ESA Top Multimedia

ESA 2025: A fifty-years legacy of building the future

In 1975, 10 European countries came together with a vision to collaborate on key space activities: science and astronomy, launch capabilities and space applications: the European Space Agency, ESA, was born.

In 2025, we mark half a century of joint European achievement – filled with firsts and breakthroughs in science, exploration and technology, and the space infrastructure and economy that power Europe today.

During the past five decades ESA has grown, developing ever bolder and bigger projects and adding more Member States, with Slovenia joining as the latest full Member State in January.

We’ll also celebrate the 50thanniversary of ESA’s Estrack network, 30 years of satellite navigation in Europe and 20 years since ESA launched the first demonstration satellite Giove-A which laid the foundation for the EU’s own satnav constellation Galileo. Other notable celebrations are the 20th anniversary of ESA’s Business Incubation Centres, or BICs, and the 30th year in space for SOHO, the joint ESA and NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

Sadly though, 2025 will mean end of science operations for Integral and Gaia. Integral, ESA's gamma-ray observatory has exotic objects in space since 2002 and Gaia concludes a decade of mapping the stars. But as some space telescopes retire, another one provides its first full data release. Launched in 2023, we expect Euclid’s data release early in the new year.

Launch-wise, we’re looking forward to Copernicus Sentinel-4 and -5 (Sentinel-4 will fly on an MTG-sounder satellite and Sentinel-5 on the MetOp-SG-A1 satellite), Copernicus Sentinel-1D, Sentinel-6B and Biomass. We’ll also launch the SMILE mission, or Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer, a joint mission with the Chinese academy of science.

The most powerful version of Europe’s new heavy-lift rocket, Ariane 6, is set to fly operationally for the first time in 2025. With several European commercial launcher companies planning to conduct their first orbital launches in 2025 too, ESA is kicking off the European Launcher Challenge to support the further development of European space transportation industry.

In human spaceflight, Polish ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański will fly to the ISS on the commercial Axiom-4 mission. Artemis II will be launched with the second European Service Module, on the first crewed mission around the Moon since 1972.

The year that ESA looks back on a half century of European achievement will also be one of key decisions on our future. At the Ministerial Council towards the end of 2025, our Member States will convene to ensure that Europe's crucial needs, ambitions and the dreams that unite us in space become reality.

So, in 2025, we’ll celebrate the legacy of those who came before but also help establish a foundation for the next 50 years. Join us as we look forward to a year that honours ESA’s legacy and promises new milestones in space.

Jakobshavn Glacier, Greenland

Earth from Space: Star cities

With the festive season approaching, even Earth-observing satellites are getting into the spirit, capturing a stunning compilation of European cities that resemble stars.

Seeing eye to eye

Cosmic jingles: listen to Euclid’s image of M78

An ethereal dance of misty clouds of interstellar dust with a myriad of distant stars and galaxies speckled like paint drops over a black canvas. This is a sonification of a breathtaking image taken by ESA's Euclid space telescope of the young star-forming region Messier 78.

The sonification offers a different representation of the data collected by Euclid, and lets us explore the stellar nurseries in M78 through sound. Close your eyes and listen to let the cosmic image be drawn by your mind’s eye, or watch as the traceback line in this video follows the sounds to colour the image from left to right.

The twinkling sounds of various pitches and volumes represent the galaxies and stars in the frame. The pitch of the sound points towards where we see the dot of light in the image. Higher pitches tell us that a star or galaxy appears further at the top in the image along the traceback line.

The brightness of these objects in and around M78 are represented by the volume of the twinkles. Whenever we hear a particularly loud clink, the star or galaxy that Euclid observed appears particularly bright in the image.

Underlying these jingling sounds, we can hear a steady undertone, made up of two chords which represent different regions in Messier 78. This sound intensifies as the traceback line approaches first the brightest, and later the densest regions in the nebula.

The first two deeper crescendos in this undertone indicate two patches in the image where the most intense colour is blue/purple. These appear as two ‘cavities’ in M78, where newly forming stars carve out and illuminate the dust and gas in which they were born.

The chords intensify a third time at a slightly higher pitch corresponding to the red-orange colours in the image, as the sound draws over the densest star-forming region of the frame. This stellar nursery is hidden by a layer of dust and gas that is so thick that it obscures almost all the light of the young stars within it.

As the sound traces over the entire Euclid image, these different tones together form a cosmic symphony that represents the image of Messier 78, and the stars and galaxies that lie behind and within it. You can read more about this image that was first revealed to the eyes of the world earlier this year here.

Many thanks to Klaus Nielsen (DTU Space / Maple Pools) for making the sonification in this video. If you would like to hear more sonifications and music by this artist, please visit: https://linktr.ee/maplepools

Aurora Australis in Antarctica

The southern lights at Concordia station in Antarctica

Signing Vega contracts for future operations and development

Up close and loud: Vega-C liftoff with Sentinel-1C

The Vega-C launch, flight VV25, seen from a camera placed at just 5 m from the launchpad, and a second shot from the top of the mobile gantry that housed the rocket – 44 m high and around 50 m from the launch pad.

The third Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite, Sentinel-1C, launched aboard a Vega-C rocket, flight VV25, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 5 December 2024 at 22:20 CET (18:20 local time).

Sentinel-1C extends the legacy of its predecessors, delivering high-resolution radar imagery to monitor Earth’s changing environment, supporting a diverse range of applications and advance scientific research. Additionally, Sentinel-1C introduces new capabilities for detecting and monitoring maritime traffic.

The launch also marks Vega-C’s ‘return to flight’, a key step in restoring Europe’s independent access to space. Vega-C is the evolution of the Vega family of rockets and delivers increased performance, greater payload volume and improved competitiveness.

330th ESA Council: Media information session

Watch the replay of the media information session in which ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher and ESA Council Chair Renato Krpoun (CH) update journalists on the key decisions taken at the ESA Council meeting, held at ESA Headquarters in Paris on 17 and 18 December 2024.

Vega-C mobile building rolling

A view from the launch pad with Vega-C flight VV25 ready for liftoff as the mobile building that surrounds the rocket rolls away to reveal the rocket to the skies.

The mobile building allows Vega-C’s four stages to be assembled on the launch pad in security and offers protection from the elements. The 50-metre high structure weighs over 1000 tonnes, and a hydraulic system drives wheels on an 80-m rail track. The gantry is powered by two electric motors of some 70 kW capacity, these operate the hydraulic pumps supplying pressurised oil to six wheels.

Icy valley in Australe Scupoli

Fit-check timelapse: Themis reusable rocket stage demonstrator

In December 2024 the first Themis – Europe’s demonstrator of a reusable rocket first stage – completed a ‘full fit-check’ standing tall at ArianeGroup’s facility in Les Mureaux, France.

This step in the rocket development proves that all main elements fit together as planned, confirming the mechanical connections and interfaces from the lower to the upper parts of the rocket stage connect smoothly and as intended.

The 28-m tall model includes the main elements for Themis such as the engine bay, the fuel tanks, the flight control bay and the upper part. It is powered by the new-generation European Prometheus, an engine developed by ArianeGroup that runs on liquid methane and liquid oxygen and can vary its throttle in flight that is necessary for landing.

This fit-check was one of the key requirements and one of the final steps in Les Mureaux to conclude the development phase of Themis – designated T1H for Themis 1-engine Hop – opening the way for its transport to the Esrange Space Center in Sweden from where it will have its first flight next year. Its first flight will be a short hop, taking off and landing from the same location, organised as part of the European Commission Salto programme.

ESA 2024 Highlights: flight of the Ariane 6

In 2024, ESA continued to drive Europe’s innovation and excellence in space, equipping the continent with advanced tools and knowledge to address global and local challenges. The year saw pioneering missions, cutting-edge satellites and the pivotal restoration of Europe’s independent access to space.

The first Ariane 6 launch was perhaps ‘the’ highlight of the year but it was only one of many achievements. We saw the last Vega launch and then the return to flight of Vega-C, the more powerful, upgraded version carrying Sentinel-1C.

Far away in our Solar System, the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo spacecraft performed twoMercury flybys in 2024, needed so that it can enter orbit around Mercury in 2026. Juice also performed a crucial gravity assist, this time becoming the first spacecraft to conduct a Moon-Earth double flyby on its way to Jupiter.

Twenty years after ESA’s Rosetta was launched and 10 years since its historic arrival at the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, we launched another spacecraft to a small body, the Hera planetary defence mission to investigate asteroid Dimorphos.

2024 was an important year for Europe’s Galileo constellation which continued to expand with the launch of four new satellites and an updated Galileo ground system. The year also saw the launch of ESA’s Proba-3 mission: two precision formation-flying satellites forming a solar coronagraph to study the Sun’s faint corona.

In human spaceflight, Europe continues to contribute to science from the ISS as Andreas Mogensen’s Huginn mission continued into 2024. Andreas even met up in space with ESA project astronaut Marcus Wandt who was launched on his Muninn mission, making it the first time two Scandinavians were in space together.

Meanwhile the latest class of ESA astronauts completed basic training and graduated in April. Two of them, Sophie and Raphaël, were then assigned to long-duration missions to the ISS in 2026.

We made crucial steps for Europe in gaining access to the Moon: the inauguration of our LUNA facility with DLR, and the delivery of a third European Service Module for NASA’s Orion spacecraft as part of the Artemis programme.

Europe is also contributing to the international Lunar Gateway and developing and ESA lunar lander called Argonaut. These landers will rely on ESA Moonlight, the programme to establish Europe’s first dedicated satellite constellation for lunar communication and navigation.

As 2024 draws to a close, ESA’s achievements this year have reinforced Europe’s role in space. ESA’s journey continues to explore new frontiers, shaping the space landscape for generations to come.

Submarines for space

Submarines are emerging as a unique research platform to study human adaption to extreme environments – from ocean depths to outer space.

ESA, the Portuguese Space Agency and the Portuguese Navy are now using these vessels to recreate isolation and confinement challenges for space exploration.

Submarines replicate the isolation, confinement and operational challenges of space missions, making them ideal for studying how these conditions affect crew members and for developing strategies to help them cope.

The first crew of the SubSea project has started its immersion for a 60-day submarine mission. A scientific team from universities in Germany, Italy and Portugal is studying how stress, mood and crew dynamics evolve in cramped quarters, much like space missions.

To understand how body and mind adapt throughout the mission, scientists use questionnaires and collect hair and saliva samples. The results help them track stress markers like cortisol, as well as monitor changes in the crew’s immune health.

Integrating knowledge from submarine and astronaut research communities could drive innovation in healthcare for polar stations, military deployments, hiking expeditions, populations living in prolonged darkness, and even mining operations. Findings could address clinical disorders such as seasonal affective disorder, depression, and sleep disturbances.

The following spokespeople appear in this video:

- Daniel Neuenschwander, ESA Director of Human and Robotic Exploration.

- Andreas Mogensen, ESA astronaut.

- Inês Antunes, SubSea science coordinator for ESA.

- Ricardo Conde, President of the Portuguese Space Agency.

- Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo, Chief of the Portuguese Naval Staff.

Fit for service: Themis reusable rocket stage demonstrator

NGC 346 with 10 circled stars (Webb)

Hubble revisits a grand spiral

Earth from Space: Jakobshavn Glacier, Greenland

These summer images from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 missions showcase different satellite views of Greenland’s west coast.

Firefly Sparkle Galaxy Inset (NIRCam Image)

Up and away

A novel sensor that simulates the measurements that would be taken by one of the proposed satellites vying to be ESA’s eleventh Earth Explorer, has endured an extraordinary journey. Carried aboard a high-altitude balloon on a four-day voyage from Sweden to Canada, the sensor provides new data that could help refine the CAIRT mission concept – a mission that aims to unravel the complexities of Earth's atmosphere and enhance our understanding of climate dynamics.

The video shows the launch of the balloon by the CNES French Space Agency team at Sweden’s Esrange Space Center in Kiruna. It climbed to an altitude of 40 km and flew across the Atlantic Ocean, passing over Greenland. After four days it landed on Canada’s Baffin Island.

Read full story: High-altitude balloon ride offers new perspective for CAIRT

Paxi explores ice

English Paxi explores ice

Join Paxi on an adventure to the North and South poles, to learn more about ice and its role in keeping Earth cool.

Italian Paxi osserva il ghiaccio

Unisciti a Paxi in un'avventura ai poli Nord e Sud, per saperne di più sul ghiaccio e sul suo ruolo nel mantenere la Terra fresca.

German Paxi erforscht das Eis

Begleiten Sie Paxi auf ein Abenteuer zum Nord- und Südpol, um mehr über Eis und seine Rolle bei der Kühlung der Erde zu erfahren.

French Paxi explore la glace

Rejoignez Paxi dans une aventure aux pôles Nord et Sud, pour en savoir plus sur la glace et son rôle dans le refroidissement de la Terre.

Spanish Paxi explora el hielo

Únete a Paxi en una aventura a los polos Norte y Sur, para aprender más sobre el hielo y su papel en mantener la Tierra fría.

Portuguese Paxi explora o gelo

Junte-se a Paxi numa aventura aos pólos Norte e Sul, para aprender mais sobre o gelo e o seu papel na manutenção da Terra fresca.

Greek Ο Πάξι εξερευνά τον πάγο

Ελάτε μαζί με τον Paxi σε μια περιπέτεια στο Βόρειο και το Νότιο Πόλο, για να μάθετε περισσότερα για τον πάγο και το ρόλο του στη διατήρηση της ψύξης της Γης.

Polish Paxi bada lód

Dołącz do Paxi podczas przygody na biegunie północnym i południowym, aby dowiedzieć się więcej o lodzie i jego roli w chłodzeniu Ziemi.

Swedish Paxi utforskar is

Följ med Paxi på ett äventyr till Nord- och Sydpolen för att lära dig mer om is och dess roll för att hålla jorden sval.

Norwegian Paxi utforsker is

Bli med Paxi på et eventyr til Nord- og Sydpolen for å lære mer om is og dens rolle i å holde jorden kjølig.

Danish Paxi udforsker is

Tag med Paxi på eventyr til Nord- og Sydpolen for at lære mere om is og dens rolle i at holde Jorden kølig.

Romanian Paxi explorează gheață

Alăturați-vă lui Paxi într-o aventură la polii Nord și Sud, pentru a afla mai multe despre gheață și rolul său în menținerea Pământului rece.

Finnish Paxi tutkii jäätä

Lähde Paxin mukaan seikkailulle pohjois- ja etelänavoille ja opi lisää jäästä ja sen roolista maapallon viileänä pitämisessä.

Estonian Paxi avastab jääd

Liitu Paxiga seiklusel põhja- ja lõunapoolusele, et õppida rohkem jääst ja selle rollist Maa jahedana hoidmisel.

Czech Paxi zkoumá led

Vydejte se s Paxi na dobrodružnou výpravu na severní a jižní pól, abyste se dozvěděli více o ledu a jeho úloze při udržování chladu na Zemi.

Dutch Paxi onderzoekt ijs

Ga mee met Paxi op avontuur naar de Noord- en Zuidpool om meer te leren over ijs en de rol die ijs speelt bij het koel houden van de aarde.

Space elf on the shelf

Generating 3D cloud maps

Vega-C liftoff and return-to-flight in slow motion

Relive the Vega-C launch, flight VV25, from various angles.

The third Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite, Sentinel-1C, has launched aboard a Vega-C rocket, flight VV25, from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The rocket lifted off on 5 December 2024 at 22:20 CET (18:20 local time).

Space design chamber made in LEGO

The Netherlands from Sentinel-1C

ESA Astronaut Reserve at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre

The first half of the ESA Astronaut Reserve in the training hall at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany. Members of the ESA Astronaut Reserve—Sara García Alonso from Spain, Andrea Patassa from Italy, Arnaud Prost from France, Amelie Schoenenwald from Germany, and Aleš Svoboda from Czechia began training at EAC on 28 October 2024. The programme covers selected modules of ESA’s one-year basic training typically completed by career astronauts, equipping members of ESA’s astronaut reserve with the skills needed to support Europe’s future space exploration and scientific research. Training includes technical and operational skills, spacecraft systems, survival exercises in water and winter conditions, and initial spacewalk training.

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