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.
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The United States, China, and the European Space Agency collectively constituted more than 81% of government space spending in 2020.
In 2020, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and European partners including ESA launched the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite to collect the most accurate data on global sea level.
NASA and the European Space Agency signed a joint statement of intent in a virtual meeting on 2021-07-13 to cooperate on future Earth science missions and related activities focused on understanding climate change.
ESA and the European Union are collaborating on the Copernicus Earth observation program, which features a series of Sentinel satellites including Sentinel-6.
Since 2018, an ESA-funded initiative has supported SES and a consortium of partners in developing an engineering model for a QKD system that generates encryption keys from space and securely transmits them to users on Earth via laser.
A 2019 series of drop tests revealed extraction-system problems that tore parachutes and contributed to ESA’s decision in March 2020 to delay the ExoMars launch originally scheduled for July 2020.
ESA delayed the ExoMars launch from July 2020 to the next launch window in September 2022 due in part to parachute extraction-system problems.
QinetiQ has been selected by the European Space Agency to deliver and operate a new satellite that will support technological innovation, de-risking, and concept testing for public agencies and commercial enterprises in Europe.
The European Space Agency and Arianespace completed the final mission analysis review for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope on an Ariane 5 on 2021-07-01.
NASA and ESA have a formal launch readiness date of 2021-10-31 for JWST but the launch schedule suggests JWST will not launch earlier than the second half of November.
MACSAT is an ESA-supported smallsat mission led by OQ Technology that is dedicated to 0.005 kg IoT in low Earth orbit.
ESA selected the European Alliance for Deep Space Antennas (E-DSA) to supply a fourth deep space antenna for the New Norcia ground station near Perth, Australia.
OQ Technology won a competitive pan-European tender with ESA under the ARTES program to provide technical design and development of a system addressing advanced 0.005 kg network configurations over LEO, MEO, and GEO satellites.
ERA was developed for the European Space Agency by a European consortium led by Airbus Defence and Space in the Netherlands.
The European Space Agency issued study contracts on 2021-05-20 to two consortia led by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. and Telespazio to study a Moonlight satellite communications and navigation initiative.
OQ Technology won a competitive pan-European tender with ESA under the ARTES programme to provide technical design and development of a system to address advanced 0.005 kg network configurations over LEO, MEO, and GEO satellites.
The European Space Agency expects to complete the astronaut selection process by the end of 2022.
The European Space Agency plans to select four to six career astronauts to join the ESA astronaut corps.
The European Space Agency received 8,413 applications in its previous astronaut selection round in 2018.
The European Space Agency received 22,589 applications in its astronaut solicitation that closed on 2021-06-18.