ESA Top News

With 26 satellites in orbit and more than two billion receivers in use, Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system has made a massive impact. But our continent has another satnav system that has been providing safety-of-life services for ten years now – chances are that you’ve benefited from it without noticing.

Fluctuations in the carbon-rich biomass held within the world’s forests can contribute to, or slow, climate change. A series of new maps of above ground biomass, generated using space observations, is set to help our understanding of global carbon cycling and support forest management, emissions reduction and sustainable development policy goals.

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will serve as commander of the International Space Station towards the end of his second mission, called Alpha, currently slated to begin on 22 April this year. The announcement was made during today’s  press briefing.

Thomas will be the fourth European to hold the post of commander, after ESA astronauts Frank De Winne, Alexander Gerst and Luca Parmitano. During the briefing, Thomas remarked how three back-to-back European commanders underscores the growing role of Europe in space exploration and is a testament to the hard work of ESA colleagues.

‘I am unbelievably humbled and honoured’, said Thomas.  

Thomas will be the first ESA astronaut to fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon launching on a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, USA. He will accompany NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.

During his six-month Alpha mission, Thomas will continue the programme of research that often spans multiple missions and a wide range of scientific disciplines spanning materials science and radiation to educational activities.

The end of Thomas six-month stay on board will overlap with the start of German ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer’s first mission to the Space Station, called Cosmic Kiss, which will be followed by Samantha Cristoforetti’s second tenure in space, marking three back-to-back missions for ESA astronauts.

Follow Thomas Pesquet and his Alpha mission via thomaspesquet.esa.int. 

Watch the replay of the virtual press event in which ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet talks about his upcoming ‘Alpha’ mission to the International Space Station.

Set to launch on 22 April, Thomas will be the first ESA astronaut to fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon being launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, USA. In this event we will also hear from ESA ISS Utilisation Planning Team Leader Kirsten MacDonell, and Head of the ESA Human and Robotic Exploration Strategy & Coordination Group Didier Schmitt.

The March Council edition of ESA Impact is online

In a series of exciting video stories featuring the Playmobil toy system, the ever-knowledgeable robot host ROBert is assisted by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano to explain how you can become an astronaut and what it’s like to live in space.

In early 2020, data from satellites were used to show a decline in air pollution coinciding with nationwide lockdowns put in place to stop the spread of COVID-19. One year later, as lockdown restrictions loosen in some countries and regular activity resumes, nitrogen dioxide levels are bouncing back to pre-COVID levels.

This is ESA now also available in Irish and Russian!

French ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will soon begin his second mission to the International Space Station. Called Alpha, the mission will begin with the second operational flight of the SpaceX Crew Dragon, launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA. Thomas will be the first ESA astronaut to fly in this spacecraft, which will remain docked to the Space Station for around six months before returning the crew to Earth.

This A&B Roll gives an overview of Thomas Pesquet’s Alpha mission with soundbites in English and French.

The Strait of Gibraltar is featured in this false-colour image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.

35 years since Giotto met Halley

Despite ESA’s GOCE mission ending over seven years ago, scientists continue to use this remarkable satellite’s gravity data to delve deep and unearth secrets about our planet. Recent research shows how scientists have combined GOCE data with measurements taken at the surface to generate a new model of Earth’s crust and upper mantle. This is the first time such a model has been created this way – and it is shedding new light on processes of plate tectonics, which, in turn, are related to phenomena such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

An orange pouch and a yellow cable are paving the way for missions to the Moon. By monitoring space radiation and enabling faster communications, the Dosis-3D experiment and the Columbus Ka-band or ColKa terminal, respectively, are providing the insights needed to enable safer missions father out in space.

Orange Dosis-3D pouches are everywhere in the Columbus laboratory on the International Space Station. A series of active and passive dosimeters, they measure space radiation inside the module as well as how it penetrates the Space Station’s walls.

Radiation levels in space are up to 15 times higher than on Earth. As soon as humans leave the protective shield that is Earth’s atmosphere, space radiation becomes a serious concern.

The Columbus module is monitored by 11 passive dosimeters. The dosimeters are about the size of a pack of playing cards and attach to the walls of Columbus with Velcro. The detectors record how much radiation has been absorbed in total during the period they are in space.

This experiment has been monitoring radiation levels for a number of years and after each six-month crew rotation, the detectors are replaced to record changes in radiation.

In addition to the passive detectors, Dosis-3D uses active dosimeters that measure fluctuations in radiation levels over time. Data from all Station partners is shared to create as complete a picture of space radiation as possible.

Dosimeters will also be flown on the Gateway, the next human habitat to be built in the vicinity of the Moon, to generate a more accurate assessment of radiation in lunar orbit.

Meanwhile, the ColKa communications terminal visible in this image, will connect the Columbus module to the European Data Relay System satellites in geostationary orbit that transfer data via European ground stations. ColKa was installed during a recent spacewalk and began commissioning this week. It will enable faster uplink and downlink speeds between the European segment of the Space Station and European researchers on the ground.

The know-how gained from designing, building and running ColKa could potentially be used in exploring farther from Earth in the Gateway around the Moon. ESA will supply the ESPRIT module for communications, scientific experiments, and refuelling for the international lunar outpost.

These ambitious plans require reliable navigation and telecommunication capabilities to succeed. Building these independently would be costly, complex and inefficient.

If this work were outsourced to a consortium of space companies that could put a constellation of satellites around the Moon, each individual mission would become more cost-efficient.

As part of an initiative called Moonlight, ESA is now conducting deep analyses of the planned lunar missions and further developing possible solutions, both technical and business-related, to provide telecommunications and navigation services for the Moon.

For the first time, an international team of scientists has used magnetic data from ESA’s Swarm satellite mission together with aeromagnetic data to help reveal the mysteries of the geology hidden beneath Antarctica’s kilometres-thick ice sheets, and link Antarctica better to its former neighbours.

When spring arrives in southern Mars, a cloud of water ice emerges near the 20-kilometre-tall Arsia Mons volcano, rapidly stretching out for many hundreds of kilometres before fading away in mere hours. A detailed long-term study now reveals the secrets of this elongated cloud, using exciting new observations from the ‘Mars Webcam’ on ESA’s Mars Express.

With the need for satellite data to be received more frequently for faster weather forecasting updates in the Arctic, ESA has signed a contract with OHB Sweden to a build prototype satellite for the Arctic Weather Satellite mission.