Space News & Blog Articles

ESA’s ExoMars and Mars Express missions have spotted water frost for the first time near Mars’s equator, a part of the planet where it was thought impossible for frost to exist.

PLAYMOBIL's little robot space explorer ROBert was reunited with ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer and ESA Kids mascot Paxi as they teamed up to meet young space fans at ESA's Space Days. Children had an absolute blast at ESA's Space Days, held at the PLAYMOBIL FunPark in Zirndorf, Germany from 30 May to 2 June 2024.

Image: ESA and Vast memorandum signature at ILA

Week in images: 03-06 June 2024

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SENER is testing the docking capabilities of the SIROM system by launching the MANTIS floating platform into an equally free-floating REACSA at ESA's Orbital Robotics Laboratory. This free-floating tests simulate the dynamics of rigid body contact and present an opportunity to gather valuable insights into the performance of SIROM in approximately 200 docking scenarios.

Image: Ahead of World Ocean Day, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the west of Grand Bahama Island, in the Bahamas.

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The 2024 edition of the Berlin International Airshow (ILA), Germany's largest aerospace trade show, opened its doors on 5 June. ESA is taking part with an exhibition in the Space Pavilion alongside the German Space Agency (DLR) and the German Aerospace Industries Association (BDLI).

More than 40 companies, research centres and international organisations signed the Zero Debris Charter at the Berlin International Airshow (ILA) today, confirming their dedication to the long-term sustainability of human activities in space.

Following months of meticulous testing to ensure that it will deliver first-class data on air quality around the world, the new Copernicus Sentinel-5 instrument has been delivered to Airbus in France ready to be installed on the first MetOp Second Generation weather satellite.

Our galaxy has collided with many others in its lifetime. ESA’s Gaia space telescope now reveals that the most recent of these crashes took place billions of years later than we thought.

Over 200 dedicated professionals from ESA, EUSPA and European industry across four Galileo centres and seven external entities have seamlessly upgraded Galileo’s massive ground segment. In a remarkable feat of coordination and precision involving the deployment of 400 items, and after five months of rehearsals, Galileo’s ground segment, the largest in Europe, has transitioned seamlessly to System Build 2.0.

The first ESA instrument to land on the Moon has detected the presence of negative ions on the lunar surface produced through interactions with the solar wind.

ESA’s EarthCARE mission has completed its important ‘Launch and Early Orbit Phase’ and is ready to begin the commissioning of its four scientific instruments. The data they gather will improve our understanding of the role that clouds and aerosols play in Earth’s radiation balance and benefit both climate modelling and weather forecasting.

ESA’s experimental OPS-SAT CubeSat mission came to an end during the night of 22—23 May 2024 (CEST).