The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
The scientific airlock of ESA's Spacelab being prepared for vibration testing on the 14-tonne shaker at the ESTEC Test Centre in May 1981. Spacelab was a reusable orbital laboratory that turned NASA's Space Shuttle from a space truck into a space-based research platform. Spacelab flew in the cargo bay of NASA's Space Shuttle a total of 22 times, launched for the first time on STS-9 aboard the Columbia Shuttle on 28 November 1983.
Its airlock was mounted on top of the Spacelab module, allowing experiments to be placed simply and safely in the vacuum of space and then retrieved again. It was manufactured by Fokker in the Netherlands (now Dutch Space). Spacelab's prime contractor was ERNO in Germany (now Astrium).
Spacelab was ESA's largest cooperative programme with NASA at the time, and historically significant as the ancestor of Europe's subsequent human spaceflight modules: Columbus on the International Space Station, the Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules and the ATV spacecraft.