Space News & Blog Articles

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical portrait of a distant world’s skies. While Webb and other space telescopes, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, have previously revealed isolated ingredients of this heated planet’s atmosphere, the new readings provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clouds. The latest data also give a hint of how these clouds might look up close: broken up rather than as a single, uniform blanket over the planet.

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Watch the replay of the press conference that brings the Council Meeting at Ministerial Level in Paris (CM22) to a close. ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher, as well as the hosting minister and the CM22 chair, present the outcome of this high-level meeting that takes place on 22 and 23 November. ESA’s plans for the next three years reflect the needs to raise Europe up another level in space activities, and to ensure that space continues to serve European citizens.

The European Space Agency has chosen 17 new astronaut candidates from more than 22 500 applicants from across its Member States. In this new 2022 class of ESA astronauts are five career astronauts, 11 members of an astronaut reserve and one astronaut with a disability. 

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ESA’s new class of astronauts is announced on Wednesday, 23 November 2022 at the Grand Palais Éphémère (GPE) in Paris. The new class includes career astronauts, reserve astronauts as well as astronauts with a physical disability for a feasibility project.

Europe will strengthen its autonomy, leadership and sustainability in space, following today’s decision to increase ESA’s budget by 17% compared to the last Ministerial meeting in 2019.

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The Orion spacecraft with European Service Module (left), Earth (middle) and the Moon (right) are captured in this ‘family portrait’ by Orion’s solar array camera during the spacecraft’s closet approach to the lunar surface.

Join us live as ESA unveils the names and faces of the new class of European astronauts. ESA WebTV will broadcast the event at 14:20 CET (13:20 GMT) on Wednesday, 23 November 2022.

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It is time for critical decisions about space in Europe. For two days on 22 and 23 November, ESA Member States, Associate States and Cooperating States observers are gathering in Paris to discuss how to strengthen Europe’s space sector for the benefit of all - including climate change monitoring and mitigation, secure communications under European control and rapid and resilient crisis response.

ESA and 22 other European space actors have come together to sign a “Statement for a Responsible Space Sector”. Space exploration has allowed us to look back on our planet in a way that no human could imagine before, revealing a fragile world with limited resources. As today’s statement explains, the responsibility to take care of our planet extends to and depends on, our actions in space. 

ESA's Orion blog

The ESA Council at Ministerial level (CM22) is taking place in Paris, France, on 22 and 23 November. ESA’s Member States, Associated States and Cooperating States will be invited to together strengthen Europe’s space ambitions and ensure that space continues to serve European citizens. Follow our live coverage of CM22 via ESA WebTV.

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Josef Aschbacher, ESA Director General, explains what is on the table for ESA at CM22, ESA’s Council at Ministerial level taking place on 22 and 23 November 2022, a crucial milestone as Europe sets out its ambitions and plans for space activities in the coming years and decades.

Image: Hall of mirrors for Proba-3 laser testing

Week in images: 14-18 November 2022

ESA’s Optical Ground Station, perched high on the slopes of Tenerife’s Mount Teide volcano, has now been peering skyward for a quarter of a century. Originally designed for laser-based communications with satellites, it is today additionally employed for tracking space debris and near-Earth asteroids as well as supporting world-class science: this year’s Physics Nobel Prize winner used the station for a quantum teleportation experiment that extended to the neighboring island of La Palma.

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Short animation featuring key moments of the Mars Sample Return campaign: from landing on Mars and securing the sample tubes to launching them off the surface and ferrying them back to Earth.

Shipping is the most energy efficient form of transport, and more than 80% of goods traded globally are carried via the oceans, with a doubling in volume during the last quarter of a century. Recognising the global need for seamless maritime navigation, ESA’s Navigation Innovation and Support Programme, NAVISP – inventing the future of navigation with more than 200 R&D projects initiated to date – is therefore focused not only on the land but also the sea.

Astronomy is driven by big questions, and they don’t come much bigger than wondering how the first stars and galaxies began to form – eventually giving rise to our own existence.

World leaders, policymakers and delegates from nearly 200 countries have convened in Sharm El-Sheikh over the past two weeks at the COP27 UN Climate Summit. Today we take a closer look at the Egyptian city through the eyes of Copernicus Sentinel-2.

ESA’s Investor Network continues to grow, with Einstein Industries Ventures as its latest member via the signature of a collaboration agreement.