Week in images: 26-30 August 2024 Discover our week through the lens To source
Tag Archives | ESA
Cluster’s Salsa satellite primed to reenter and break up
Video: 00:01:02 On 8 September 2024, Salsa (Cluster 2), one of four satellites that make up ESA’s Cluster mission, will reenter Earth’s atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean Uninhabited Area. Salsa’s reentry marks the end of the historic Cluster mission, over 24 years after the quartet was sent into space to measure Earth’s magnetic environment. Though the remaining three satellites will also stop […]
Sentinel-2C: ready for liftoff
Video: 00:02:32 Sentinel-2C is ready for launch! The new satellite will soon join its Copernicus Sentinel-2 family in orbit – where it will continue to provide detailed views of Earth’s land and coastal waters. The mission is based on a constellation of two identical satellites: Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B. The constellation was originally designed to monitor […]
European drill and mini lab secure ride to the Moon
ESA’s Prospect package, including drill and a miniaturised laboratory, will fly to the Moon’s South Polar region in search of volatiles, including water ice, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. To source
Solar Orbiter shows how solar wind gets a magnetic push
ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft has provided crucial data to answer the decades-long question of where the energy comes from to heat and accelerate the solar wind. Working in tandem with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe , Solar Orbiter reveals that the energy needed to help power this outflow is coming from large fluctuations in the Sun’s […]
Sentinel-2C pre-launch media briefing
Video: 00:52:00 The Copernicus Sentinel-2C satellite is set for liftoff on 4 September on the last Vega rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. This recording is of a media briefing held on 29 August 2024 to offer journalists the possibility to learn more about the Sentinel-2 mission and the last flight of Vega […]
Juice’s lunar-Earth flyby: the movie
Video: 00:01:23 On 19–20 August 2024, Juice successfully completed a world-first lunar-Earth flyby , with flight controllers guiding the spacecraft first past the Moon, then past Earth. The gravity of the two changed Juice’s speed and direction, sending it on a shortcut to Jupiter via Venus. The closest approach to the Moon was at 23:15 […]
Sentinel-2C in the Vega launch tower
Image: Sentinel-2C in the Vega launch tower To source
Webb peeks into Perseus
Image: Webb peeks into Perseus To source
Watching Salsa’s reentry live from the sky
On 8 September 2024, the first of four Cluster satellites will return home and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in an uncontrolled ‘targeted reentry’ over a remote area of the South Pacific Ocean. In the nearly 70 years of spaceflight about 10 000 intact satellites and rocket bodies have reentered the atmosphere. Yet we still […]
Week in images: 19-23 August 2024
Week in images: 19-23 August 2024 Discover our week through the lens To source
First views from Juice’s science camera
Since ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) flew by the Moon and Earth earlier this week, we’ve seen images from its monitoring cameras and we’ve seen images from its navigation camera. Today we reveal the first images from its scientific camera, JANUS, designed to take detailed, high-resolution photos of Jupiter and its icy moons. To […]
Sentinel-2C sealed in the Vega rocket fairing
As preparations continue to launch the Copernicus Sentinel-2C satellite on 4 September, the team at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, has bid farewell to their precious satellite as it was sealed from view within the Vega rocket fairing. To source