Tag Archives: ESA

Africa, much like the US, Europe, and China, has demonstrated its interest in using space as a means to a societal end. In Africa’s case, the continent has awakened to how space, specifically space science and technology, can assist in addressing Africa’s social and economic challenges. The way the African Space Strategy puts it, Africa needs “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena." The rapid global development of spatial activities is a nifty representation of the fact that the same awakening happened in other parts of the world way before Africa. This may mean that Africa is late to the party, but perhaps it's more encouraging to see it as Africa being able to learn the best model for space development from other more advanced spacefaring nations.

The UK is aiming to join Portugal and Spain as a member of the Atlantic Constellation and is contributing a new pathfinder satellite designed and built by a UK-based company adding to the innovative Earth and coastal monitoring and data sharing network. This new commitment will further strengthen the UK’s national capabilities in Earth observation technology and complement the UK’s contributions to the EU Copernicus program, European Space Agency and bilateral missions.

The European Space Agency has announced the successful hot-fire test of the Ariane-6 rocket, passing a major full-scale rehearsal in preparation for its first flight. The teams on the ground went through a complete launch countdown followed by a seven-minute full firing of the core stage’s engine, as it would fire on a launch into space. The trial, using a test model on the launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, was the longest ‘full-stack' run yet for Ariane 6’s lower liquid propulsion module with a Vulcain 2.1 engine.

SWISSto12 and ESA are developing the HummingSat range of satellites under the ARTES Partnership Project. The program aims for SWISSto12 to capture a significant part of the expanding global market of small and flexible geostationary satellites.

Spire Global, a provider of space-based data, analytics and space services, announced on the 14th of November at the Space Tech Expo Europe their Constellation Management Platform. The new web-based app aims to simplify satellite constellation operations through its interface. The development of the platform is co-funded by ESA under the ARTES Core Competitiveness (CC) programme with €1.5 million awarded to Spire, with support from the Luxembourg Space Agency (LSA).

ESA’s Integral space telescope detected an extremely bright and long-lasting gamma-ray burst (GRB) on the 9th of October. GRB are the outpouring of energy from exploding stars or from the collision of two super-dense neutron stars. The blast has been named GRB 221009A is probably one of the brightest GRB ever detected according to Mirko Piersanti, lead author of the team publishing the results on the 14th of November. The nearest rival is ten times weaker. This GRB took place in a galaxy almost 2 billion light-years away, yet it still had enough energy to affect the Earth. 

Firefly Aerospace, an American aerospace firm, announced on the 8th of November a new agreement with Fleet Space Technologies, an Australian space exploration firm. Firefly will deliver and operate Fleet’s Seismic Payload for Interplanetary Discovery, Exploration, and Research (SPIDER) on the far side of the Moon. 

The European Space Agency (ESA), Airbus Defense and Space, and Voyager Space have signed a trilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the ESA Space Summit in Seville, outlining their collaboration for the Starlab space station in the post-International Space Station era. The MoU outlines that the parties intend to foster science and technology development and explore the potential for collaboration in conjunction with post-International Space Station low-Earth orbit (LEO) destinations.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has established the "Zero Debris Charter" with the aim of moving towards space safety and sustainability and fostering a community of proactive actors working collectively towards jointly defined ambitions. The charter comes after ESA Member States encouraged the Agency to implement “a Zero Debris approach for its missions and to encourage partners and other actors to pursue similar paths. 

Euclid, a wide-angle space telescope launched in July 2023, after a period of testing and calibrating has released the first images. Euclide is a European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from NASA. The Euclid Consortium – consisting of more than 2000 scientists from 300 institutes across 13 European countries, the US, Canada and Japan – is providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis.