ESA Top Multimedia

Scientists created the most accurate 3D map of star-formation regions in our Milky Way galaxy, based on data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope.

The star-formation region that is mapped out (contoured by a circle) reaches out to 4000 light-years from our Sun. The Sun is located at the centre of this region.

The star-formation map is plotted on an artist impression of our Milky Way, based on Gaia data.

Read more

Teams from ESA, Airbus, NASA and Lockheed Martin stand before the service module for Artemis III at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Last week, ESA officially handed over its third European Service Module to NASA. The module will power Orion on Artemis III, the mission set to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in over 50 years.

The handover took place on 10 September during the third quarterly European Service Module project meeting of the year at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US. Each European Service Module is the result of thousands of hours of design, engineering and testing, a testament to the scale of teamwork required to bring astronauts safely to the Moon and back. While largely a formality, the event marks a significant milestone, underlining the acceptance of the module by NASA as well as highlighting the dedication of the many teams across Europe and the United States who are bringing the spacecraft to life.  

The third European Service Module was integrated by Airbus in Bremen, Germany, with contributions from industry all over Europe. Sailing across the Atlantic, the module arrived at Kennedy Space Center last summer, where it was joined with Orion’s crew module adapter to form the complete service module. Since then, the module has been through rigorous testing, such as environmental and life support checks, to ensure the overall system is working properly.  

Over the coming months, engineers will install the module’s four solar array wings, developed by Airbus in the Netherlands, and continue vital tests, as well as integrate the service module with Orion’s crew module. 

As Artemis III moves forward, work on earlier and future missions continues. Final preparations for Artemis II are underway, with the mission launch planned by April next year. Meanwhile, the fourth European Service Module is being finalised in Bremen and will be shipped to the United States later this year. 

With the third European Service Module now in NASA’s hands, Europe continues to play a vital role in enabling humankind’s return to deep space exploration. 

An essential part of ESA’s Space Safety programme is dedicated to getting and keeping Earth’s orbits clean from space debris. In the long run, the Agency aspires to stimulate a true circular economy in space, minimising the impact of spaceflight on Earth and its resources where possible. As part of ESA’s Zero Debris approach, new ESA missions will be designed for safe operations and disposal to stop the creation of new debris by 2030.  

ESA has now taken another important step on the road towards sustainability in space with its first in-orbit servicing mission RISE, planned for launch in 2029. 

RISE is a commercial in-orbit servicing mission that will demonstrate that it can safely rendezvous and dock to a geostationary client satellite, extending the life of geostationary satellites that need support with attitude and orbit control, but are otherwise in working order.  

After verifying that it meets all the performance standards in a first demonstration, prime contractor, operator and co-founder D-Orbit will start commercial life extension services for geostationary satellites. 

ESA’s RISE mission marks a promising step towards enhancing in-orbit services and technologies, such as refuelling, refurbishment and assembling – all essential elements for creating a circular economy in space. 

Watch without subtitles

Watch the replay of ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher’s opening Remarks of the ‘General Assembly Defence, Space and Cybersecurity’ held in ESA, ESRIN on 12 September 2025.

The European Parliament and the European Commission, in collaboration with ESA, organised the ‘General Assembly Defence, Space and Cybersecurity’ to promote dialogue between European and national decision-makers, and industry representatives in the context of the unprecedented challenges that European Union is facing since the postwar period in an increasingly complex geopolitical context.

For this reason, Europe must work to strengthen its strategic autonomy in key sectors such as space, cybersecurity, and defence, within the broader context of the Atlantic Alliance. Acting at the European level in these areas, as demonstrated by projects like Galileo, EGNOS, and Copernicus, brings extraordinary added value in terms of innovation, industrial competitiveness, economies of scale, and spending efficiency, as well as for the security of citizens and the protection of critical infrastructure.

Access the text of the opening remarks.

Patch of Celeste, the first mission in the LEO-PNT programme. Celeste will demonstrate in orbit the potential of a layer of satellites in low Earth orbit to increase the robustness of navigation, positioning and timing signals.

In 2025, European satellite navigation celebrates its 30th anniversary - a milestone built on decades of innovation, collaboration and excellence. Three decades of challenges and triumphs that have shaped the navigation systems we rely on today: EGNOS and Galileo. Three decades that not only define our present but also lay the foundation for the satellite navigation systems of tomorrow.

The world runs on invisible satellite navigation signals: they fuel our society, generate economic growth and are integral to our security. But they can fade or vanish.

A pivotal step for more robust navigation is expanding to a system including a fleet of satellites in low Earth orbit, operating in a range of signals and frequencies.

ESA’s LEO-PNT demonstrator mission will test the potential of such a system in providing significant augmentation and diversity to Galileo and other existing systems, increasing resilience and enabling new services to places where today’s satnav systems cannot reach.

Solar Orbiter observed this coronal mass ejection (CME) on 19 November 2022.

A CME is a vast eruption of billions of tonnes of plasma and accompanying magnetic fields from the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

The Metis instrument images the Sun’s outer atmosphere by artificially covering its bright disc, similar to what happens during a total solar eclipse. In this movie, the Sun’s size and position is depicted by the white circle.

This CME was associated with a swell of energetic electrons, also picked up by Solar Orbiter. Read more about how Solar Orbiter traced these superfast electrons back to CMEs on the Sun.

The new research is published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics, as part of a public catalogue of Solar Energetic Electron events observed by Solar Orbiter.

[Image description: The image shows a circular, reddish-brown pattern radiating outward from a dark central circle. The outer ring is filled with streaks and bursts of light, resembling solar rays or an explosion. The center is black with two thin concentric circles, and the bottom of the image displays the date and time 19 Nov 2022, 13:44. The image shows the Sun's outer atmosphere, with a coronal mass ejection bursting from the top right of the Sun.]