ESA lays down the law

ESA and the European Centre for Space Law will soon hold a workshop all about space debris – including debris mitigation, legislation, standards and tools – from 19 to 21 March 2019

Protecting our Planet

OUT NOW: ESA's brand-new poster series explores the Agency's mission to protect our Pale Blue Dot...

Tough love

Operations image of the week: On Valentine's Day, the message is clear - loving our planet means cleaning it up, and that includes the orbital pathways on which much of our modern way of life depends

Where's my spacecraft?

Operations image of the week: How not to lose a deep-space explorer? ESA uses a 'stellar' navigation technique relying on one of the Universe's most powerful energy sources

Supermodel

Operations image of the week: Our beloved Rosetta spacecraft is spending eternity on the surface of the Solar System's most famous comet, while its trusty engineering replica is living out retirement at ESA’s operations centre

Beckoning Moon

Operations image of the week: The Moon seen rising over an antenna in the UK, soon to enter service as one of Europe's newest tracking stations to support missions to... the Moon

ESA's detection expertise

What's the difference between monitoring asteroids in space and debris in orbit? As part of ESA's Space Safety & Security activities, the Agency brings together experts in natural and artificial object detection

Watch the replay!

Watch the plenary and opening discussion from ESA's first-ever joint asteroid and debris detection conference, 'Exploiting Synergies', held on 22 January

The one that got away

Operations image of the week: High above the majestic 'Dirdle Door' rock formation in Dorset, comet 46P/Wirtanen hurries by – an alien rock formation once destined to be visited by ESA's Rosetta mission

Cool running

Operations image of the week: New cryogenically cooled hardware promises to improve data return from ESA's current and future deep-space missions

Latest News

ESA helps business fly in space10 March 2019

ESA helps business fly in space10 March 2019 New ‘cubesat’ technology and falling launch costs mean that businesses, universities and other organisations are increasingly able to launch their own small satellites. Now ESA is offering facilities and know-how to help them fly.

ESA plans mission to smallest asteroid ever visited04 February 2019

ESA plans mission to smallest asteroid ever visited04 February 2019 ESA’s planet-defending Hera mission will set a new record in space. The asteroid investigator will not only be the first spacecraft to explore a binary asteroid system – the Didymos pair – but the smaller of these two worldlets, comparable in size to...

Hundreds of impacts crater ESA’s Columbus science laboratory23 January 2019

Hundreds of impacts crater ESA’s Columbus science laboratory23 January 2019 On 6 September 2018, the 17-metre arm attached to humankind’s most distant outpost began to move. Its instructions were to survey the spaceship’s European science laboratory for signs of impact damage from marauding bits of space rock or space debris.

Join the #AuroraHunters17 January 2019

Join the #AuroraHunters17 January 2019 It’s difficult to comprehend the size and sheer power of our Sun, a churning ball of hot gas 4.6 billion years old and 1.3 million times larger than Earth, which emits solar wind — the constant stream of electrons, protons and atomic particles — and r...

Space in Europe: ESA and DLR agree on mission control cooperation19 December 2018

Space in Europe: ESA and DLR agree on mission control cooperation19 December 2018 ESA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have made an agreement to pool their expertise in space operations. The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt and the German Space Operations Centre (GSOC) in Obepfaffenhofen near Munich have a...