Week in images: 3-7 February 2020 Discover our week through the lens To source
Tag Archives | ESA
Watch live: Luca speaks with European media
Just two days after landing in the steppes of Kazakhstan, watch live as ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano shares his spaceflight experiences with media in Europe. To source
Space station to forge ultra-fast connections
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station plan to install a high-speed radio link to enable almost real-time connections with Earth. The upgrade to the ESA Columbus laboratory will relay data from experiments on the Station back to Earth almost instantaneously. The fridge-sized device will fly to the Station aboard Northrop Grumman’s 12th Cygnus supply ship […]
Here comes the Sun!
After months of intense simulation training, two delays at the launch pad and a dress rehearsal, the Solar Orbiter control teams at ESA’s mission control are ready for the Sun. To source
Cheops image of its first target star
Image: Image of HD 70843, the star chosen as the first target for Cheops, ESA’s Characterising ExOPlanet Satellite. The star, located around 150 light years away in the constellation of Cancer, is visible at the centre of the image, surrounded by fainter stars in the background. The peculiar shape of the stars in the image […]
A perfect blur – First image by exoplanet watcher Cheops
ESA’s exoplanet-observer Cheops acquired the first image of its initial target star, following the successful telescope cover opening on 29 January 2020. The intentionally blurry image is a product of the specially designed telescope optics, which are deliberately defocused to maximise the precision of Cheops’ measurements and enable its unprecedented study of exoplanets, or planets […]
Watch Solar Orbiter launch live
Watch the launch of ESA’s new powerful Sun explorer, Solar Orbiter, on ESA Web TV on Monday 10 February from 03:30 GMT (04:30 CET). To source
Luca emerges from Soyuz MS-13
Image: ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano emerges from the Soyuz MS-13 spacecraft after landing in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 09:12 GMT (10:12 CET), 6 February 2020. Luca returned to Earth, after six months on the International Space Station mission, alongside US astronaut Christina Koch and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov. This was Luca’s second mission to […]
Record-breaking spacewalker returns from orbit
ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano returned to Earth today alongside NASA astronaut Christina Koch and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov, marking the end of his second six-month International Space Station mission known as ‘Beyond’. To source
Rosetta and the chameleon comet
A grand synthesis of Rosetta data has shown how its target comet repeatedly changed colour during the two years it was watched by the spacecraft. The chameleon comet’s nucleus became progressively less red as it made its close pass around the Sun, and then red again as it returned to deep space. To source
First time controlling two spacecraft with one dish
For the first time, an ESA deep space antenna has sent commands to two ESA spacecraft, simultaneously, at the Red Planet. To source
The science behind and beyond Luca's mission
As ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano marks his 200 days in space as part of his Beyond mission, it is time to pack up a few experiments, wrap up science reports and give way to further research that will continue beyond his second spaceflight. To source
Solar Orbiter integrated into rocket fairing
Image: ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft being encapsulated into the fairing of the US Atlas V 411 rocket at the Astrotech payload processing facility near Kennedy Space Center in Florida during launch preparations on 20 January 2020. Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led space mission with strong NASA participation to study the Sun, its outer atmosphere and […]