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Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
23/06/2026
Our CAVES astronaut training course kicks off today!
5️⃣ astronauts
4️⃣ days of exploration
3️⃣ space agencies
1️⃣ cave
Meet the 'cavenauts':
Rosemary Coogan, ESA astronaut 🇬🇧
John McFall, member of ESA's astronaut reserve 🇬🇧
Tracy Dyson, NASA astronaut 🇺🇸
Ben Bailey, NASA astronaut candidate 🇺🇸
Ayu Yoneda, JAXA astronaut 🇯🇵
Stay tuned for more updates.
23/06/2026
Save the date and join our Open Days 2026 to discover Europe’s space missions from the inside.
19 - 20 Sept. - ESA HQ, Paris 🇫🇷
25 Sept. - ESA ESRIN, Frascati 🇮🇹
26 - 27 Sept. - ESA ESTEC, Noordwijk 🇳🇱
2 Oct. - ESA ESOC, Darmstadt 🇩🇪
3 Oct. - ESA ESAC, Villanueva de la Cañada 🇪🇸
10 Oct. - ESA ECSAT, Harwell 🇬🇧
Registration details and programme coming soon 👇
https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_Open_Days/ESA_Open_Days_2026/ESA_Open_Days_2026_are_coming_mark_your_calendar
Time to slow down 🦥
.. and enjoy these views of the most powerful Ariane 6 rocket lifting off from the launch pad!!
ArianeGroup CNES CSG Centre spatial guyanais
22/06/2026
A new season is in!
Yesterday, Earth marked the June solstice when, at 08:24 UTC (10:24 CEST), the Sun reached its most northerly point in the sky.
Just minutes later, our MTG‑I1 satellite captured this view of Earth from 36,000 km above. Pretty far away!
Credits: ESA - EUMETSAT
21/06/2026
Hubble time! 🌌
Hubble Space Telescope has taken a striking high resolution image of the curious planetary nebula NGC 6210. Located about 6 500 light-years away, in the constellation of Hercules, NGC 6210 was discovered in 1825 by the German astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve. Although in a small telescope it appears only as a tiny disc, it is fairly bright.
NGC 6210 is the last gasp of a star slightly less massive than our Sun at the final stage of its life cycle. The multiple shells of material ejected by the dying star form a superposition of structures with different degrees of symmetry, giving NGC 6210 its odd shape. This sharp image shows the inner region of this planetary nebula in unprecedented detail, where the central star is surrounded by a thin, bluish bubble that reveals a delicate filamentary structure. This bubble is superposed onto an asymmetric, reddish gas formation where holes, filaments and pillars are clearly visible.
The life of a star ends when the fuel available to its thermonuclear engine runs out. The estimated lifetime for a Sun-like star is some ten billion years. When the star is about to expire, it becomes unstable and ejects its outer layers, forming a planetary nebula and leaving behind a tiny, but very hot, remnant, known as white dwarf. This compact object, here visible at the centre of the image, cools down and fades very slowly. Stellar evolution theory predicts that our Sun will experience the same fate as NGC 6210 in about five billion years.
This picture was created from images taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 through three filters: the broadband filter F555W (yellow) and the narrowband filters F656N (ionised hydrogen), F658N (ionised nitrogen) and F502N (ionised oxygen). The exposure times were 80 s, 140 s, 800 s and 700 s respectively and the field of view is only about 28 arcseconds across.
📸 ESA NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
There might be water hiding under the Moon’s surface 🌕
And we’re going to drill for it.
Our Prospect mission is heading to the lunar South Pole in 2027 to dig into the frozen surface and search for water ice. Because if it’s there, future astronauts could drink it, breathe it, and even use it as rocket fuel.
📹
🎞️ ESA/ ; ESA/ATG Medialab; ; NASA;
📸
20/06/2026
📸 This was our 15-19 June 2026.
🔗 https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Week_in_images/Week_in_images_15-19_June_2026
20/06/2026
Mercury, we’re nearly there!
After almost eight years since its launch in 2018, BepiColombo is entering its most critical phase yet. As it gears up for its arrival to Mercury, our flight dynamics specialists, spacecraft controllers, engineers and mission experts at our European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) have designed a detailed simulations campaign to stay ahead of the game.
BepiColombo will be the first mission to study Mercury with two spacecraft at the same time. MPO will orbit close to the planet’s surface, and Mio in a larger elliptical orbit.
The data will give us a precise map of Mercury’s surface, and tell us what it’s made of, how it formed, how it changes over time and what temperature it is. Flying over Mercury’s poles, MPO will also be able to peer into craters filled with permanent shadow – if there is water on Mercury, this is where it would be!
📹
🎞️ / 📸 ESA/BepiColombo/MTM by SA 3.0 IGO
19/06/2026
Dust devils galore on Mars 🌪️
Our Mars Express mission visited Mamers Valles, capturing dozens of brief, tornado‑like whirlwinds sweeping dust across the Red Planet.
📸 https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Mars_Express/Dozens_of_dust_devils_hidden_in_plain_sight
German Aerospace Center, DLR Freie Universität Berlin