News in English

Urban greenery can improve air quality and promote wellbeing. ESA is working with municipal authorities to identify how space can help to create sustainable cities in which people are healthier, happier and more productive.

Discover how space can help to boost the physical and mental health of city dwellers in an hour-long webinar to be held on 25 March.

• Mass is constantly being redistributed around our planet, as Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and other bodies of water on and under the surface melt, shift and stir.
• This mass redistribution alters Earth’s centre of gravity, which in turn speeds up and slows down the planet's spin – and so the length of the day – as well as changing the orientation of its 'spin axis'.
• These changes to Earth’s spin and orientation occur over relatively short timescales of days and weeks, and threaten communication between ground stations and missions in orbit and across the Solar System.
• ESA is working on its own algorithm to predict Earth’s orientation with extreme accuracy. Early tests show the new ESA algorithm outperforms those being used today from external providers, marking an important step in ensuring Europe’s independent access to space.

Mars has lost most of its once plentiful water, with small amounts remaining in the planet’s atmosphere. ESA’s Mars Express now reveals more about where this water has gone, showing that its escape to space is accelerated by dust storms and the planet’s proximity to the Sun, and suggesting that some water may have retreated underground.

Clustered at the edge of the Crocodile River in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa, stand thousands of farms and small holdings growing fresh fruit and sugar cane. Water to irrigate the crops is taken from the river, but this slows its flow rate and leaves less for those downstream.

Whilst demand for fresh water is increasing, water sources are becoming depleted and polluted. With the Global Water Partnership believing that sustainable development will not be achieved without a water secure world, can we look to space to solve our water security problems on Earth?

Week in images: 15 - 19 March 2021

Discover our week through the lens

The European Space Agency is currently looking for a new Director of Earth Observation Programmes, to join its Executive Board and support the Director General, with responsibility for relevant ESA programmes and overall objectives.

Flight passengers will soon be able to connect to their families and colleagues on Earth via low-orbit telecommunications satellites.

Ahead of the International Day of Forests, the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over part of the Amazon rainforest in the Amazonas – the largest state in Brazil.

ESA’s Lunar Pathfinder mission to the Moon will carry an advanced satellite navigation receiver, in order to perform the first ever satnav positioning fix in lunar orbit. This experimental payload marks a preliminary step in an ambitious ESA plan to expand reliable satnav coverage – as well as communication links – to explorers around and ultimately on the Moon during this decade.

Born in Rouen, France, aerospace engineer and commercial pilot Thomas Pesquet was selected for ESA’s Astronaut Corps in 2009. He was launched on his first flight to the International Space Station in November 2016, remaining in space until June 2017 as part of his Proxima mission. He will soon be launched for on his second long-duration mission to the International Space Station called Alpha. Thomas has been training with the Station’s international partners for the new mission, including learning about the Crew Dragon, he will be the first ESA astronaut to fly on this new commercial spacecraft.

This A&B Roll highlights Thomas Pesquet’s early training with the European Astronaut Corps, his first spaceflight, and preparations for the upcoming Alpha mission, with soundbites in English and French.

With 26 satellites in orbit and more than two billion receivers in use, Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system has made a massive impact. But our continent has another satnav system that has been providing safety-of-life services for ten years now – chances are that you’ve benefited from it without noticing.

Fluctuations in the carbon-rich biomass held within the world’s forests can contribute to, or slow, climate change. A series of new maps of above ground biomass, generated using space observations, is set to help our understanding of global carbon cycling and support forest management, emissions reduction and sustainable development policy goals.

ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will serve as commander of the International Space Station towards the end of his second mission, called Alpha, currently slated to begin on 22 April this year. The announcement was made during today’s  press briefing.

Thomas will be the fourth European to hold the post of commander, after ESA astronauts Frank De Winne, Alexander Gerst and Luca Parmitano. During the briefing, Thomas remarked how three back-to-back European commanders underscores the growing role of Europe in space exploration and is a testament to the hard work of ESA colleagues.

‘I am unbelievably humbled and honoured’, said Thomas.  

Thomas will be the first ESA astronaut to fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon launching on a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, USA. He will accompany NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide.

During his six-month Alpha mission, Thomas will continue the programme of research that often spans multiple missions and a wide range of scientific disciplines spanning materials science and radiation to educational activities.

The end of Thomas six-month stay on board will overlap with the start of German ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer’s first mission to the Space Station, called Cosmic Kiss, which will be followed by Samantha Cristoforetti’s second tenure in space, marking three back-to-back missions for ESA astronauts.

Follow Thomas Pesquet and his Alpha mission via thomaspesquet.esa.int. 

Watch the replay of the virtual press event in which ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet talks about his upcoming ‘Alpha’ mission to the International Space Station.

Set to launch on 22 April, Thomas will be the first ESA astronaut to fly on a SpaceX Crew Dragon being launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, USA. In this event we will also hear from ESA ISS Utilisation Planning Team Leader Kirsten MacDonell, and Head of the ESA Human and Robotic Exploration Strategy & Coordination Group Didier Schmitt.

The March Council edition of ESA Impact is online

In a series of exciting video stories featuring the Playmobil toy system, the ever-knowledgeable robot host ROBert is assisted by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano to explain how you can become an astronaut and what it’s like to live in space.

In early 2020, data from satellites were used to show a decline in air pollution coinciding with nationwide lockdowns put in place to stop the spread of COVID-19. One year later, as lockdown restrictions loosen in some countries and regular activity resumes, nitrogen dioxide levels are bouncing back to pre-COVID levels.