Agence spatiale européenne
The European Space Agency (ESA) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to space exploration, with 22 member states. Founded in 1975, ESA shapes Europe's space capabilities, ensuring investments in space deliver benefits to European citizens, working across the entire space sector. ESA develops and operates Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications, and astronomy satellites and sends probes to explore the solar system, partnering with agencies like NASA, JAXA and commercial partners like Airbus. Key programs include the development of launch vehicles like Ariane and Vega, the Galileo satellite navigation system, and missions like Rosetta and BepiColombo.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
Daniel Neuenschwander, director of human and robotic exploration at ESA, expects ESA to seek in the range of a couple hundred million euros for the LEO Cargo Return Service program at the 2025 ministerial.
The European Space Agency released an invitation to tender on 2023-12-20 for its LEO Cargo Return Service program.
ESA aims to award the initial 75 million-euro contracts by the next Space Summit meeting scheduled for late May in Brussels.
ESA expects to select up to three companies for initial contracts with a combined value of 75,000,000 EUR to begin design work on commercial cargo vehicles.
ESA’s long-term goal for the LEO Cargo Return Service program is to have commercial cargo vehicles in service to the International Space Station by 2028.
ESA has set a target of launching two demonstration flights to the International Space Station by the end of 2028 by two different providers.
A second phase covering vehicle development and execution of the demonstration missions will be funded at ESA’s next ministerial meeting in late 2025.
TNO established laser communication experiments with optical ground stations in The Hague and Tenerife (ESA ESOC’s IZN-1).
Belgium pledged 946,000,000 EUR to the European Space Agency over three years at the 2022 ministerial meeting.
Raphaël Liégeois is a Belgian astronaut in the European Space Agency who was selected in ESA’s 2022 astronaut class.
On 18 January a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center carrying a group of European astronauts that included the first person from Turkey and three astronauts from the European Space Agency.
The UK SBAS trial is funded by the Department for Transport via the European Space Agency’s NAVISP program.
The UK SBAS project is funded by the United Kingdom Department for Transport via the European Space Agency’s NAVISP programme.
Marcus Wandt was selected as a reserve astronaut by the European Space Agency in November 2022 and is the first person from that reserve class to go to space.
The European Space Agency, working with the Swedish space agency, arranged the flight of Marcus Wandt.
Voyager Space and Airbus plan to establish a European affiliated joint venture to serve the European Space Agency and other European entities.
Starlab is intended to win customers from both NASA and European customers such as the European Space Agency.
Starlab Space collaborates with the European Space Agency.
Airbus and Voyager signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Space Agency in November to study how Starlab could serve ESA’s needs after the retirement of the International Space Station.
Starlab Space is collaborating with the European Space Agency.