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.

ESA’s Martian rover readies for launch © ESA

In pictures ESA’s Martian rover readies for launch

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?

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

What are the chances of being hit by falling space junk? © Getty Images

What are the chances of being hit by falling space junk?

Mars © NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Landing on Mars is hard – here’s how we plan to succeed in 2021

Exomars2016_EDM_Descent_17_Thrusters_on_4k_20160517

What missing lander means for Europe’s quest to find life on Mars

ExoMars 2016 approaching Mars © ESA/ATG medialab

ExoMars ready to sniff out life on Mars

Biggest ever sky map shows 1,000,000,000 stars © ESA

Biggest ever sky map shows 1,000,000,000 stars

Philae has been found – here's why it's important © ESA

Philae has been found – here’s why it’s important

The three steps astronomers used to measure the Hubble constant © NASA, ESA, A. Feild (STScI), and A. Riess (STScI/JHU)

New Hubble constant: Universe expanding faster than expected