Women and girls in science: the team helping to take us to Mars 

ESA celebrates the International Day of Women and Girls in Science  this 11 February, and highlights the story of the first all-female Systems Team in ESA’s Concurrent Design Facility, the place where ideas for new space missions, systems and structures take definite shape. Meet the team behind the Mars Transit Habitat study that will be Read More

Juice on final stretch for launch to Jupiter

ESA’s mission to explore Jupiter and its largest moons has safely arrived at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, where final preparations for its April launch are now underway. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer – better known as Juice – arrived on 8 February at Félix Eboué airport in Cayenne by a special Antonov Airlines An-124 Read More

Galileo signal component tested for Internet of Things use

One of Europe's Galileo satellites has been reconfigured to emit a new signal component optimised to serve low-end receiver devices and Internet of Things applications.  Galileo satellite in orbit The metre-level accuracy provided by Galileo’s Open Service makes it the world’s most accurate generally-available service, out-performing other global navigation systems such as GPS and providing Read More

The number of drone operations managed by ENAIRE rose by 70% in 2022

• ENAIRE manages drone flight requests to guarantee the operational safety of manned aircraft • In 2022, ENAIRE managed 10,325 flight requests, which was 70% more requests than in 2021 • Catalonia was the autonomous community with the most operations (2,414), followed by the Canary Islands (1,444), Madrid (1,411) and the Basque Country (732). • Read More

ESA’s Cheops finds an unexpected ring around dwarf planet Quaoar

During a break from looking at planets around other stars, ESA’s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (Cheops) mission has observed a dwarf planet in our own Solar System and made a decisive contribution to the discovery of a dense ring of material around it. The dwarf planet is known as Quaoar. The presence of a ring at Read More

Europe’s next radar satellite tip-top for flight

Following its arrival at Thales Alenia Space’s cleanroom facilities in the south of France last October, Europe’s next radar satellite, Copernicus Sentinel-1C, has been put through its paces in a series of tests and demonstrated that it is in tip-top condition for flight. Engineers have also carried out the all-important and precise check to ensure Read More

Industry Day: find out how to take part in low-orbit satnav testing

ESA is embarking on the in-orbit demonstration of a new satellite navigation constellation operating much closer to our planet, utilising novel frequencies and capabilities, so the Agency is looking for European companies interested in taking part. Attend ESA’s LEO-PNT Industry Day on 7 March at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands to find out Read More