ESA Top Multimedia
European Commissioner and ESA Director General speak to media at the European Space Conference
Delegates at the European Space Conference visit the ESA booth
ESA Director General delivers keynote speech at the European Space Conference
ESA booth at the 18th European Space Conference
Commissioner delivers opening address at European Space Conference 2026
Temperatures over Europe and northern Africa by MTG-Sounder
Hayli Gubbi eruption in Ethiopia, by MTG-Sounder
This animation uses data from the MTG-Sounder satellite’s Infrared Sounder instrument. It tracks the eruption of Ethiopia's Hayli Gubbi volcano on 23 November 2025.
The background imagery shows surface temperature changes while infrared channels highlight the developing ash plume. The satellite's timely observations enable tracking of the evolving ash plume over time.
Artemis II rollout
On 17 January, the Artemis II Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft were rolled out from the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, to Launch Pad 39B. The 6.5-km journey took around 12 hours and was carried out using NASA's crawler-transporter, which has been moving rockets to launch pads for over 50 years.
At the top of the rocket sits the Orion spacecraft, bearing the ESA and NASA logo and designed to carry four astronauts on a 10-day lunar flyby mission. Artemis II will be the first crewed flight of the Artemis programme and the first time humans have ventured towards the Moon in over 50 years.
Their journey depends on our European Service Module, built by industry from more than 10 countries across Europe. This powerhouse will take over once Orion separates from the rocket, supplying electricity from tis four seven-metre-long solar arrays, providing air and water for the crew, and performing key propulsion burns during the mission, including the critical trans-lunar injection that sends the spacecraft and its crew on their trajectory towards the Moon.
Aerial view of booster for Ariane 6 flight VA267 heading to the launch pad
Aerial view of booster for Ariane 6 flight VA267 heading to the launch padIgnis mission timelapses: Earth and Moon views from the International Space Station
ESA project astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski captured these stunning timelapse videos during his 20-day stay aboard the International Space Station as part of Axiom Mission 4, known as Ignis. Filmed from the Cupola – the Space Station’s iconic seven-windowed observation module – the footage showcases breathtaking views of Earth and the Moon from orbit.
Launched on 25 June 2025 aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, Sławosz conducted 13 experiments proposed by Polish institutions in collaboration with ESA, plus three ESA-led investigations. These spanned human research, materials science, biology, biotechnology and technology demonstrations.
The Ax-4 mission marks the second commercial human spaceflight for an ESA project astronaut. Ignis was sponsored by the Polish government and supported by ESA, the Polish Ministry of Economic Development and Technology (MRiT) and the Polish Space Agency (POLSA).
Earth from Space: Pantanal
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us at the Brazilian-Bolivian border over part of the Pantanal region, a unique ecosystem, home to an impressive variety of plants and wildlife.ESA Director General discusses wildfire management at the World Economic Forum annual meeting
ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti speaks on a panel at the World Economic Forum annual meeting
ESA Academy Experiments teams at the Orbital Robotics Laboratory
After being selected to join the ESA Academy Experiments programme, three student teams from universities across Europe were invited to carry out the experimental part of their research projects in ESA’s test facilities with support and guidance from experts.
For their experiments, the student teams made use of ESA’s ORBIT facility – a part of the Orbital Robotic Laboratory (ORL) located at ESTEC, the agency’s technical heart in the Netherlands. ORBIT consists of a 43 m2 ultra-flat floor – the height difference between its lowest and highest points is less than a millimetre.
The Skywalker team from Aalborg University, Denmark, used the simulated two-dimensional microgravity environment to test the reinforcement learning algorithms they have developed for their robotic arm. Their project aims to demonstrate the concept of autonomous crawling in microgravity.
In the very first ORBIT facility experiment involving human participants, the V-STARS team from Birkbeck, University of London, and the University of Kent, UK, investigated the relationship between the human vestibular system (region of the inner ear responsible for body balance) and the perception of verticality in a microgravity environment.
The GRASP team from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, explored an innovative approach to performing manoeuvres with non-cooperative objects in space. The robotic arm they have developed themselves is sporting an adhesive gripper inspired by geckos.
Magnetic avalanche in action
Solar Orbiter’s most detailed view yet of a large solar flare, observed during its 30 September 2024 close approach to the Sun.
The imagery was published in 2025, but now scientists have focused in on the details to uncover an exciting and surprising result: individual solar flares are triggered by initially weak disturbances that quickly become more violent – much like an avalanche on a snowy mountain. This rapidly evolving process creates a ‘sky’ of raining plasma blobs that continue to fall even after the flare subsides.
For the first time, this process is revealed in the video shown here, along with the supplementary videos featured in the full story.
When Solar Orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) first started observing the region at about 23:06 Universal Time (UT), a dark arch-like ‘filament’ of twisted magnetic fields and plasma was already present, connected to a cross-shaped structure of progressively brightening magnetic field lines.
Zooming in to this feature shows that new magnetic field strands are appearing in every image frame – equivalent to every two seconds or less. Each strand is magnetically contained, and they become twisted, like ropes. Then, just like in a typical avalanche, the region becomes unstable. The twisted strands begin to break and reconnect, rapidly triggering a cascade of further destabilisations in the area. This creates progressively stronger reconnection events and outflows of energy, seen as increasing brightness in the imagery.
A sudden brightening begins at 23:29 UT, followed by the dark filament disconnecting from one side, launching into space and at the same time violently unrolling at high speed. The unwinding closest to the footprint is recorded at 250 km/s, increasing to 400 km/s at the site of disconnection. Bright sparks of reconnection are seen all along the filament in stunning high resolution as the flare erupts at 23:47 UT.
At the same time, ribbon-like features are seen moving extremely quickly down through the Sun’s atmosphere. These streams of ‘raining plasma blobs’ are signatures of energy deposition from the reconnection events, which get stronger and stronger as the flare progresses. Even after the flare subsides, the rain continues for some time.
While EUI captured this high-resolution imagery, Solar Orbiter’s SPICE and STIX instruments monitored the temperatures and particle emissions at different layers in the Sun’s atmosphere. They revealed the slow rise of ultraviolet to x-ray emission prior to the flare, followed by a dramatic increase in x-ray emission during the main phase of the flare – signifying that particles were accelerated to 40-50% the speed of light equivalent to about 431–540 million km/h. This was recorded close to the base of the filament connection point as it unfurled into space.
After the main phase of the flare, the original cross-shape of magnetic field lines relaxes and the instruments see the plasma cool down to ‘normal’ levels. Bundles of looped magnetic field lines and suspended plasma – ‘arcades’ – hang over the flare site for some time.
Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA. The EUI instrument is led by the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB).
Legs made for a Mars landing
To land on the right foot on the Red Planet, European engineers have been dropping a skeleton of the four-legged ExoMars descent module at various speeds and heights on simulated martian surfaces.
Watch a quick sequence of some of the drops from different angles. For over a month, Thales Alenia Space and Airbus teams ran dozens of vertical drops using a full-scale model of the landing platform at the ALTEC facilities in Turin, Italy.
This first series of tests involved dropping the model onto both hard and soft surfaces, the latter filled with powdery, Mars-like soil. The team changed the speed and height of the falls by a few centimetres.
During the test campaign, the four legs replicated the structure and dimensions of those that will fly to Mars. The lightweight, deployable legs are interconnected and equipped with shock absorbers to withstand the impact.
Another goal of the campaign was to verify the performance of the touchdown sensors. A system installed in all four legs detects when the spacecraft approaches the surface and triggers the shutdown of the descent engines after a soft landing.
The landing legs are crucial gear for the safe touchdown of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover mission in 2030, alongside parachutes and engines that will slow the spacecraft’s descent onto Mars.
While Thales Alenia Space is the industrial lead of the mission, Airbus provides the landing platform and ALTEC offers technical support.
Plato passes vibe check
Plato, the European Space Agency’s mission to discover Earth-like exoplanets, successfully passed a first round of tests designed to ensure that the spacecraft is fit for launch. As this video shows, the tests consist of vigorously shaking the spacecraft to mimic the powerful jolts and vibrations that Plato will experience during launch.
These so-called ‘vibration tests’, are arranged in three parts. In this clip, we see the phase when the spacecraft, mounted on a ‘quad’ shaker, is jolted up and down (Z axis). In the other two stages, on top a ‘lateral’ shaker, the spacecraft is jiggled back and forth sideways in two perpendicular directions (X and Y axes).
Each test run lasts one minute, during which the frequency of the oscillations is gradually increased from 5 to 100 oscillations per second (hertz). At the higher frequencies we can no longer perceive the movement, but we hear the spacecraft’s internal rumbling caused by the fast shaking. The sound comes in waves, becoming louder when the shaker hits resonance frequencies and makes the spacecraft vibrate more intensely.
The first couple of minutes of a satellite's spaceflight are the toughest, as it sustains the extreme vibration of lift-off. By subjecting the spacecraft with these dramatic stresses in advance of the real launch, engineers ensure that no piece of space hardware will be damaged during launch.
Plato is currently undertaking its tough exams to graduate for launch. After vibration tests, the spacecraft was placed inside ESA’s acoustic test chamber and blasted by deafening sound similar to what it will experience during lift-off. Also this test went as expected.
Next, engineers will move the spacecraft to the Large Space Simulator – Europe’s largest vacuum chamber – to verify that it can withstand the extreme temperatures and emptiness of space.
The mission is expected to be ready for launch by the end of the year. Lift-off on an Ariane 6 is planned in by Ariane Space for January 2027.
About Plato
ESA’s Plato (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) will use 26 cameras to study terrestrial exoplanets in orbits up to the habitable zone of Sun-like stars.
Plato's scientific instrumentation, consisting of the cameras and electronic units, is provided through a collaboration between ESA and the Plato Mission Consortium composed of various European research centres, institutes and industries. The spacecraft is being built and assembled by the industrial Plato Core Team led by OHB together with Thales Alenia Space and Beyond Gravity.
ATD water-cooled throttleable engine firing
Romanian company ATD Aerospace RS SRL is developing a 10 kN rocket engine that can be re-ignited and adjust its thrust. This builds on the 1 kN engine they developed with support from the European Space Agency (ESA).
Before working with ESA, ATD had already created several engines in the 0.5–1 kN range, which paved the way for their later developments. This project is part of ESA’s Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP), that helps develop the technology for future for space transportation systems. By conceiving, designing and investing in technology that doesn’t exist yet, this programme is reducing the risk entailed in developing untried and unproven projects for space.
The firing test seen here shows a water-cooled version as it cycles from 100% thrust to 60% and back to 100%. The test, conducted in Romania in 2025 saw the engine perform as expected. The engine uses hypergolic propellants, which are ideal for spacecraft or rockets that need to store fuel for extended periods.
Turned upside down, the engine could suspend 1000-kg on Earth, the weight of typical hippopotamus. Used as intended it could slow the descent of a rocket stage and ensure a soft touchdown.
Various sensors were used during the test firings to characterise the engine and its functions.
The development involves three designs, starting with an uncooled engine demonstration, a next version that is cooled with water, as seen in this video, and finally a self-contained engine that incorporates its own cooling.
The European Space Agency is financing the development up to the successful test of the final regenerative cooled-engine, reaching a technology readiness level of five with a smaller-scale test firing (TRL5).
ESA Director General’s 2026 annual press briefing
Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency, briefed journalists on the main milestones for 2026, such as the launch of Smile, a mission that will give humankind its first complete look at how Earth reacts to streams of particles and bursts of radiation from the Sun. Later in 2026 should also see the arrival of BepiColombo at Mercury after its eight-year trip, where it will gather data to answer many perplexing questions about the least-explored planet of the inner Solar System. Many more exciting missions are expected, with ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot launching for the International Space Station, and various Earth Observation and Navigation launches from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
ESA preview 2026
As a new year begins, let’s take a look at what’s ahead for the European Space Agency in 2026. From Earth to the farthest reaches of the Solar System, 2026 marks a year of firsts that continue to shape the future of space.
Press conference with ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot
Media representatives joined French ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, on Monday 5 January, for a hybrid press conference to learn more about her first mission to space.
This event, held at the European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Germany, was the final media event in Europe ahead of her launch to the International Space Station.
Sophie selected the name ‘εpsilon’ for her first mission, currently planned no earlier than 15 February, reflecting the power of small, yet impactful contributions, and how many parts come together to make a whole.
During εpsilon, Sophie will conduct a wide range of tasks on the International Space Station, including European-led scientific experiments, medical research, supporting Earth observation and contributing to operations and maintenance on the Station.
Nature’s fireworks from space
As she flew 400 km above Earth at hypersonic speed, NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps caught a gigantic spark with blue and red flashes shooting upwards.
This video shows a blue jet propagating into space towards the upper layers of the atmosphere. The beam of light is followed by red flashes spreading like tentacles across the sky.
You can watch the magnificent show at different speeds, but in reality, it lasted less than a second.
Jeanette directed a high-resolution camera from the International Space Station towards a summer thunderstorm. With the camera set at the fastest frame rate for slow-motion video, she managed to record the giant jet in all its splendour.
What the astronaut captured from orbit in July 2024 is rarely visible on Earth because it takes place above the clouds, at altitudes between 40 and 80 kilometres. This powerful yet elusive electrical phenomenon is known as a Transient Luminous Event (TLE).
ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen captured the first pulsating jet from space a decade ago, providing a new perspective on electrical activity at the top of thunderstorms. Scientists began to learn what types of clouds trigger such phenomena and how they impact the chemistry of the atmosphere.
Her recording is part of the Thor-Davis experiment designed to investigate lightning in the upper atmosphere and how it might affect the concentration of greenhouse gases. The experiment is called Thor after the god of thunder, lightning and storms in Nordic mythology, and is led by the Danish Technical University (DTU) together with ESA.
Lightning triggers powerful electrical bursts in our atmosphere almost every second, yet the inner workings of these forces of nature are still not fully understood. Capturing such phenomena is vital for scientists researching Earth’s weather systems.
Fly through Webb’s cosmic vistas
On the launch anniversary of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, ESA presents a unique compilation of zooms into stunning cosmic views.
So embark on a special journey: as if aboard a virtual spaceship, this video will take you through interstellar dives into the rich realm of our Universe. We will visit colourful nebulas and dynamic star nurseries in our own galaxy. Then venture beyond, to travel to the distant reaches of the cosmos and marvel at interacting galaxies and huge galaxy clusters.
The largest space telescope ever, Webb was launched on Christmas Day in 2021, on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. It performed its first scientific observations in July 2022. Since then, the powerful telescope has been tirelessly exploring the Universe, from the solar neighbourhood to the most distant galaxies.
Happy fourth anniversary, Webb!
The European Space Agency explained
We are the European Space Agency, committed to peacefully exploring and using space to benefit everyone. Since our creation as an intergovernmental organisation in 1975, we've been championing European scientific and industrial interests in space.
What does ESA do?
In short, ESA’s job is to draw up the European space programme and carry it through. ESA's programmes are designed to find out more about Earth, its immediate space environment, our Solar System and the Universe, as well as to develop satellite-based technologies and services, and to promote European industries. ESA also works closely with space organisations outside Europe.
Who belongs to ESA?
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania are Associate Members. Canada takes part in some projects under a cooperation agreement. Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Malta have cooperation agreements with ESA.
Where do ESA’s funds come from?
ESA’s mandatory activities (space science programmes and the general budget) are funded by a financial contribution from all the Agency’s Member States, calculated in accordance with each country’s gross national product. In addition, ESA conducts a number of optional programmes. Each Member State decides in which optional programme they wish to participate and the amount they wish to contribute.
How big is ESA’s budget?
ESA's budget for 2025 is €7.68 billion. ESA operates on the basis of geographical return, i.e. it invests in each Member State, through industrial contracts for space programmes, an amount more or less equivalent to each country’s contribution.
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