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.
ESA received the first third of the 1,500,000,000 EUR funding at its Space19+ ministerial meeting in November.
The cached Mars samples are planned to be returned by a pair of missions, an orbiter and a lander, projected to launch in 2026 in a cooperative effort between NASA and the European Space Agency.
An ESA-led mission launching later in 2026 will carry a NASA-supplied payload to capture the sample canister and secure it for return to Earth.
NASA will lead the first follow-on Mars sample-return mission, a lander scheduled for launch in mid-2026 that will deploy an ESA-built fetch rover to collect cached sample tubes.
The ESA-led orbiter will use electric propulsion to depart Mars orbit with the sample container and return it to Earth with a planned landing in Utah in 2031.
NASA announced in 2017 it would pursue a lean architecture for Mars sample return developed in cooperation with the European Space Agency.
The European Space Agency’s ESTRACK facilities provided support for the Tianwen-1 launch.
The European Space Agency’s ESTRACK facilities will provide tracking support for Tianwen-1.
A full go-ahead decision for the six future Copernicus missions is not expected until the second half of 2021 when ESA and the European Union decide how to co-finance the program.
The 2.55-billion-euro ESA funding is sufficient for Airbus, Thales Alenia Space, and OHB to start building the Copernicus satellites.
The European Space Agency selected manufacturers for six future Copernicus missions funded with 2,550,000,000 EUR from the agency.
The European Space Agency’s Estrack ground stations will provide support during the early launch phase of Tianwen-1.
NASA has discussed the JWST delay with the European Space Agency, and the European Space Agency will launch JWST on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana.
ClearSpace selected 20 partners for the European Space Agency program to build its debris removal spacecraft.
The German space agency DLR, the European Space Agency, and Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy are supporting a microlauncher competition that aims to provide 25,000,000 EUR to German startups developing vehicles for commercial launch services.
The European Space Agency awarded a mission study contract for the Twin ANthropogenic Greenhouse Gas Observers (TANGO) mission to an ISISpace-led consortium.
ArianeGroup, a joint venture of Airbus and Safran, is the prime contractor building Ariane 6 for the European Space Agency.
The European Space Agency confirmed on 2020-07-09 that the Ariane 6 rocket will not launch before the second half of 2021, representing a delay of at least six months.
Copernicus is the largest provider of Earth observation data worldwide, with the European Commission leading the programme and ESA responsible for developing, building and launching the dedicated satellites.
The €2.55 billion package is co-funded by the European Union and ESA Member States and relies on future funding from the EU Multiannual Financial Framework.