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
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Hardware-in-the-loop images captured by a camera mounted on a robotic arm at the TRON facility at the Space Rendezvous Laboratory (SLAB) of a model satellite on another robotic arm. Specifically, this facility is constructed to mimic realistic illumination conditions by use of lightboxes with diffuser plates for albedo simulation and a sunlamp to simulate direct high-intensity homogeneous illumination from the Sun. This setup allows for interesting visual features like stray lights, shadowing, reflections and extreme exposures on finest level of detail which would be in general difficult to obtain by conventional computer graphics.