Josef Aschbacher, Director of Earth Observation Programmes at ESA, reflects on last year’s ɸ-week, and discusses progress made so far. As this year’s ɸ-week kicks off, he looks to the next steps of how Earth observation and the digital revolution can work together. He also mentions a new AI special interest group on space, and an exciting new challenge for the next ɸ-sat.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Earth from Space is back after the summer break! Copernicus Sentinel-2 takes us over a set of small towns, located around 20 km southeast of Rome, Italy and known collectively as Castelli Romani, in this week’s edition of the Earth from Space programme.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Fly Your Satellite! is an educational programme for university students, created by ESA after the launch of seven university CubeSats on the 2012 Vega maiden flight. Six teams participated in the first edition of the programme, which concluded in 2016 with the launch of three satellites, while in parallel a pilot edition was undertaken to deploy a satellite from the International Space Station. The second edition of Fly Your Satellite! is currently ongoing since 2017, and participating university teams are advancing closer towards testing and launch. The call for proposals for the third edition is now open.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
We are training astronauts to explore the lunar surface, collect samples, perform experiments and create an outpost in order to live and work on the Moon. But how will future lunar exploration differ from how Apollo astronauts explored and worked on the Moon?
Our astronaut Matthias Maurer talks of the challenging training he went through during the new episode of Space Bites.
Space Bites hosts the best talks on space exploration from the most inspiring and knowledgeable speakers from the field. Held at the technical heart of the European Space Agency in The Netherlands, the lectures illustrate the challenges of space.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
The ExoMars mission foresees Rosalind Franklin the rover and its surface platform Kazachok landing on the Red Planet in 2021. The rover will move across many types of terrain, collect samples with a 2 m-long drill and analyse them with instruments in its onboard laboratory.
This episode about ExoMars shows the integration of the locomotion system and the science payload to the rover in a specially designed, fit-for-purpose cleanroom at Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, United Kingdom.
Mars is a primary target in the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life, past or present. There are stringent planetary protection requirements in place to make sure that ExoMars does not introduce terrestrial biological contamination to the Red Planet. ESA ensures planetary protection according to the legal obligations of the United Nations Outer Space Treaty.
Microbiological contamination is strictly controlled during the assembly of the rover. The cleanroom is amongst the cleanest places on Earth, cleaner than a standard hospital operating theatre thanks to filtered air, application of rigorous cleanliness procedures and workers who remain fully shrouded within ‘bunny suits’.
The rover spent 18 months at Stevenage before departing for Airbus Toulouse, France at the end of August, for four months of environmental testing to confirm it is ready for the conditions on Mars.
More information on ExoMars: http://www.esa.int/exomars
Credits: ESA, Airbus Defence and Space UK, ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
ESA is the only space agency in the world that covers the whole range of space activities. We’re exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe. We’re monitoring space and protecting our planetary environment. We’re making space accessible and developing the technologies for the future, and we’re also using space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth.
In November 2019, European ministers in charge of space activities will gather at the Space19+ conference in Seville, Spain, to decide on ESA’s vision for the future of Europe in space. Space19+ will be an opportunity to direct Europe’s ‘next generation’ ambitions in space, and address the challenges facing not only the European space sector but also European society as a whole.
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Engineers, pilots, researchers and scientists convened in Bordeaux, France, for ESA’s 71st parabolic flight campaign. Over the course of three days they flew on a specially-fitted commercial aircraft, testing equipment and running research as the pilots put the plane through repeated parabolas, giving the passengers and their experiments brief bouts of microgravity.
ESA’s project coordinator Neil Melville introduces the experiments that flew on this campaign, from plasma to granular physics and heat pipes.
Parabolic flights are one of many platforms ESA offers for European researchers to run experiments for spaceflight. These flights are one of the few that allow the researchers to interact with their own experiments “hands-on” in a weightless environment. Send a proposal through our continuously open research announcements and you could be flying on the next campaign.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
The ExoMars mission will see Rosalind Franklin the rover and its surface platform Kazachok land on the Red Planet in 2021. From fine-grained soil to large boulders and slopes, the rover has to be able to move across many types of terrain, collect samples with a 2 m-long drill and analyse them with instruments in its onboard laboratory.
This second episode about ExoMars features the challenges of leaving the surface platform, overcoming obstacles and walking on dunes.
ESA, Roscosmos, Thales, Airbus and RUAG engineers put a full-sized model through a series of tests to fine-tune how the rover will move from its landing platform onto the martian terrain.
Rovers on Mars have previously been caught in sand, and turning the wheels dug them deeper – just like a car stuck in mud or snow. To avoid this, Rosalind the rover has a unique locomotion mode called ‘wheel walking’.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Where do we come from? Where are we going? Why are things the way they are? Space science and exploration are entering an ambitious new era, spanning the hunt for extraterrestrial planets and detecting the fundamental nature of our Universe to roving on Mars and returning to the Moon. However, we’re not simply acquiring new knowledge – we’re helping bring the benefits of these discoveries to European industry, through commercialisation in Earth orbit, integration with new space actors and cooperation on a global scale.
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
During ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst’s second mission to the International Space Station he supported over 60 European experiments and became Europe’s second ever Space Station Commander. This clip shares a few highlights from Alexander’s Horizons mission and gives a glimpse into life on the Station.
Alexander was launched to the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 6 June 2018. He travelled to the Station with NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Prokopyev in a Russian Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, spent just over six months in orbit and returned to Earth on 20 December 2018.
Watch this journey from launch to landing for a snapshot of memorable moments.
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Kourou, French Guiana, at Europe’s spaceport the EDRS-C satellite is being prepared for launch. Soon this second node of the European Data Relay system will join the EDRS-A node already in orbit, as the first dedicated EDRS satellite. EDRS has been designed to enable fast and reliable optical data transfer from low earth orbiting satellites to the ground. To achieve this the EDRS system uses state-of-the art laser link communication terminals and in combination with the longer data transmission offered EDRS, much more data can be transferred to the ground in Quasi Real Time, thus creating a real SpaceDataHighway
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
The moment to ask all your questions about space has come!
Join one of the European Space Talks happening in your country to learn how space contributes to your daily life and helps to solve some of humankind’s greatest challenges.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
C’est le moment de poser toutes vos questions sur l’espace !
Inscrivez-vous à un European Space Talk près de chez vous et découvrez l’impact de l’espace dans nos vies quotidiennes et comment il contribue à résoudre les plus grands enjeux de l’humanité.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Jetzt kannst Du alle Deine Fragen zum Thema Weltraum und Raumfahrt stellen!
Nimm an einem der Europäischen Space Talks in Deinem Land teil und erfahre, wie die Raumfahrt deinen Alltag beeinflusst und dazu beiträgt, einige der großen Fragen der Menschheit zu beantworten.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Who better than the people who spend their days thinking about space, to share their passion with the world? European space professionals have a responsibility to let people know how space activities impact their daily lives and will affect tomorrow’s world.
If you are a space professional, find out more about organising your own European Space Talk, here: https://spacetalks.net/
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Before ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano was launched to the International Space Station for his second space mission ‘Beyond’ on 20 July 2019, we asked Twitter followers what they would like to #AskLuca. In this video, he answers a few of those questions:
0:00 – Intro 0:08 – Have you been specifically trained for the visit (yet to be confirmed) of US commercial crew vehicles? 0:41 – Do you have a music playlist to listen to and a list of pieces you would like to practice on the guitar during your mission? 1:25 – What was the biggest sacrifice you made to become an astronaut? 2:04 – Have you missed the space station since your last mission? 2:10 – What is one aspect of preparation you did very differently this time compared to the first time? 2:44 – What is your favourite science-fiction quote? 2:52 – What is the biggest challenge of your Beyond mission? 3:03 – Is it harder or easier to head off to space for the second time? 3:34 – Quali sono le differenze tra preparare una prima missione e una seconda? E cosa cambia nell’addestramento per un Comandante della ISS? 4:25 – Ti capita di annoiarti nel corso del tuo addestramento? E quanto è dura svolgere il lavoro dell’astronauta? 5:15 – Ti stai preparando a puntino per la Luna?
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Foams are ubiquitous in our daily lives: they are used to produce food, detergents and plastics. Foams are inherently unstable in gravity, because the liquid between the bubbles is pulled downwards bursting the bubbles in the process. Experiments on the International Space Station have shown that foams are more stable in microgravity because they remain wet. It has even been possible to make foams from pure water.
Foam research in microgravity allows researchers to better understand the processes and calculate models in the most optimal conditions. This is leading to better production and assembly of products containing foams as well as more effective foam-suppression agents.
Many industrial applications benefit from foam research and development in space: cleaning products, cosmetics, fire-fighting and medicines are just some examples. The quality, texture, taste and shelf-life of food and beverages can be enhanced – from the supermarket to the consumers’ fridge.
“It is a game change for our business” says Cécile Gehin-Delval, from Nestlé Research Laboratories in Orbe, Switzerland.
The step to space research is closer than you might think. Get involved with spaceflight research via www.esa.int/spaceflightAO. Find out about our commercial partnerships and opportunities in human and robotic exploration via www.esa.int/explorationpartners to run your research in microgravity as well.
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 takes us over the largest lake in central Europe: Lake Balaton in Hungary, in this week’s edition of the Earth from Space programme.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Our alien friend Paxi went to visit American astronaut Anne McClain on board the International Space Station. Anne explains some of the mental challenges of being an astronaut on the ISS.
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
A European drill and sample analysis package will search for water ice and other chemicals under the lunar surface onboard the Russian-led Luna-27 mission to the South Polar region of the Moon.
Operating at temperatures of less than –100 °C and drilling over one metre down, Prospect first needs to penetrate the lunar surface. This video features a series of drilling tests carried out at the Leonardo facilities in Italy in 2019.
Prospect includes a miniature laboratory called ProSPA which will analyse the soil samples retrieved by the drill. Precise measurements will help unearth the secrets of the Moon’s history and indicate whether future explorers could use lunar resources on their missions to help set up a lunar base.
The lunar south polar region is of great interest to lunar researchers and explorers because the low angle of the Sun over the horizon leads to areas of partial or even complete shadow. These shadowed areas and permanently dark crater floors, where sunlight never reaches, are believed to hide water ice and other frozen substances that could be analysed to better understand the natural processes that formed them, and used to produce resources such as oxygen and propellant in the future.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano has arrived on the International Space Station following a six-hour flight in the Russian Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft alongside NASA astronaut Drew Morgan and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov.
The trio were launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 16:28 GMT (18:28 CEST) on Saturday 20 July and orbited Earth four times before docking to the Station’s Zvezda service module at 22:50 GMT (00:50 CEST).
This mission to the International Space Station is the second for Luca, the third for Alexander and the first for Drew. They were warmly welcomed by NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Nick Hague and current International Space Station commander Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, bringing the number of humans in orbit to six.
This clip shows highlights from preparations prior to launch, liftoff, docking and hatch opening as the crew start to settle into their new home and workplace.
Luca will live and work in orbit for the six-month duration of his Beyond mission. There, he will support over 50 European experiments and more than 200 international experiments in microgravity.
During the latter part of his mission, Expedition 61, he will take up the role of Space Station commander. He is the first Italian and third European astronaut ever appointed to this role, after ESA astronauts Alexander Gerst in 2018 and Frank De Winne in 2009.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
In the first episode of our ‘Fit for space’ training series, ESA astronauts Samantha Cristoforetti and Luca Parmitano share how crewmembers prepare for their journey to the International Space Station in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
Training for the critical moments of Soyuz spaceflight – launch, ascent, docking and landing – take place at Roscosmos’ Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre (GCTC) in Star City, Russia. Here, astronauts use sophisticated Soyuz simulators to practice procedures and respond to emergency situations.
The Soyuz simulators at GCTC are designed to act and be operated in exactly the same way as the spacecraft itself. Astronauts must demonstrate their proficiency in manually controlling the Soyuz to prepare for the unlikely event that automated and ground-based operations fail.
They also prepare for emergency events that could occur onboard the International Space Station itself.
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
The ride to the International Space Station sees astronauts launched on top of a rocket fuelled by 300 tonnes of propellant. Where on Earth do astronauts take off? When do they experience weightlessness for the first time? And how long does the trip take?
Watch in just over a minute the events from launch to docking. This video is based on a training lesson for ESA astronauts, and it features footage taken from inside the Soyuz spacecraft.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Which camera to send to the Moon? The iconic images taken with the Hasselblad 500 series captivated the world. Today, Hasselblad cameras are synonymous with the Apollo missions. We visited Gothenburg to find out how a Swedish camera made it to the Moon.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano is about to be launched to the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The six-month Beyond mission will be the Italian astronaut’s second flight to the Space Station.
He will be conducting an extensive series of scientific experiments and has multiple spacewalks planned to repair the antimatter hunter Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-02. During the second half of his expedition, Luca will become the third European commander of the Space Station.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Plans for human space exploration in the next decades are to leave Earth orbit and go to destinations such as the Moon and Mars. But what are the challenges associated with human survival in space and what kind of research is needed to address these challenges?
Life-support systems expert Lucie Poulet participated in four Mars analogue missions as a crew member and has over eight years of experience working on regenerative life-support systems with various groups such as the Micro-Ecological Life-Support System Alternative (MELiSSA) project and the German Aerospace Center, DLR, in Bremen, Germany.
Space Bites hosts the best talks on space exploration from the most inspiring and knowledgeable speakers from the field. Held at the technical heart of the European Space Agency in The Netherlands, the lectures illustrate challenges of space.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out https://www.esa.int/ to get up to speed on everything space related.
Astronauts on the Moon found themselves hopping around, rather than simply walking. Switzerland’s SpaceBok planetary exploration robot has followed their example, launching all four legs off the ground during tests at our technical heart.
SpaceBokis a quadruped robot designed and built by a Swiss student team from ETH Zurich and ZHAW Zurich, currently being tested using Automation and Robotics Laboratories (ARL) facilities at our technical centre in the Netherlands. The robot is being used to investigate the potential of ‘dynamic walking’ and jumping to get around in low gravity environments.
SpaceBok could potentially go up to 2 m high in lunar gravity, although such a height poses new challenges. Once it comes off the ground the legged robot needs to stabilise itself to come down again safely – like a mini-spacecraft.So, like a spacecraft. SpaceBok uses a reaction wheel to control its orientation
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 takes us over the Gulf of Taranto, located on the inner heel of southern Italy, in this week’s edition of the Earth from Space programme.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Hera will show us things we’ve never seen before. Astrophysicist and Queen guitarist Brian May tells the story of our mission that would be humanity’s first-ever spacecraft to visit a double asteroid.
The asteroid system – named Didymos – is typical of the thousands that pose an impact risk to our planet, and even the smaller of the two would be big enough to destroy an entire city if it were to collide with Earth.
Hera will help us to find out if it would be possible to deflect such an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. The mission will revolutionise our understanding of asteroids and how to protect ourselves from them, and therefore could be crucial for saving our planet.
First, NASA will crash its DART spacecraft into the smaller asteroid – known as Didymoon – before Hera comes in to map the resulting impact crater and measure the asteroid’s mass. Hera will carry two CubeSats on board, which will be able to fly much closer to the asteroid’s surface, carrying out crucial scientific studies, before touching down. Hera’s up-close observations will turn asteroid deflection into a well-understood planetary defence technique.
The Hera mission will be presented to our Space19+ meeting this November, where Europe’s space ministers will take a final decision on flying the mission, as part of the Agency’s broader planetary defence initiatives that aim to protect European and world citizens.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Researchers took one of the heaviest, bulkiest parts of an Earth-orbiting satellite, placed it in a plasma wind tunnel, then proceeded to melt it into vapour. Their goal was to better understand how satellites burn up during reentry, to minimise the risk of endangering anyone on the ground.
Taking place as part of our Clean Space initiative, the fiery testing occurred inside a plasma wind tunnel, reproducing reentry conditions, at the DLR German Aerospace Center’s site in Cologne.
A magnetotorquer – designed to interact magnetically with Earth’s magnetic field to shift satellite orientation – was heated to several thousands of degrees C within the hypersonic plasma.
As part of a larger effort called CleanSat, we are developing technologies and techniques to ensure future low-orbiting satellites are designed according to the concept of ‘D4D’ – design for demise – ensuring they will burn up entirely when they reenter the atmosphere.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Overview of the Heracles mission. We are leading an alliance of international space agencies to prepare a robotic mission to the Moon to retrieve samples and return them to Earth.
The video shows a launch on an Ariane 6 rocket, separation from the rocket boosters over Earth and a transfer to the Moon.
The Heracles lander will target a previously unexplored region near the lunar South Pole as an interesting area for researchers. A lander with a rover inside and ascent module on top will land there.
Monitored and controlled from the lunar Gateway, the rover will scout the terrain in preparation for the future arrival of astronauts, and collect samples.
The ascent module will take off from the surface and fly to the Gateway with the samples taken by the rover.
When the ascent module carrying the sample container arrives, the Gateway’s robotic arm will capture it and extract the sample container. The sample container will be received by the astronauts via a science airlock and pack it in NASA’s Orion spacecraft that is powered by the European Service Module.
Orion will fly to Earth with astronauts and land with the Heracles lunar samples for analysis in the best laboratories on Earth.
Other goals of the mission include testing new hardware, demonstrating technology and gaining experience in operations while strengthening international partnerships in exploration. Its development will provide an Ariane 64-based lunar cargo lander available for commercialisation by European and partners’ industry.
Heracles is an international programme to use the Gateway to the fullest and deliver samples to scientists on Earth using new technology that is more capable and lighter than previous missions.
Credits: ESA – Ducros – ATG/medialab
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
We strive for the future of Europe in space and key to this endeavour is maintaining access to space.
This objective is accomplished by supporting the development of new launch vehicles and next year will be an important year: Vega-C and Ariane 6 will fly for the first time.
Vega-C is an enhanced version of Europe’s current Vega, with increased power and capacity.
Ariane 6 is Europe’s next heavy-lift launcher which will replace Ariane 5. With Ariane 6 the approach is evolving for the assembly and production processes, and also in the sharing of responsibilities between us and Industry.
In parallel to preparing a new generation of launchers, we are also working on its first reusable spacecraft, Space Rider, that will fly on top of a Vega-C and which should be confirmed at Space19+, the Ministerial Conference in Seville in November 2019.
Already, the future of European Space transportation is clearly visible in Kourou where Vega-C and Ariane 6 are step-by-step becoming a reality.
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
This animation shows the launch of our reusable lifting body called Space Rider atop Vega-C.
On reaching low-Earth orbit, Space Rider will serve as an unmanned high-tech space laboratory operating for periods longer than two months. It offers an array of orbit altitudes and inclinations for a large variety of experiments and demonstrations in microgravity.
After each mission Space Rider will return to Earth to land on ground to return its cargo before minimal refurbishment for its next mission.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
In this video, our scientists Paul McNamara and Matteo Guainazzi explain how we could combine the observing power of two of our future missions, LISA and Athena, to study these cosmic clashes and their mysterious aftermath for the first time.
LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, will be the first space-borne observatory of gravitational waves – fluctuations in the fabric of spacetime produced by the acceleration of cosmic objects with very strong gravity fields, like pairs of merging black holes. Athena, the Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics, will be the largest X-ray observatory ever built, investigating some of the hottest and most energetic phenomena in the cosmos with unprecedented accuracy and depth. Currently in the study phase, both missions are scheduled for launch in the early 2030s.
Credits: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration (black hole image); NASA, ESA and F. Summers, STScI (Hubble Ultra Deep Field flythrough and galaxy merger); Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes Project (gravitational waves and merging black holes); NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre (spiralling supermassive black holes); AEI/Milde Science Communication/exozet (LISA orbit sequence); ESA/Hubble, NASA, M. Kornmesser
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 takes us over El Salvador, the smallest and most densely populated country in Central America, in this week’s edition of the Earth from Space programme.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
The ExoMars rover’s Analytical Laboratory Drawer (ALD) was integrated into the rover at Airbus, Stevenage, UK in May 2019. The video is shown at 18 times real speed; in reality the sequence of events took around 11.5 minutes.
The ExoMars rover, named Rosalind Franklin, will be the first of its kind to both roam the Mars surface and to study it at depth. Rosalind Franklin will drill down to two metres into the surface to sample the soil, analyse its composition and search for evidence of past – and perhaps even present – life hidden underground. A miniature laboratory inside the rover – the ALD – will analyse the samples with three different instruments, with some baked in the onboard oven to release gases for analysis, a technique used to search for traces of organic compounds.
The rover will relay its data back to Earth via the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which is already conducting its science mission from Mars orbit.
The ExoMars programme is a joint endeavour between ESA and Roscosmos.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
In this week’s edition of the Earth from Space programme from the Living Planet Symposium in Milan, we feature a Copernicus Sentinel-2 image of the Po Valley.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
One of the causalities of climate change is the diminishing ice cover, affecting our planet in a number of ways. Our satellites observe the planet’s cryosphere and provide key information to understand and respond to global thawing.
★ Subscribe: http://bit.ly/ESAsubscribe and click twice on the bell button to receive our notifications.
We are Europe’s gateway to space. Our 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. Check out http://www.esa.int/ESA to get up to speed on everything space related.
