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During Artemis I the European Service Module (ESM) surpassed expectations. Now, as we set our sights on Artemis II, the European Service Module is ready to once again serve as Orion’s primary power and propulsion component and keep the spacecraft at the right temperature and on course. And this time, with real astronauts on board.
Following on from the launch of the first Meteosat Third Generation weather satellite, MTG-I1, last December, the focus is now on getting its partner satellite, MTG-S1, ready for liftoff next year – and a significant milestone has been reached. The satellite has been equipped with its main instrument, the Infrared Sounder, hence the satellite’s name, and also the Copernicus Sentinel-4 instrument, an ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared light spectrometer, or UVN for short.
A new stamp for the Huginn mission has been released, taking inspiration from the mission’s Nordic name, Huginn, it presents a colourful design with a deep history.
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The Artemis II astronauts, set to launch on a trip around the Moon next year, stand in front of the Orion spacecraft’s European Service Module-2 (ESM-2) that will provide everything they need to thrive on their voyage to Earth’s natural satellite.
The smallest radar to fly in space has been delivered to ESA for integration aboard the miniature Juventas CubeSat, part of ESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence. The radar will perform the first radar imaging of an asteroid, peering deep beneath the surface of Dimorphos – the Great Pyramid-sized body whose orbit was shifted last year by the impact of NASA’s DART spacecraft.
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ESA’s Euclid mission will create a 3D-map of the Universe that scientists will use to measure the properties of dark energy and dark matter and uncover the nature of these mysterious components. The map will contain a vast amount of data, it will cover more than a third of the sky and its third dimension will represent time spanning 10 billion years of cosmic history.
Image: With Portugal in the grip of a heatwave, a wildfire broke out on 5 August south of Odemira in the Alentejo region in southern Portugal. This image, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission, shows the fire on 7 August.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, July 2023 is likely to have been the hottest month on record. While much of Europe, North America and Asia suffered the immediate consequences of these brutal temperatures, extreme events are also hitting hard far away in the icy reaches of Antarctica. In a paper published today, scientists highlight Antarctica’s vulnerability to extremes and the role that satellites play in monitoring this remote region.
Save the date: this year’s annual ESA Open Day in the Netherlands will take place on Sunday 8 October, at the Agency’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk. Registration to attend will be opened later this summer; keep an eye on this webpage and social media for further details.
Registration is now open for this year’s annual ESA Open Day in the Netherlands for people with a disability, which will take place on Saturday 7 October, at the Agency’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk.
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In July 2023 local time, the last Ariane 5 blasted off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Relive the moment from up close in this 360° video showing the liftoff and Ariane 5 soaring to orbit.
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The 117th and final launch of Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket capped a series which began in 1996. Commercial, institutional and scientific payloads included such iconic missions as Rosetta, the James Webb Space Telescope and Juice. Seen here is the launch campaign for VA261 on 5 July 2023, to close the Ariane 5 book; onboard were German aerospace agency DLR’s Heinrich Hertz experimental communications satellite and French communications satellite Syracuse 4b.
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