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 topicThis week, ESA experts are joining colleagues from across the spaceflight community for the biennial SpaceOps technical conference in Marseilles, France, focusing on the craft of mission control.
Engineers, scientists and managers from space agencies, academic and research institutions and industry around the world are sharing the latest developments, newest techniques and cutting-edge technologies from the discipline of spacecraft operations, as well as conducting technical interchanges on all aspects of spacecraft operations.
ESA participants are expected to present 55 technical papers at this year's SpaceOps, while many more will be presented by engineers and other industrial experts who work on site at ESA locations.
This image highlights a new dashboard on display at SpaceOps that shows the realtime status of ESA ground stations and the satellites with which they are in contact.
As 'the' European space agency, ESA helps organise SpaceOps events and is one of the world's leading technical agencies supporting the critical yet often unseen work to ensure intercompatibility and technical standards for spacecraft operations. This ensures, for instance, that a spacecraft flown by a partner agency can communicate and download science data via ESA's ground station network, and vice versa, reducing risk, boosting return on investment and optimising expensive resources for all.
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ESOC - where missions come alive