ESA Top Multimedia

The 91^st ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign in May 2027 will be entirely dedicated to lunar gravity.

Scientific research proposals are welcome on this application channel.

Technology research proposals are welcome on this application channel.

ESA has particular interest in several key topics, please see the descriptions at the links above.

The application deadline is 15 June 2026.

Every two years, the ESA XR Conference brings together professionals and experts working with Extended Reality (XR) and related technologies in the space sector.

The 2026 edition took place on 17-18 March at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany.

For over two decades, the European Space Agency (ESA) has explored the potential of Extended Reality (XR) – a group of technologies encompassing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR) – to enhance its operations.

These immersive technologies bridge the digital and physical worlds, enabling more intuitive workflows, improving collaboration, reducing costs, and supporting mission planning, training, and data interpretation.

For more information about Extended Reality at ESA, visit  xr.esa.int.

Set for 30 April, Ariane 6 is preparing for launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Mission VA268 will place 32 Amazon LEO satellites into low Earth orbit, supporting the deployment of Amazon’s global broadband constellation. This will be the second Ariane 6 flight in its four‑booster Ariane 64 configuration.

Solar activity regularly disturbs our planet, producing stunning auroras, but also endangering infrastructure in space and on the ground.

Meet the space weather sensors, Aurora, Swing and Sawa, ESA’s missions to monitor Earth’s atmosphere and study geomagnetic storms.

Think of Earth’s atmosphere as a layered cake: each layer is affected by space weather in its own way, and each mission will focus on different effects.

The Aurora mission will patrol the north and south poles, looking down on the shimmering lights that reveal the impact of space weather.

Swing will monitor the ionosphere, a layer of the atmosphere that, when disturbed, can disrupt radio signals and cause issues with satellite navigation and communication systems.

Sawa will study the thermosphere as space weather causes it to warm and expand, pushing satellites off course.

Aurora, Swing and Sawa, along with sensors onboard other satellites and on Earth’s surface, will feed data into space weather forecasts, alerts and other tools. Together, these services will help protect industries such as aviation, satellite navigation and power grids from disruption.

We cannot prevent space weather, but with the space weather sensors developed by ESA’s Space Safety programme, Europe will know when to brace for impact.

Access the subtitled version of the video. 

The islands of Aeolia, the home of Aeolus, keeper of the winds in Greek mythology, were a fitting location to explore the legacy of the European Space Agency’s trailblazing wind satellite, and the future of spaceborne Doppler wind lidars.

Aeolus was a remarkable achievement. Its ALADIN instrument used innovative laser technology and the Doppler effect to measure vertical profiles of Earth’s winds on a global scale for the very first time from space.

At the Aeolus science conference in Lipari, April 2026, we discovered the history of this pioneering feat - and how the hard work developing Aeolus has helped the development of current instruments such as EarthCARE’s atmospheric lidar (ATLID) and paved the way for the future operational EPS Aeolus/Aeolus-2 mission – a joint endeavour between ESA and EUMETSAT.

As sea ice continues to succumb to the climate crisis, measuring its decline with precision has never been more urgent. To meet this challenge, the European Space Agency is developing three new Copernicus satellites, each employing distinct but complementary techniques to monitor this fragile component of the Earth system. To ensure the data from these new satellites are razor-sharp, an international team of hardy scientists is now out on the Arctic sea ice braving the cold and flying above to collect critical in situ measurements.

Through coordinated measurements on the ice and from the air, the teams are collecting critical data to improve the upcoming CIMR, CRISTAL and ROSE-L mission’s retrieval methods and help ensure these important upcoming satellites deliver accurate and reliable observations of the polar environment.

The video shows two flight tracks and several satellite tracks during the field campaign.

Read full article: Braving the Arctic for upcoming polar-focused satellites

After an intense few weeks the crew took time to celebrate together with a shared meal proposed by ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot.

It’s a long‑standing tradition: each ESA astronaut works with a chef to create a few special dishes reserved for rare occasions — known as “bonus food”. Sophie’s bonus food was created by multi‑Michelin‑starred chef Anne‑Sophie Pic, offering the crew a taste of French gastronomy far from Earth.

Bonus food, tailored to specific crew members, makes up around one tenth of an astronaut’s menu. Astronauts say it adds variety to their meals, supports mental well‑being, and helps strengthen bonds among the crew in orbit.