Finding and collecting the best lunar samples will be a major task for the next astronauts on the Moon. ESA’s Pangaea training campaign launches today to equip astronauts with a geologist’s eye on the Moon – humanity’s next space destination to help us understand more about our Solar System.
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The ExoMars team have performed important parachute drop tests as crucial preparation for a safe touchdown on Mars in 2023. The European Rosalind Franklin rover will search for signs of past life beneath the surface of Mars with its unique two metre drill and onboard laboratory. The Russian surface science platform Kazachok will study the environment at the landing site. Landing on Mars is always a challenging endeavour and all possible parameters are taken into account.
More information on ExoMars: http://www.esa.int/exomars
After many technical and programmatic challenges, the first satellite of the next generation of the Meteosat family has taken a major step towards its first flight, currently scheduled for launch in autumn 2022.
ESA and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs are opening the second round of their HyperGES fellowship, part of the Access to Space For All Initiative, offering student teams around the globe the chance to perform hypergravity experiments using the Large Diameter Centrifuge at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands, with a particular focus on developing nations.
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Quantum technology or stage at a music festival? Both would have one thing in common: students.
Oscar-Qube, short for Optical Sensors based on CARbon materials: QUantum Belgium, is an experiment developed by a group of students from the University of Hasselt, Belgium. Part of ESA Education Office’s Orbit Your Thesis! programme, the experiment arrived at the International Space Station on Space X Dragon CR23 resupply mission yesterday.
This week, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet will install the experiment in the Ice Cubes Facility that offers commercial and educational access to the microgravity environment of the Space Station.
Oscar-Qube’s mission is to create a detailed map of Earth’s magnetic field. It makes use of a new type of magnetometer that exploits quantum sensing, meaning that it is highly sensitive, offers measurements to the nano scale, and has a better than 100-nanosecond response time.
These features combine to create a powerful experiment that, once in position, will allow it to map the Earth’s magnetic field to an unrivalled level of precision.
Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its latest assessment report laying out the accumulating evidence of the climate crisis. The report identifies Earth observing satellites as a critical tool to monitor the causes and effects of climate change and directly acknowledges the contribution of ESA’s Climate Change Initiative – a research programme that draws on observations from multiple satellite missions.
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ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet takes you on a tour of the International Space Station like no other. Filmed with a 360 camera, the Space Station 360 series lets you explore for yourself alongside Thomas’s explanation – this is the Node 2 module. Node 2 is a European-built connecting module also known as Harmony that acts as an internal passageway and utility hub. Its exterior also serves as a work platform for the station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2, and has docking ports for spacecraft.
In this video, Thomas shows the different modules that Node 2 connects: Europe’s Columbus Laboratory, the US lab Destiny and the Japanese Kibo Laboratory. He also shows workspaces and sleeping cabins where astronauts can have some personal space and sleep with their sleeping bags attached to the wall. Click and drag with your mouse or move your smartphone around see different angles and feel like you are in space with Thomas.
Follow Thomas: https://blogs.esa.int/exploration/it/category/astronauts/thomas-pesquet/
The video is in French, to activate the English subtitles, click on the CC icon at the bottom right of the YouTube player.
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has successfully completed its final tests and is being prepared for shipment to its launch site at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
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ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet takes you on a tour of the International Space Station like no other. Filmed with a 360 camera, the Space Station 360 series lets you explore for yourself alongside Thomas’s explanation – starting with Europe’s science laboratory, Columbus.
Columbus is not the Station’s largest module, but it is one of the best equipped. It is the place where European astronauts conduct most of their work on board and has an external platform that allows experiments to be exposed to the vacuum of space. In addition to science racks, Columbus offers storage space and even a new crew quarter for sleeping. Click and drag with your mouse or move your smartphone around see different angles and feel like you too are in space.
The video is in French, to activate the English subtitles, click on the CC icon at the bottom right of the YouTube player.
ESA safeguards Europe’s guaranteed access to space through its Future Launchers Preparatory Programme, FLPP.
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Samples of the Biofilms experiment are headed to the International Space Station on the SpaceX CR23 cargo resupply mission this weekend to help maintain astronaut and material safety in space.
A common piece of advice of the past 18 months has been to make sure you wash your hands thoroughly. This is because microorganisms are easily spread across common surfaces like door handles and light switches, and it is no less true in space. The Space Station is, after all, a lab as well as a home to astronauts. It is especially important to keep this environment safe for the long-term health of astronauts and equipment on board.
Funded by ESA and developed by the Chair of Functional Materials at Saarland University and the Working Group for Aerospace Microbiology at German Aerospace Center DLR, Biofilms will test the antimicrobial properties of laser-structured metal surfaces such as steel, copper and brass under microgravity conditions.
But what is biofilm? When growing on surfaces, bacteria can ooze a mixture of microbial structures such as proteins and lipids. The biofilm is what makes microbes resistant to antibiotics and disinfectants. Left to grow, biofilm can be hard to clean and can erode surfaces, especially metals.
To combat microbial growth, Biofilms will test the growth of bacteria such as human skin-associated bacteria Staphylococcus capitis with a novel approach. The innovation of the experiment lies in the structured surfaces of common metals. Using Direct Laser Interference Patterning (DLIP) to add texture to the surfaces, researchers will study how well microbes grow (or not) on copper, metal and steel. Findings could help prevent microbial contamination in space.
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Water is life, on Earth and in space. Dutch ESA astronaut André Kuipers recounts his experience living in space for 204 days, and his time looking back on the blue face of ‘Planet Aqua’, comparing notes with divers about what is going on beneath the waves. He goes on to explore how space technology is being used for water management, from orbital tracking of water quality and pollution to spacecraft-grade recycling systems deployed down on the ground, as well as ambitious efforts to identify marine plastic litter using satellites. Produced for SIWI World Water Week with the support of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
From space, the synchronous retreat of the world’s glaciers can be clearly observed. To get a first-hand view of these changes, ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, along with Susanne Mecklenburg, Head of ESA’s Climate Office, have joined a science expedition taking place at one of the biggest ice masses in the Alps: the Gorner Glacier.
Astronaut hopefuls are being asked for their patience as ESA processes over 23 000 applications to its Astronaut and Astronaut (with a disability) vacancies. This number far exceeds the Agency’s most optimistic forecasts.
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