Tag: ESA

Video:
00:07:42

2025 marks a landmark year for Europe’s ‘bridge between Earth and space’. The European Space Agency’s Estrack satellite tracking network turns 50.

Since its inception in 1975, Estrack – ESA’s global network of ground stations – has formed the vital communication bridge between satellites in orbit and mission control at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.

Now comprising six stations spanning six countries, Estrack has grown into a strategic asset for Europe, enabling communication with spacecraft, transmitting commands and receiving scientific data.

The network keeps an eye on satellites no matter their location: tracking them across Earth orbit, voyaging to comets or asteroids, keeping station at the scientifically important Sun-Earth Lagrange points, and deep into our Solar System. It even keeps tabs on European launchers as they soar into orbit, ensuring no rocket is ever out of reach.

This year, ESA is also expanding its deep space communication capabilities with the construction of a new 35-metre deep space antenna – the fourth of its kind. It will be joining the existing one at New Norcia station, Australia, to help meet the Agency’s fast increasing data download needs.

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Image:
This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image captures an active lava lake on the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Video:
00:03:16

ESA’s Mars Express takes us on another mesmerising flight over curving channels carved by water, islands that have resisted erosion, and a maze of hilly terrain.

Central to the tour is a 1300 km-long outflow channel called Shalbatana Vallis. It cascades down from the highland region of Xanthe Terra to the smoother lowlands of Chryse Planitia.

Billions of years ago, water surged through this channel, creating many of the features we see today.

The tour culminates in a spectacular view of a 100 km-wide impact crater, smashed out of Mars’s surface when it collided with a space rock.

Enjoy the flight, and be sure to turn up the volume for the full audio guide experience.

Processing notes:

This film was created using the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera Mars Chart (HMC30) data, an image mosaic made from single orbit observations of the mission’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The mosaic image, centred at 5°N/320°E, is combined with topography information from the digital terrain model to generate a three-dimensional landscape.

For every second of the movie, 50 separate frames are rendered following a predefined camera path in the scene. The vertical exaggeration used for the animation is three-fold. Atmospheric effects, like clouds and haze, have been added to conceal the limits of the terrain model. The haze starts building up at a distance of 250 km.

The HRSC camera on Mars Express is operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The systematic processing of the camera data took place at the DLR Institute for Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof. The working group of Planetary Science and Remote Sensing at Freie Universität Berlin used the data to create the film.

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The European Space Agency and the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) have announced they will work together on peaceful uses of space, starting with space weather monitoring and sharing space communications facilities.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed a €50 million contract with aerospace company Thales Alenia Space to begin the preliminary design phase of the Security And cryptoGrAphic (SAGA) mission. This agreement enables SAGA to continue to its preliminary design review, marking a relevant step towards establishing secure, space-based communications using quantum technologies.

Following its arrival in California a few weeks ago, the time has come for spacecraft engineers to ready the next sea-level monitoring satellite, Copernicus Sentinel-6B, for launch, which is slated for November.

The first step has been to carefully remove this precious new satellite from its storage container and to start a series of comprehensive checks.

The third day of the 76th International Astronautical Congress was again full of interactions between the European Space Agency and international partners.

Scientists digging through data collected by the Cassini spacecraft have found new complex organic molecules spewing from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. This is a clear sign that complex chemical reactions are taking place within its underground ocean. Some of these reactions could be part of chains that lead to even more complex, potentially biologically relevant molecules.

Published today in Nature Astronomy, this discovery further strengthens the case for a dedicated European Space Agency (ESA) mission to orbit and land on Enceladus.

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Our Milky Way galaxy never sits still: it rotates and wobbles. And now, data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope reveal that our galaxy also has a giant wave rippling outwards from its centre.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Australian Space Agency (ASA) will pursue new ways of working together following discussions during the 76th International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, Australia.

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has provided the first direct measurements of the chemical and physical properties of a potential moon-forming disc encircling a large exoplanet. The carbon-rich disc surrounding the world called CT Cha B, which is located 625 light years away from Earth, is a possible construction yard for moons, although no moons are detected in the Webb data. The disc offers insight into how the moons of Solar System gas giants like Jupiter might have formed.

Video:
00:14:08

Watch the one-to-one interview with Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency (ESA), extracted from Plenary 1 of the 76th International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2025). In this session, he shares his insights into ESA’s strategic vision.

All IAC 2025 videos.