Novice

The Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) mission’s second Imager satellite has delivered its first images, showing weather patterns over Europe and Africa.

The European Space Agency’s Hera mission for planetary defence has acquired its first close-up of the Didymos binary asteroid system. NASA’s DART spacecraft impacted the smaller Dimorphos asteroid on 26 September 2022 – but this image gives a novel view of its adjacent parent asteroid.

New evidence from gas seeping above volcanic rifts suggests Mars is not geologically dead deep inside, but merely sleeping.

Despite it being a complex operation, ERMIS-3, an 8U CubeSat developed by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, has established a link with an optical ground station marking an important step in validating optical communications on small satellites. The demonstration, supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) and achieved using optical terminals developed by Lithuanian company Astrolight, happened only weeks after the satellite’s commissioning.

The NASA/ESA Hubble and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescopes recently stared at an eerie star-forming scene within the Carina Nebula, a massive gas and dust cloud located approximately 7500 light-years away from Earth. The two telescopes offer complementary views of the shadowy form, nicknamed the Cat’s Head Nebula, which reflects the 'magical' process of star formation. Hubble’s visible-light view shows the cat as a dark, elongated dust pillar and hints of young forming stars, while Webb’s infrared-light imagery unveils many stars and other hidden details.

The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft for planetary defence has resolved its two target asteroids separately for the very first time, revealing the binary nature of the Didymos system, currently some 197 million km away from Earth.

ESA Member States advanced key strategic priorities for Europe’s space ambitions, with discussions spanning space exploration, ESA-EU relations and preparations for upcoming ministerial meetings.

The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope has discovered its first previously unknown comet, in images taken between 16 and 24 September 2026.

The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is set to launch into space on a H3 rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center at 04:41 JST on 20 October 2026 (20:41 BST / 21:41 CEST on 19 October 2026). MMX will be the first mission to collect a sample from Mars’s moon Phobos and bring it back to Earth. MMX is led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the French space agency (CNES), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft has flown through an S-shaped kink known as a ‘switchback’ in the solar wind’s magnetic field. By fingerprinting the elusive particles within the switchback, Solar Orbiter has traced its origin back to the Sun’s surface and revealed more about solar magnetism – the unruly instigator of dangerous solar storms.

Scientists using the European Space Agency's Mars Express, in combination with a state-of-the-art meteorological model of the Red Planet, have found that there may be some very exotic physics behind Mars’s most curious cloud.

ESA’s Themis reusable rocket stage demonstrator successfully completed its second ‘wet dress rehearsal’ at Esrange Space Center in Sweden on 29 September, testing the vehicle and ground procedures under representative cryogenic conditions.

On 23 September, the European-Chinese Smile mission was declared ready to start revealing how Earth responds to the wind of charged particles from the Sun. This follows a busy in-space commissioning period since the spacecraft launched on 19 May and reached its target orbit for science operations on 20 June.

The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) skimmed the very outer edge of Earth’s atmosphere on 28 September, using the gravity of our home planet to alter its route to Jupiter using very little fuel.

The European Space Agency’s and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Ramses planetary defence spacecraft has been turned on for the first time by its prime contractor – marking a major milestone in its time-critical development schedule.

Currently speeding through deep space at 12 km/s relative to Earth, ESA’s Hera spacecraft is due to reach its target Dimorphos asteroid this November. But if an astronaut were magically teleported onto the small-car-sized Hera upon arrival, what would they be seeing, and what would it feel like to walk on the asteroid’s surface?

RFA One is an orbital vehicle with three stages launching from its SaxaVord launch pad in the UK. At about 30 m tall and 2.15 m in diameter, the rocket, ...

The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed a contract with ClearSpace to advance the design and maturation of a spacecraft aimed at extending the operational life of satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO). Signed on 22 September, the contract marks the next phase of the Phoenix Partnership Project, which aims to lay the foundations for a recurring commercial in-orbit servicing solution in Europe.

The Call sets out a shared vision for strengthening Europe's role in human and robotic space exploration and provides political guidance for preparations ahead of the Intermediate Ministerial Meeting in Rome on 15 December.