group as it appeared when the Universe was 6.5 billion years old, a little less than half the Universe’s current age.
More than half of the galaxies in our Universe belong to galaxy groups like the one pictured here. Studying galaxy groups is critical for understanding how individual galaxies link up to form galaxy clusters, the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe. Belonging to a galaxy group can also alter the course of a galaxy’s evolution through mergers and gravitational interactions.
The galaxy group pictured here is the most massive group in what’s called the COSMOS-Web field. COSMOS stands for Cosmic Evolution Survey. This survey has enlisted several telescopes, including Webb, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and ESA’s XMM-Newton space observatory to gaze deeply at a single patch of sky. The COSMOS-Web galaxy group team, led by Dr. Gozaliasl, has presented largest sample of galaxy groups detected by Webb thus far using the Amico algorithm.
COSMOS-Web aims to understand how massive structures like galaxy clusters came to be. Webb’s infrared capabilities and sensitive instruments have pushed the search for galaxy groups farther back into cosmic history, revealing galaxy groups as far back as when the Universe was only 1.9 billion years old — just 14% of its current age.
This image combines data from Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope to present a visual feast of galaxies. Take a moment to zoom in and examine this galactic buffet: you’ll see galaxies with delicate spiral arms or warped disks, galaxies with smooth, featureless faces, and even galaxies that are interacting or merging and have taken on an array of strange shapes.
The range of colours is also fascinating, representing both galaxies with different ages of stars — younger stars appear bluer, and older stars appear redder — as well as galaxies at different distances. The more distant a galaxy, the redder it appears.
COSMOS-Web is a 255-hour Webb Treasury programme that maps 0.54 square degrees (a little more than two-and-a-half times the area covered by three full moons) of the COSMOS field using four NIRCam filters. Treasury programmes have the potential to answer multiple important questions about our Universe.
COSMOS-Web has three key goals: to identify galaxies during the epoch of reionization, when the first stars and galaxies reionized the Universe’s hydrogen gas; to probe the formation of the Universe’s most massive galaxies; and to understand how the relationship between the mass of a galaxy’s stars and the mass of its extended galactic halo evolves over the course of cosmic history.
[Image Description: An area of deep space with thousands of galaxies in various shapes and sizes on a black background. Most are circles or ovals, with a few spirals. More distant galaxies are redder in colour and smaller, down to being mere dots, while closer galaxies are a bit larger and white or blueish. A few gold-coloured galaxies are bunched closely together in the centre. Bright stars surrounded by spikes lie in our galaxy.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Gozaliasl, A. Koekemoer, M. Franco, and the COSMOS-Web team; CC BY 4.0
Composite image of a bedrest volunteer being tilted down.
Nestled in an Alpine valley in Slovenia, a group of 24 volunteers followed a bedrest routine for two months to explore how prolonged inactivity affects the human body. Participants were not allowed to stand up and performed all daily activities with their heads lower than their feet, including eating, showering and toilet breaks.
This strict protocol tricked their bodies into responding as if they were astronauts on the International Space Station for a long-duration mission. Scientists monitored everything from brain function to immune response, collecting data on muscles, bones and fluid shifts.
The second campaign of BRAVE – short for Bed Rest with Artificial gravity and resistive Vibration Exercise – brought complexity to previous bedrest studies by adding three more layers: artificial gravity and resistive vibration exercises, all under reduced oxygen levels simulating conditions at 4,000-metre altitude. BRAVE took place at Slovenia’s Planica Nordic Centre.
As spinning encouraged blood to flow back towards the feet, participants followed a 30-minute daily exercise regime of squats, jumps, heel and toe raises. Artificial gravity has the potential to reduce many of the negative effects of weightlessness on the human body.
Each day was carefully structured: meals in bed, medical checkups, cognitive tests and biological sampling. The Planica facility has clinical research equipment that allows for comparison with other ESA bedrest studies.
The BRAVE campaign conducted a total of 13 experiments and allowed researchers to test techniques to counteract the negative impact of living in space. Many of these effects – osteoporosis, muscle loss and cardiovascular deconditioning – mirror those experienced by elderly or bedridden patients.
This research also consolidates the cooperation with Slovenia, which became the 23rd ESA Member State in January 2025.
Credits: Marjan Verc
This spiral galaxy was observed as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) programme, a large project that includes observations from several space- and ground-based telescopes of many galaxies to help researchers study all phases of the star formation cycle, from the formation of stars within dusty gas clouds to the energy released in the process that creates the intricate structures revealed by Webb’s new images.
NGC 3627 is 36 million light-years away in the constellation Leo.
Learn more about what can be seen in this vast collection of Webb images here.
[Image description: Webb’s image of NGC 3627 shows a face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which has a bright blue central dot. It is surrounded by a bar structure filled with a lighter blue haze of stars, which forms a large, angled oval toward the top. Two large distinct spiral arms appear as arcs that start at the central bar. One starts at left and stretches to the top and another starts at right and extends to the bottom.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Lee (STScI), T. Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team
Placing the Earth-observer Sentinel-1C onto its "vampire" payload launch adapter to connect the satellite to the Vega-C rocket that will launch it into a polar orbit, 19 November 2024 at Europe Spaceport's payload integration facility.
Earth-observer Sentinel-1C is set to launch on Vega-C rocket flight VV25. At 35 m tall, Vega-C weighs 210 tonnes on the launch pad and reaches orbit with three solid-propellant-powered stages before the fourth liquid-propellant stage takes over for precise placement of Sentinel-1C into its orbit.
The payload adapter connects the satellite and the rocket launching it. The VAMPIRE backronym stands for Vega Adapter for Multiple Payload Injection and Release.
Visible left are the two fairing halves that will protect Sentinel-1C from the elements on the launch pad and during launch through our atmosphere.
Carrying advanced radar technology to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth’s surface, the ambitious Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission has raised the bar for spaceborne radar.
The mission benefits numerous Copernicus services and applications such as those that relate to Arctic sea-ice monitoring, iceberg tracking, routine sea-ice mapping, glacier-velocity monitoring, surveillance of the marine environment including oil-spill monitoring and ship detection for maritime security as well as illegal fisheries monitoring.
Europe’s Vega-C rocket can launch 2300 kg into space, such as small scientific and Earth observation spacecraft. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique du vidéo du CSG–S. Martin
A Falcon 9 Crew Dragon getting readied for the launch of Crew-2 on launch pad 39A on 22 April 2021 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
French ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet is returning to the International Space Station on his second spaceflight. The mission, which is called Alpha, will see the first European to launch on a US spacecraft in over a decade. Thomas is flying on the Crew Dragon, alongside NASA astronauts Megan MacArthur and Shane Kimbrough, and Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide.
After a delay due to difficult weather the launch is now planned for 23 April 2021 05:49 EDT / 11:49 CEST.
Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja
This image shows shows part of the ice cap at Mars’ north pole in 3D when viewed using red-green or red-blue glasses. This anaglyph was derived from data obtained by the nadir and stereo channels of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on ESA’s Mars Express during spacecraft orbit 3670. It covers a part of the martian surface centred at about 244°E/85°N. North is to the upper right.
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
This spiral galaxy was observed as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) programme, a large project that includes observations from several space- and ground-based telescopes of many galaxies to help researchers study all phases of the star formation cycle, from the formation of stars within dusty gas clouds to the energy released in the process that creates the intricate structures revealed by Webb’s new images.
NGC 1300 is 69 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.
Learn more about what can be seen in this vast collection of Webb images here.
[Image description: Webb’s image of NGC 1300 shows a face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which is circular and shows a bright white point at the centre with a light yellow circle around it. The galaxy has a prominent bar connected to spiral orange arms that rotate counterclockwise. Together, they form a backward S shape.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Lee (STScI), T. Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team
ESA’s Cheops satellite – seen here at Airbus in Madrid – will measure the sizes of known exoplanets by detecting tiny fluctuations in the light of their parent stars. Due to be ready for launch at the end of this year, Cheops, or ‘CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite’ is only 1.5 m by 1.4 m by 1.5 m in size. It weighs in at about 300 kg fully fuelled – less than a large motorbike.
Small satellites as a term covers everything from this sub-tonne class of mission, down to CubeSats and picosats. Their ever-growing capabilities is under discussion at this week’s 4S Small Satellite Systems and Services Symposium in Sorrento, Italy. Organised by ESA’s Head of Optics, Luca Maresi, the symposium’s speakers include Roger Walker, who leads ESA’s Technology CubeSat efforts on sending small satellites beyond Earth orbit.
Credits: Airbus Defence and Space
The rocket that will launch NASA’s Orion spacecraft to the Moon with the European Service Module on its way to the launchpad in Florida, USA, for its first full test before the Artemis I launch later this year.
The Space Launch Systems rocket (SLS) left the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at around 23:00 CET (22:00 GMT) on 17 March on the start of its 6.5 km trip to Launchpad LC39B.
In the preceding months the Orion spacecraft with European Service Module had been placed on top of the rocket. The first Artemis mission will send Orion to the Moon and back, farther than any human-rated spacecraft has travelled before. ESA’s European Service Module is the powerhouse that fuels and propels Orion, and provides everything needed to keep astronauts alive with water, oxygen, power and temperature control.
Credits: ESA–A. Conigli
Put on a pair of 3D glasses to enjoy this anaglyph view of the Deuteronilus Cavus depression and surrounding terrain in the northern hemisphere of Mars.
The image was created from data gathered by Mars Express’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on 25 October 2024. The anaglyph creates a three-dimensional impression of the landscape when viewed with red-blue or red-green glasses.
[Image description: Grey-scale anaglyph image of the 120 km-wide Deuteronilus Cavus depression and surrounding terrain on Mars. When used with red-green/blue 3D glasses the image provides a three-dimensional view of the landscape, providing a sense of depth while viewing the crater.]
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The last time the solar wings of the European Service Module that will power the Orion spacecraft were featured, they were on a shaker table. They were exposed to launch vibrations and intense acoustic excitation at ESA’s Technical Centre in the Netherlands, to ensure they can survive the loud and shaky ride into space.
Having successfully passed these tests at ESA’s Technical Centre, the wings moved on to an Airbus’ clean room in Leiden, the Netherlands, for deployment testing. The solar wings are folded for launch but need to unfold once the Orion spacecraft is in space to start converting solar rays into electricity.
The fully deployed wings imaged here passed those tests as well, deploying in under two minutes, well within the 5 minute requirement. With the flick of a switch, thermal knives were energized, cutting through restrain cables to release the hold-downs in pairs.
ESA’s contribution to the Orion spacecraft provides power, propulsion, water, and air.
The first mission will take Orion around the Moon without astronauts and is scheduled for a 2019 launch. The solar panels will be folded inside the rocket fairing. Once released from NASA’s Space Launch System rocket they will unfold and rotate towards the Sun to start delivering power.
The solar wings are headed next to Bremen, Germany, where the wings will be integrated with the European service module. From there the service module is set to ship to the USA this summer for further tests and integration with the crew module adaptor.
Credits: ESA–M. Cowan
Official portrait of ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer wearing NASA's Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit ahead of his Cosmic Kiss mission to the International Space Station. This spacesuit is worn by astronauts during US spacewalks outside the International Space Station.
Credits: ESA/NASA
In time for its summer launch this year, Ariane 6 has arrived at the port of Pariacabo in Kourou, French Guiana – home of Europe’s Spaceport – and is ready to be assembled.
All the elements that make up the rocket are manufactured in mainland Europe and then transported by this novel ship, Canopée (canopy in French). It is the first custom-built transporter to use sails, reducing emissions and saving on fuel by up to 30%, and on this trip, it has travelled for 10 days covering over 7000 km.
The hybrid-propulsion vessel is 121 m long and has 37 m tall sails. Canopée rotates continuously between stop-offs to load each Ariane 6 stage and other parts and ship them across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe’s spaceport.
On this trip, Canopée brings the central core for Ariane 6’s first flight. Having collected the upper stage from Bremen, Germany, Canopée moved on to Le Havre, France, to load the main stage of Ariane 6.
The next-generation cargo ship has been designed for ArianeGroup to meet the complex requirements of Ariane 6 transport – the stages and engines of Ariane 6 are high-tech equipment that require delicate care during transport.
Canopée’s structure is tailored to carry large, fragile loads as well as navigate the shallow Kourou river to Pariacabo harbour. From here the various Ariane 6 components are offloaded and transported by road to the new Ariane 6 launch vehicle assembly building just a few kilometres away.
Here, the launcher stages are unpacked and installed on the assembly line for integration, and finally, liftoff.
Credits: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Arianegroup/Optique Vidéo du CSG - S. Martin
The first MetOp Second Generation A-type satellite (MetOp-SG-A1), which is also equipped with the Copernicus Sentinel-5 instrument, being transferred for fuelling at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
The first MetOp Second Generation A-type satellite (MetOp-SG-A1), which also carries the Copernicus Sentine-5 instrument, in the cleanroom at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou with a proud team. With launch for August on an Ariane 6 rocket, the satellite is currently being prepared for liftoff.
The MetOp-SG mission comprises three successive pairs of satellites to deliver data for weather forecasting and climate prediction for over 20 years. Working as a pair in polar orbit, the A-type and the B-type satellites are equipped with complementary suites of instruments to provide high-resolution measurements of temperature, precipitation, clouds, winds, and more.
The A-type satellites also carry the Copernicus Sentinel-5 spectrometer for the European Commission. This new instrument measure the distribution of atmospheric trace gases such as ozone, nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, formaldehyde, glyoxal, carbon monoxide, and methane, as well as aerosols and ultraviolet radiation.
Credits: ESA-CNES-ARIANESPACE/Optique vidéo du CSG–S. Martin
For an orbiting satellite to be used in navigation, tables must be prepared after firing with the help of special tracking telescopes. Tabulating the orbit of the navigational satellite, “a few-score observations, made from various points on the ground over a period of two or three weeks, should be enough. It is quite possible that the navigational satellite could also be used as a radar target by which long-distance self-navigating missiles would steer their course. When such a device has been built for missiles, it might also be used by airliners.” [Summarizing and Quoting from the text]
The snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps stretch more than 500 km northeast to southwest across New Zealand’s South Island, imaged here in the southern hemisphere’s winter by ESA’s Proba-V minisatellite – now into its sixth year in orbit.
Comprising 23 peaks above 3 000 m altitude, the glacier-lined Southern Alps are visited by more than half a million tourists annually. The mountains are located within a continuous tract of protected lands along the entire length of the island, made up of five national parks.
Mount Cook, otherwise known by the Maori name Aoraki, is the tallest of the Southern Alps at 3 724 m. It is visible here in the middle of the mountain chain, with the long glacial Lake Pukaki below it.
Launched on 7 May 2013, Proba-V is a miniaturised ESA satellite tasked with a full-scale mission: to map land cover and vegetation growth across the entire planet every two days.
Its main camera’s continent-spanning 2250 km swath width collects light in the blue, red, near-infrared and mid-infrared wavebands at a 300 m pixel size, down to 100 m in its central field of view.
VITO Remote Sensing in Belgium processes and then distributes Proba-V data to users worldwide. An online image gallery highlights some of the mission’s most striking images so far, including views of storms, fires and deforestation.
This 100 m spatial resolution image was acquired on 1 May 2018.
Credits: ESA/Belspo – produced by VITO