Latest European Space Agency Stories

ESA Taking a cue from how ESA controls satellites, Spanish railways now have their own high-tech upgrade to keep travelers abreast of when the next train is going to pull into the station. Drawing on sophisticated software that keeps satellites on track, the system was developed by a group of Elecnor Deimos engineers who had worked extensively on ESA projects. The outcome of this technology transfer is that up-to-date train schedules are now displayed at over 400 Spanish stations....

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a news teleconference at 1 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Feb. 27, to announce black hole observations from its newest X-ray telescope, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray telescope. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The briefing participants are: -- Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator, California Institute of Technology,...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online In the wake of the recent meteor explosion above Russia, the European Space Agency (ESA) has announced the selection of a target for their proposed Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA). The AIDA mission, which is a joint project headed up by European and American astronomers, will attempt to intercept asteroid Didymos, which the ESA says is a “binary,” featuring two asteroids – one approximately 800 meters...

ESA [ Watch The Video Sea-Surface Salinity and Currents ] ESA’s water mission is shedding new light on the meandering Gulf Stream, just one of the SMOS satellite’s numerous achievements. Launched in 2009, ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity satellite has been helping us to understand the water cycle. Over the past three years it has been providing more accurate information on global soil moisture and ocean salinity. New results unveiled today in Spain show that SMOS...

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online As it turns out, studying our Sun can be rather difficult. It’s not the distance so much that keeps scientists guessing – although that certainly doesn’t help. The Sun’s intense heat also keeps scientists at bay, leaving them to make some of their observations and predictions based purely on context and far away measurements. One thing astronomers have been able to observe is a significant difference in temperatures...

GREENBELT, Md., Feb. 19, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Everything is bigger in Texas and a life-sized model of the world's largest space telescope, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will be on display at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival along with Webb-related exhibits, educational events, interactives, visualizations, scientists and much more. The NASA events at SXSW will occur March 8-10, 2013 in Austin. (Logo:...

ESA Good news for Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security program: the European Council has secured the program’s EU funding through 2020. The multiannual financial framework – MFF – is a seven-year plan for the EU’s budget. On 8 February, European heads of State and government agreed to include GMES in the 2014–20 MFF. Within the new framework, €3786 million was allocated for GMES. This amount covers GMES Services, In-Situ Component (a network of...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online For the first time, scientists from the international Cassini spacecraft have detected subatomic particles that have been accelerated to ultra-high energies in a blast of solar wind around Saturn, hinting at the possibility that the ringed planet may have experienced the aftermath of a supernova. According to a report by the European Space Agency (ESA) that appeared recently in the journal Nature Physics, this acceleration may be the...

[ Watch the Video: Arctic Sea Ice Changes 2011-2012 ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online New observations using satellites have confirmed University of Washington researchers' analysis the Arctic Ocean sea ice really is thinning. A team combined new satellite observations, along with a model created by University of Washington researchers, to confirm the summer minimum in Arctic sea ice is one-fifth of what it was back in 1980, when the model started. The...

ESA ESA and NASA have joined forces to ensure that Sentinel-2 and the newly launched Landsat Data Continuity Mission offer compatible data products, thereby bringing greater benefits to users of images of Earth’s land and coastal zones. ESA is currently developing the two-satellite Sentinel-2 mission for Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security initiative. With the first satellite slated for launch in 2014, this innovative mission is dedicated to supplying...