Following last summer’s record minimum ice cover in the Arctic, current observations from ESA’s Envisat satellite suggest that the extent of polar sea-ice may again shrink to a level very close to that of last year.
Oxygen is constantly leaking out of Earth’s atmosphere and into space. Now, ESA’s formation-flying quartet of satellites, Cluster, has discovered the physical mechanism that is driving the escape. It turns out that the Earth’s own magnetic field is accelerating the oxygen away.
ESA PR 35-2008. ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft will make a historic encounter with asteroid (2867) Steins on 5 September 2008. The doors of ESA’s European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, will be open to the media as of 18:00 on 5 September to follow the fly-by events.
ESA’s orbiting X-ray observatory XMM-Newton has discovered the most massive cluster of galaxies seen in the distant Universe until now. The galaxy cluster is so big that there can only be a handful of them at that distance, making this a rare catch indeed. The discovery confirms the existence of dark energy.
The Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) mounted on Mars Express was dormant after its first and only operational use in 2003. It is now back in action as the ‘Mars Webcam’, providing views of the Red Planet that are not obtainable from Earth.
ESA PR 34-2008. The European Space Agency is about to launch the most sophisticated mission ever to investigate the Earth’s gravitational field and to map the reference shape of our planet – the geoid - with unprecedented resolution and accuracy.
The Hubble Space Telescope has found the answer to a long-standing puzzle by seeing the details of giant but delicate filaments shaped by a strong magnetic field around the active galaxy NGC 1275.
The cover story of this issue of ESA’s flagship magazine, the Bulletin, is about Venus Express - we feature results which could answer some of the greatest mysteries about our nearest planetary neighbour.
On 14 August, Rosetta conducted a successful trajectory correction manoeuvre using data obtained from the Agency’s first-ever optical tracking of an asteroid target, (2867) Steins. Images from the spacecraft’s cameras were used to calculate the asteroid’s location and optimise its trajectory for fly-by next month.
Yesterday evening, an Ariane 5 ECA launcher lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport at Kourou, in French Guiana, on its mission to place two telecommunications satellites into geostationary transfer orbits.
Miniaturised ceramic gas sensors, originally developed for measuring oxygen levels for spacecraft re-entry vehicles, enables improved human breath measurement apparatus, better control of heater combustion thereby reducing pollution, and higher safety in fuel cell manufacturing.
Heading toward its first target-asteroid, (2867) Steins, ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has started using its cameras to visually track the asteroid and eventually determine its orbit with more accuracy.
Earth observation satellite data have never been in more demand than today as missions have demonstrated their ability to enable better understanding and improved management of the Earth and its environment.
In November 2008, the ministers responsible for space activities in ESA’s member states and Canada will gather in The Hague to set the course of Europe’s space programme over the period ahead. They will be invited to endorse the next stages in a series of ongoing programmes and to commit to the start of new programmes.
Mars Express closed in on the intriguing martian moon Phobos at 6:49 CEST on 23 July, flying past at 3 km/s, only 93 km from the moon. The ESA spacecraft’s fly-bys of the moon have returned its most detailed full-disc images ever, also in 3-D, using the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board.
GOCE, the first of a series of Earth Explorer satellites to be launched into orbit, has taken off aboard an Antonov-124 cargo aircraft for its flight to the Arkhangelsk Airport in Russia, en route to Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome, about 800 km north of Moscow.
On Friday 25 July, ESA announced an opportunity to embark payloads on the second flight of the Vega small launcher planned for mid 2010. This will be the first of five flights that are planned to demonstrate Vega’s versatility to the space community.
