Space News & Blog Articles

Image: Where space weather starts

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They say it takes a village to raise a child. To launch a rocket, we have the combined expertise and passion of Space Team Europe. Aline Decadi is one of many making the first Ariane 6 launch possible and has been interviewed as part of a series highlighting some of the people that make up this dream team.

Europe’s newest rocket soon launches, taking with it many space missions each with a unique objective, destination and team at home, cheering them on. Whether launching new satellites to look back and study Earth, peer out to deep space or test important new technologies in orbit, Ariane 6’s first flight will showcase the versatility and flexibility of this impressive, heavy-lift launcher. Read on for all about 3Cat-4, then see who else is flying first.

Teams at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, are currently engaged in intensive preparations for the critical ‘Launch and Early Orbit’ phase of the agency's EarthCARE satellite.

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As we approach the launch of ESA’s EarthCARE mission, we caught up with some of the scientists, engineers and experts behind the mission.

Week in images: 29 April - 03 May 2024

Image: This image may resemble the surface of Mars, but it was actually captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, revealing the stunning terrain of northwest Namibia.

ESA is committed to almost halve its greenhouse gas emissions linked to energy consumption by 2025 compared to 2019 levels. But how can ESA keep accelerating the use of space for the sustainable development of society while reducing its emissions?

A few weeks ago, a team of engineers carefully extracted ESA's EarthCARE satellite from its protective transport container, initiating a meticulous process of inspection, testing and preparation for its liftoff later this month from the Vandenberg launch site in California.

Europe’s newest rocket soon launches, taking with it many space missions each with a unique objective, destination and team at home, cheering them on. Whether launching new satellites to look back and study Earth, peer out to deep space or test important new technologies in orbit, Ariane 6’s first flight will showcase the versatility and flexibility of this impressive, heavy-lift launcher. Read on for all about EXOpod Nova, then see who else is flying first.

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Last week, Ariane 6’s central core – the main body of the rocket – was stood tall at the launch zone and connected to its two solid-fuel boosters. This exciting moment means only one thing: it’s the start of the first launch campaign.

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ESA's newly graduated astronauts reach the end of one year of rigorous basic astronaut training. Discover the journey of Sophie Adenot, Rosemary Coogan, Pablo Álvarez Fernández, Raphaël Liégeois, Marco Sieber, and Australian Space Agency astronaut candidate Katherine Bennell-Pegg. Selected in November 2022, the group began their training in April 2023.

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This otherworldly, ever-changing landscape is what the Sun looks like up close. ESA's Solar Orbiter filmed the transition from the Sun's lower atmosphere to the much hotter outer corona. The hair-like structures are made of charged gas (plasma), following magnetic field lines emerging from the Sun's interior.

Exciting news for young space fans! PaniniPedia Space, the most complete and up-to-date sticker reference album about space, launches in France on 1 May 2024. Created by Panini in collaboration with ESA, PaniniPedia Space takes readers on a journey of discovery through our Solar System and beyond.

ESA ensures a ride into space for its Smile mission, with Arianespace signing up to launch the spacecraft on a Vega-C rocket

The European Galileo navigation system has two more satellites in orbit following their launch in the early morning of Sunday, 28 April, at 01:34 BST/02:34 CEST. With 30 satellites now in orbit, Galileo is expanding its constellation, increasing the reliability, robustness and, ultimately, the precision, benefiting billions of users worldwide.

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The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. The observations show a part of the iconic nebula in a whole new light, capturing its complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution.

The first images captured by the innovative mission were presented at the 7th workshop of the Einstein Probe consortium in Beijing. They illustrate the satellite’s full potential and show that its novel optics, which mimic a lobster’s eyes, are ready to monitor the X-ray sky. The space X-ray telescope zoomed in on a few well-known celestial objects to give us a hint of what the mission is capable of.

Week in images: 22-26 April 2024

Image: The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over part of the Seychelles, an island republic in the western Indian Ocean.