ESA

The European Space Agency (ESA) has also been described as 'Europe's gateway to space'. With 22 European countries pooling their resources to ESA, the agency's objective is to develop Europe's space capability whilst ensuring this investment also benefits those on Earth. ESA's programme includes human spaceflight, and the launch and maintenance of unmanned spacecraft to other planets/moons. ESA is highly influential with regards to space science, technology, telecommunication, and provides invaluable data via observing the Earth from above.

Comet Interceptor: unlocking the secrets of the early Solar System © ESA

Comet Interceptor Unlocking the secrets of the early Solar System

Out of this world: Recreating space on Earth © Neil Scheibelhut/HI-SEAS/University of Hawaii

Out of this world Recreating space on Earth

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Solar Orbiter launch: ‘mission for a generation’ satellite on its way to the Sun

Race to Venus: What we'll discover on Earth's toxic twin ©

Race to Venus What we'll discover on Earth's toxic twin

Star visible to naked eye reveals history of Milky Way Galaxy © NASA

Star visible to naked eye reveals history of Milky Way Galaxy

European exoplanet-studying satellite Cheops launched © ESA/AP

CHEOPS, ESA’s exoplanet-studying satellite, launched successfully

ESA 'satellite embracer' scoops up hazardous space debris (An artist’s impression of the ESA Environment Satellite © Handout/ESA/PA)

Proposed ESA ‘satellite embracer’ scoops up hazardous space debris

How do you build a successful space mission? – Mark McCaughrean (Comet and 'Churymoon' © ESA/Rosetta/MPS/OSIRIS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA/J. Roger (CC BY-SA 4.0))

Mark McCaughrean How do you build a successful space mission?

ESA’s Martian rover readies for launch © ESA

In pictures ESA’s Martian rover readies for launch

Mission into the Sun © Andy Potts

How the Parker Solar Probe will ‘touch the Sun’

Who will be next to land on the Moon? © ESA

Who will be next to land on the Moon?

Cleanroom workers take in the James Webb Space Telescope mirrors on 4 May 2016 © NASA/Chris Gunn

10 future space missions to look forward to

Water on Mars. Computer artwork looking east over water in Melas Chasma canyon at sunrise on Mars 3.5 billion years ago. Mars is now a desert world, but erosion features seen on Mars today suggest that water once flowed there. The water was lost due to the thin Martian atmosphere and weak gravity. Melas Chasma canyon is part of Valles Marineris, an enormous crack in the Martian crust hundreds of kilometres wide and thousands of kilometres long. The topography of this artwork was drawn with Terragen software, using data from the laser altimeter on the Mars Global Surveyor probe.

How we discovered liquid water on Mars

From left to right: Galileo, Juno (Roman goddess) and Jupiter (Roman god) are embodied in Lego on the Juno spacecraft

What is the weirdest thing sent to space?

A perspective view of Kasei Valles. Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Mars’ ancient floodplains