Hibernating astronauts could be the best way to save mission costs, reduce the size of spacecraft by a third and keep crew healthy on their way to Mars. An ESA-led investigation suggests that human hibernation goes beyond the realm of science-fiction and may become a game-changing technique for space travel.
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Spaceflight participants Yusaku Maezawa and Yozo Hirano and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin were welcomed to the International Space Station on 8 December 2021 for a 12 day stay in space. Experience their arrival and farewell in 360° as captured by ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer from within the Russian segment.
The lower stage of ESA’s next-generation Ariane 6 launch vehicle has been installed on the assembly line at Europe’s Spaceport behind the upper stage. It is now time to join the two horizontally to create the central core of Ariane 6 in readiness for the first combined tests on the launch pad.
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over northwest Lesotho – a small, land-locked country surrounded entirely by South Africa.
One of the many serious consequences of the climate crisis is that precious permafrost is thawing, and this is unleashing even more carbon to the atmosphere and further exacerbating climate change. However, it’s complicated. For example, sometimes permafrost can thaw rapidly and scientists are unsure why and what these abrupt thaws mean in terms of feedback loops. This makes it difficult to predict the future impact on the climate. Thanks to an ESA–NASA initiative, new research digs deep into understanding the complexities of permafrost thaw and how carbon is released over time.
Volcanoes, impact craters, tectonic faults, river channels and a lava sea: a vast amount of information is captured in a relatively small area in this geologically rich new image from ESA’s Mars Express.
Image: An unusual snowstorm has blanketed parts of Turkey and Greece, causing power cuts and chaos on the roads and flight cancellations. Two images from Copernicus Sentinel-2 show Athens before and after the snowstorm.
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Astronauts aboard the International Space Station farewelled over 2000 kg of scientific experiments and hardware on Sunday 23 January as a cargo Dragon spacecraft began its return to Earth.
For the second time in its mission so far, the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft has flown through the tail of a comet. Predicted in advance by astronomers at University College London, UK, the spacecraft collected a wealth of science data that now awaits full analysis.
Today, at 20:00 CET, the James Webb Space Telescope fired its onboard thrusters for nearly five minutes (297 seconds) to complete the final post launch course correction to Webb’s trajectory. This mid-course correction burn inserted Webb toward its final orbit around the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or L2, nearly 1.5 million kilometres away from Earth.
When Joe Biden was inaugurated as President one year ago, he fulfilled his promise to rejoin the Paris Agreement and set a course for the US to tackle the climate crisis by supporting global efforts to limit global warming. ESA recently joined the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology by public video link to share European plans and expertise on measuring carbon dioxide and methane from space.
Video: 00:03:10 Timelapse of the James Webb Space Telescope from preparation to liftoff on Ariane 5 at Europe’s Spaceport on 25 December 2021.
European leaders will reaffirm plans to launch Europe on a world-leading trajectory during a high-level space summit to be held on 16 February in Toulouse, France.
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You’ve heard of spacewalking astronauts but how do astronauts run? Join ESA’s Matthias Maurer for a workout on the International Space Station’s T2 treadmill and explore Node 3 in 360°.
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The first-of-its-kind complement of instruments dubbed the ‘space storm hunter’ hangs out in its new location outside the International Space Station in this image taken by on of the Station’s external cameras.
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