European Space Agency
European organization dedicated to space exploration
Follow European Space Agency on Notably News to receive short updates to your email — rarely!
| April 21 2025 | ACES began its planned 18-30 month operations phase, externally mounted to the ESA's Columbus Laboratory. |
| April 21 2025 | ACES launched to the International Space Station on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying two atomic clocks: a caesium laser cooled atomic clock (PHARAO) from CNES, France, and an active hydrogen maser (SHM) from Spectratime, Switzerland. |
| 2025 | ESA's annual budget reached €7.7 billion, demonstrating continued investment in space exploration and technological development. |
| March 6 2025 | First commercial launch of Ariane 6 (flight VA263), delivering the Composante Spatiale Optique CSO-3 satellite. |
| 2025 | MetOp-SG mission begins launching, representing a joint EUMETSAT-ESA operational meteorology mission with a planned constellation of six satellites. |
| 2025 | Earth Explorer 7 (Biomass) mission scheduled to launch, focusing on studying the carbon cycle and forest ecology. |
| December 2024 | PROBA-3 microsatellite launched as the fourth Proba series mission for solar observation and formation flying demonstration. |
| October 2024 | Hera mission launched as the European component of the AIDA asteroid deflection test, aimed at studying the impact effects created by NASA's DART mission on Dimorphos. |
| July 2024 | YPSat (Young Professionals Satellite) launched aboard the inaugural Ariane 6 flight, designed and produced entirely by young ESA professionals. |
| May 2024 | Earth Explorer 6 (EarthCARE) mission launched as a joint ESA-JAXA project to characterize clouds, aerosols, and measure Earth's surface radiation. |
| 2023 | Launched the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer and the Euclid spacecraft, which is designed to better understand dark energy and dark matter. |
| November 2023 | Conducted a successful long-firing engine test for the Ariane 6 launch vehicle. |
| July 2023 | Earth Explorer 5 (ADM-Aeolus) mission completed with re-entry, having performed global wind component profiling for advanced weather forecasting. |
| July 2023 | Euclid mission launched as a visible and near-infrared space observatory focused on dark matter and dark energy. |
| April 2023 | JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) mission launched, with planned orbital insertion in July 2031, focused on studying Jupiter's Galilean moons. |
| December 2022 | MTG (Meteosat Third Generation) meteorology mission launched, continuing the joint EUMETSAT-ESA satellite program. |
| 2021 | Expected launch of ACES to the International Space Station, which was further postponed due to development challenges with the active hydrogen maser and time transfer microwave system. |
| 2021 | ESA ministerial council agreed to the 'Matosinhos manifesto' and began recruitment for the 2022 European Space Agency Astronaut Group. |
| December 2021 | James Webb Space Telescope launched as a joint NASA-ESA-CSA infrared space observatory for general astronomy and cosmology. |
| October 17 2020 | ESA signed a memorandum of understanding with the South African National Space Agency (SANSA). |
| February 2020 | Solar Orbiter mission launched to perform in-situ studies of the Sun at a perihelion of 0.28 astronomical units. |
| December 2019 | CHEOPS space telescope mission launched to study known exoplanets. |
| January 21 2019 | ArianeGroup and Arianespace announced a one-year contract with ESA to study and prepare for a lunar regolith mining mission. |
| 2018 | Lunar Lander mission proposed for launch was put on hold due to lack of financial support and subsequently superseded by Argonaut mission. |
| October 2018 | BepiColombo, a joint ESA-JAXA reconnaissance mission to Mercury, launched using two unique spacecraft. |
| 2017 | ESA sent two astronauts to China for two weeks of sea survival training with Chinese astronauts in Yantai, Shandong. |
| March 2016 | Schiaparelli demonstration mission launched to test landing technologies for the ExoMars surface platform, but failed upon landing on Mars. |
| March 2016 | Trace Gas Orbiter launched as part of the ExoMars mission to observe methane in Mars' atmosphere for potential life detection. |
| January 2016 | EDRS (European Data Relay Satellite) network launched, beginning a geosynchronous optical communication satellite constellation with EDRS-A and EDRS-C. |
| December 2015 | LISA Pathfinder launched to demonstrate technologies for the future LISA Gravitational-wave observatory mission. |
| February 2015 | IXV experimental suborbital re-entry vehicle launched as a demonstration mission for reusable launchers. |
| September 2014 | ESA signed an agreement with Sierra Nevada Corporation for cooperation on the Dream Chaser project. |
| April 2014 | Sentinel family of Earth observation missions launched as ESA's contribution to the European Commission's Copernicus Programme. |
| December 2013 | Gaia astrometry mission launched, aimed at measuring positions and distances of over one billion objects in the Milky Way. |
| November 2013 | Earth Explorer 4 (Swarm) mission launched with three spacecraft to study Earth's magnetic field. |
| July 2013 | Alphasat launched as a joint Inmarsat-ESA mission, being the largest satellite ever built by Europe, designed to serve communication needs in Africa, Asia, and Europe. |
| May 2013 | PROBA-V microsatellite launched as the third Proba series mission, focused on mapping land cover and vegetation growth across Earth. |
| 2012 | Initial planned launch readiness for the Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES) project, which was subsequently delayed. |
| 2012 | EXPERT hypersonic re-entry vehicle project was indefinitely postponed due to Roscosmos' withdrawal from the project. |
| November 2012 | ESA decided to join NASA's Orion programme, with the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) potentially forming the basis of a propulsion unit for the new crewed spacecraft. |
| October 2011 | Galileo satellite navigation project launched, aiming to create an independent European global navigation satellite system. |
| April 2010 | Earth Explorer 3 (CryoSat-2) mission launched to study Earth's polar ice caps, successfully relaunching the previously failed CryoSat mission. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia articles List of European Space Agency programmes and missions, European Space Agency & Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space, which are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.