ESA missions

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A list of ESA missions Here

The ESA has just launched the Aeolus wind satellite

23 August 2018

ESA’s Earth Explorer Aeolus satellite has been launched into polar orbit on a Vega rocket. Using revolutionary laser technology, Aeolus will measure winds around the globe and play a key role in our quest to better understand the workings of our atmosphere. Importantly, this novel mission will also improve weather forecasting.

Carrying the 1360 kg Aeolus satellite, the Vega rocket lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at 21:20 GMT (23:20 CEST, 18:20 local time) on 22 August. Some 55 minutes later, Vega’s upper stage delivered Aeolus into orbit and contact was established through the Troll ground station in Antarctica at 00:30 CEST on 23 August.

Named after Aeolus, who in Greek mythology was appointed ‘keeper of the winds’ by the Gods, this novel mission is the fifth in the family of ESA’s Earth Explorers, which address the most urgent Earth-science questions of our time.

“Aeolus epitomises the essence of an Earth Explorer. It will fill a gap in our knowledge of how the planet functions and demonstrate how cutting-edge technology can be used in space,” said Jan Wörner, ESA Director General.

BepiColumbo mission to Mercury

Capt'n Midnight

It will improve weather forecasting.

Roughly speaking accurate weather forecasts extend by a day every decade. Which makes wind power more usable.

And there's always the chance it will find something new and unexpected in our atmosphere.


Overall ESA does huge amounts of science with far less flag waving and self publicity than say NASA

We've also got a sun probe lined up.

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The ESA is looking for ideas on commercial space transport. It'll be interesting to see if the mix of imagination and commercial possiblity will result in some eye catching missions to space.

24 August 2018

Children born before the first flight of the Wright brothers lived to see the first Moon landing, over 380 000 km from Earth.

From that historic first powered flight arose a multi-billion euro aviation sector that touches all our lives. Today’s space sector looks ready to chart a similar trajectory, as it opens up to commercial activity and private investment. ESA, tasked with growing and supporting European businesses, welcomes this development.

The Agency is therefore offering feedback on sound concepts for new commercial space transportation services. Up to three outstanding entries received before 14 September will win a trip to Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana to see a launch.

Space- and non-space-based companies, start-ups, individuals, universities and institutions, are encouraged to send in their ideas, which ESA can then help to develop further.

Ideas could include low-cost access to space for light satellites to low Earth orbit; transportation for exploration missions; and Earth–Moon cargo supply services, space logistics or in-orbit servicing.
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With ESA the sky is not the limit

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The BepiCollumbo science orbiters have been stacked together in preparation for the October 19th launch date. It's then scheduled to get to Mercury in December 2025 having had two Venus flybys and 6 Mercury flybys on the way.
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The two science orbiters of the joint ESA-JAXA BepiColombo mission are connected in their launch configuration and the European science orbiter and transport module have been given the go-ahead to be loaded with propellants.

The mission completed its Qualification Acceptance Review in the last week, which confirms it is on track for its 19 October launch. The three-spacecraft mission is currently scheduled to launch on an Ariane 5 at 03:45 CEST (01:45 GMT) on 19 October, or 22:45 local time in Kourou on 18 October, with the launch window remaining open until 29 November.

Following the successful fuelling readiness review on 30 August, the chemical propellants – such as hydrazine – can be added to the European Mercury Transfer Module (MTM) and Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO).
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Also: European Space Talks initiative in November with wide ranging criteria to set one up, from people interested in space to experts in the field presenting their research.

For anyone interested in organising an event.

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XMM-Newton becomes the longest duration ESA-operated mission.
https://twitter.com/esaoperations/status/1036877690438123520

It's also Europe's largest science satellite. It doesn't have storage capacity so all data is sent back to Earth in real time. It's expected to keep going until 2020 after the mission was extended.

XMM-Newton Operatons

ESA's XMM-Newton space observatory is the flagship of European X-ray astronomy. It is the most powerful X-ray telescope ever placed in orbit and is observing the 'hot' X-ray universe including objects like neutron stars, black holes and active galaxies. Over 300 scientific papers are published annually using data provided by XMM-Newton.

The satellite is detecting more X-ray sources than any previous satellite and is helping solve cosmic mysteries, from what happens in and around black holes to the formation of galaxies in our early Universe. XMM-Newton's high-tech design uses over 170 wafer-thin cylindrical mirrors spread over three telescopes.

Its 48-hour orbit takes it almost a third of the way to the Moon enabling astronomers to obtain long, uninterrupted views of celestial objects. At perigee (closest approach), it passes 21 500 km above Earth at a speed of 24 000 km/hr. XMM-Newton's highly eccentric operational orbit has been chosen so that its instruments can work outside the radiation belts surrounding the Earth.
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BepiColumbo set for the 20th of October escape_to_Mercury

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With launch set for 20 October, flight controllers led by Operations Manager Elsa Montagnon are now busily preparing for the start of what will be Europe’s first mission to Mercury — the smallest and least explored terrestrial planet of the Solar System.

“Mission teams have spent months simulating BepiColombo’s unique and complex journey,” explains Elsa.

“Taking turns, in 12-hour shifts, we have been practising the spacecraft’s various launch and early mission processes and manoeuvres in real-time so we are prepared for every possible eventuality.”

BepiColombo is a joint mission between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission comprises two science orbiters: ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO).
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Global Space economic forum

29th-31th October space4inspiration

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Cheops should be ready to launch in the fourth quarter. It's going to study stars known to harbour exoplanets and try to determine more information about those planets.

The Characterising Exoplanet Satellite, Cheops, has successfully passed the final analysis review for its launch on a Soyuz rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

All technical evaluations performed by Arianespace on the mission’s key aspects, including the launch trajectory and payload separation, have shown positive results.
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Cheops is a follow-up mission for the study of exoplanets. It will observe bright stars that are already known to host planets, measuring minuscule brightness changes due to the planet’s transit across the star’s disc.

The mission will target stars hosting planets in the Earth-to-Neptune size range, yielding precise measurements of the planet sizes. This, together with known information about the planet masses, will allow scientists to determine their bulk density, enabling a first-step characterisation of these extrasolar worlds. A planet’s density provides vital clues about its composition and structure, indicating for example if it is predominantly rocky or gassy, or perhaps harbours significant oceans.

There are some interesting launches scheduled for the coming years including one satellite on studying the role of clouds and aerosols in our climate, a mission to the Jupiter system, one satellite studying tree biomass and another on global vegetation health, one on weather, one studying dark matter, one mission close to the sun and one for the James Webb Space Telescope among others.
ESA missions

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On the road to Jupiter or more precisely, some of its more interesting moons. A signal round trip of up to an hour and 46 minutes once there. It'll take about seven and a half years to get there and be on mission there for another three and a half. The current launch potentials for the mission are in 2022 or 2023.

(artists impression, July 2017)

ESA

About JUICE

JUICE – JUpiter ICy moons Explorer – is the first large-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme. It will complete a unique tour of the Jupiter system that will include in-depth studies of three potentially ocean-bearing satellites, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.

The Jupiter tour includes several flybys of each planet-sized world, culminating with orbit insertion around Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar System, followed by nine months of operations in its orbit.

JUICE will carry the most powerful scientific payload ever flown to the outer Solar System. It consists of 10 state-of-the-art instruments plus one experiment that uses the spacecraft telecommunication system with ground-based instruments.

JUICE's instruments will enable scientists to compare each of these icy satellites and to investigate the potential for such bodies to harbour habitable environments such as subsurface oceans. They will also carry out observations of Jupiter, its atmosphere, magnetosphere, satellites and rings.

Science objectives

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In conjunction with Copernicus sentinel - 5P GHGSat with its Claire satellite can better measure methane emissions in industry.

Methane may not be as abundant in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, but with a global warming potential many times greater than carbon dioxide, monitoring and controlling industrial emissions of this potent gas is imperative to helping combat climate change. GHGSat is a New Space initiative that draws on Copernicus Sentinel-5P data for mapping methane hotspots – and its Claire satellite has now collected more than 60 000 methane measurements of industrial facilities around the world.

Copernicus Sentinel-5P’s role is to map a range of atmospheric gases around the globe every 24 hours. Its Tropomi spectrometer delivers data with a resolution as high as 7 km × 5.5 km for methane, but these data can’t be used to pinpoint specific facilities responsible for emissions.

Methane plume from oil & gas infrastructure in the Caspian Sea region


However, GHGSat’s demonstration satellite ‘Claire’ can, but it is helped with a bit of guidance from Sentinel-5P.

Drawing on Sentinel-5P data, the GHGSat tasks Claire to home in on methane point sources. Using this approach, GHGSat has been able to attribute large methane leaks to specific industrial facilities. This is catching the attention of managers responsible for emissions from industries such as oil and gas, waste management, mining, agriculture and power generation.

On top of that, investment is given the green light for a Copernicus carbon dioxide montioring initiative.