ESA

Next week Arianespace is looking to return to launching rockets and make its 2023 debut with a launch of the Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket from French Guiana. Ariane 5 will get to launch one more major scientific milestone mission before its retirement later this year.

The European Space Agency’s High-Level Advisory Group (HLAG) released a report on the current state of Europe’s human exploration program. It calls for the continent to go all in on space, or risk being left in the dust.

Europe has become a key partner in many of NASA’s programs, including the Artemis Program. However, the continent’s space agency seems to have much more ambitious plans, rather than just helping NASA with its goals. The ESA’s HLAG report makes it clear that its objective should be to bolster its commercial market with its own human exploration program, including low Earth orbit and the Moon.

Tuesday, Arianespace announced it signed a new contract for two launches, with an option of a third, from the European Space Agency and the Italian Government. However, no response has been made on the validity of Vega-C’s failure investigation.

With humanity on the cusp of returning astronauts to deep space, one organization is attempting to garner support to give the Moon a time zone.

Spearheading this is the European Space Agency, which says space organizations agree “a common lunar reference time” for timekeeping is important for all lunar systems to reference, be they robotic missions or human surface stays.

For the first time in 13 years, the European Space Agency has chosen a new class of astronauts. This group of 17 was chosen from a group of over 22,500 candidates and brings in five new career astronauts, 11 members of the astronaut reserve, and one astronaut with a disability as a member of the Parastronaut Feasibility Study.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has already blown the minds of humans across the globe with its original set of color images. Now Webb has a new image, one of the chaotic Cartwheel galaxy.

NASA and the European Space Agency are on track to bring the first-ever Mars soil and atmosphere samples back to Earth. Today both space agencies shared an update on exactly how they plan to do that thanks to the Mars helicopter Ingenuity.

The time is near. After launching on Christmas Day, the first full-color images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will be released tonight and tomorrow. Here is what we know so far about the first images.

In statements made on Twitter and Telegram, Roscosmos Director-General Dmitry Rogozin responds to NASA, CSA, and ESA not promising they will lift sanctions on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine. The statement makes an ultimatum, lift the sanctions, or Russia will pull its cooperation in the near future.

The joint ESA and Russian Martian mission was expected to launch this year, but due to sanctions brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ESA has decided to suspend its cooperation.

Just over a week ago we got our very first look at images the James Webb Space Telescope was taking. The images are still far from the quality of scienfic images expected a few months from now, but now the previously messy array of light points has been organized and aligned according to mirror segment location.

On December 25, 2021, James Webb Space Telescope was launched from the French Guiana towards Lagrange point 2. People have been anxiously awaiting the return of the first image from the next-generation space scope, but now that wait is finally over!

Currently, more than 35,000 miles away, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is cruising through space on the way to its 1 million mile parking spot above the Earth. It will take the space telescope almost a month to complete orbital insertion. Here’s how you can track its way there.

FINAL UPDATE (1/31): James Webb is now fully deployed and orbiting in L2. The space telescope will spend the next few months commissioning and testing before taking its first photograph. Last week, NASA announced that Webb will point at HD 84406, a sun-like star 241 light-years away, to focus and align its mirrors in preparation for the moment we’ve been waiting for. Don’t hold your breath though, the mirror alignment process is very slow and tedious. We don’t expect James Webbs to take its first shot of the cosmos until around May 2022.

While the week of Christmas was a slow one, there were two highly anticipated launches. Check out this week’s top stories below.

This morning, the spaceflight and science communities held their breath as Arianespace launched the long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope. But, while the launch is now done, Webb has a long trip to go and many more obstacles to face.

The largest and most powerful telescope ever made is finally set to launch on Christmas day. After years of delays, the long-anticipated James Webb Space Telescope has been given the green light for lift-off. Here’s how you can tune in live.

Last night Arianespace launched their 111th Ariane 5 mission to space carrying satellites for SES and the French military. This marked its final flight of the Ariane 5 before it launches NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in December.

After a secretive voyage from California (to avoid pirates) the James Webb Space Telescope has safely arrived in French Guiana aboard MN Colibri.

The European Space Agency has partnered with Mattel to send a Barbie version of astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti on a zero-G flight to inspire girls to become astronauts, engineers, and scientists.

Last Friday, cargo ship MN Toucan arrived in French Guiana carrying the upper stage and fairing of the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch the James Webb Space Telescope later this year.

Last week Tesla pulled a “One more thing” and announced they are working on an autonomous robot powered by their Full Self Driving neural net. Many have questioned the companies choice but there could be a clever reason for Elon’s madness. Yes, it includes Tesla Bots on Mars, it’s always about Mars.