Latest ESA Stories

ESA Stay in a tilted bed for weeks with your head at the lower end and your body starts to change as if it were ageing prematurely or living in space. Twelve volunteers in ESA’s bedrest study are enduring the testing experience. The ‘pillownauts’ have to stay in a bed for 21 days that is inclined at 6º. The rule is that at least one shoulder and their hips must be in contact with the bed at all times, even when they eat, wash and go to the toilet. As their muscles diminish –...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's (ESA) Third Galileo satellite has sent its first test navigation signals back to Earth, and has broadcasted signals across all three Galileo bands. The pair of Galileo satellites launched this fall join two others that were launched in October 2011. The first set have reached their final orbital position and are in the middle of testing. The third satellite, known as FM3, transmitted its first...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online A new Endangered Species Act listings proposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) would cover 66 coral species found in the Pacific and the Caribbean. NOAA said that in 2009, it received a petition to list 83 species of reef-building corals under the ESA from the Center for Biological Diversity. The organization found that the Center presented substantial information indicating a listing under the ESA may...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency (ESA) has been observing Earth’s sister planet for six years with its polar orbiter Venus Express. During its visit of the second planet from the sun, the orbiter has shown huge changes in sulphur dioxide content in the planet’s atmosphere, leading experts to believe volcanic activity has been increasing on the surface of Venus. ESA officials explain that Venus’s thick atmosphere contains more than...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The International Space Station will be keeping its SOLAR instrument this weekend pointed towards the sun for a better view. The European Space Agency's SOLAR instrument was first installed on ESA's Columbus laboratory module in February 2008. It will be celebrating its fifth year next year. “That is quite an achievement,” Nadia This, operations engineer at the Belgian User Support and Operations Centre that controls SOLAR,...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Astronomers have discovered vast comet belts that are surrounding two nearby planetary systems using the European Space Agency's (ESA) Herschel space observatory. Scientists found that that nearby planetary systems, GJ 581 and 61 Vir, have been found to host vast amounts of cometary debris. The ESA observatory detected the signatures of cold dust in quantities that mean these systems must have at least 10 times more comets...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency's Mars Express has relayed scientific data from NASA's Curiosity rover for the first time. The data from Curiosity included detailed images of "Rocknest 3" taken by the rover's ChemCam Remote Micro-Imager camera. ChemCam consists of the camera along with a Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectrometer, which fires a laser at targets and analyzes the chemical composition of vaporized material. Curiosity...

ESA Comet Halley, the originator of the Orionids meteor shower that lit up our skies last month – as they do every October – is seen here up close by ESA’s Giotto probe as it flew past the famous comet on 13–14 March 1986. Giotto was ESA’s first deep-space mission. It swept within 600 km of Halley, obtaining the first close-up images of a comet. Comets are considered to be the primitive building blocks of the Solar System and likely helped to ‘seed’ Earth with water....

ESA The design of Europe’s data relay satellite system – EDRS - has been completed and approved. This marks the moment when it moves ahead with a green light from its first customer, the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security initiative from the European Union (GMES). EDRS will provide a telecommunications network that is fast, reliable and seamless, making real-time information from satellites available on demand. EDRS will be the first commercially operated data relay...

ESA It is not every day that astronauts can claim to return to Earth with a new species of life. But when the astronauts on ESA’s CAVES underground training course returned to the surface they were carrying a special type of woodlouse. CAVES training sends astronauts from all the International Space Station partner nations underground for a week to learn about working in multi-cultural teams under extreme conditions. During their six-night stay in caves in Sardinia, Italy, their...