ESA Bulletin 160 (Nov 2014)

As a new and crucial chapter is being written in the extraordinary Ariane saga, the space community is celebrating the 35th anniversary of the first Ariane flight, on 24 December 1979.

Thirty-five Years of Ariane looks at the origins of the launcher that made the ambition of European access to space a reality.

ESA has been carrying out microgravity research in parabolic flights for 30 years, 17 of them in the Novespace Airbus A300 ‘Zero-G’. After years of loyal service, this European workhorse for microgravity research is retiring.

The Science of Gravity investigates why we do research on parabolic flights and introduces the A300's successor, the Airbus A310 ‘Zero-G’, which is already being prepared for flights in 2015.

Space for Health: A portable device for monitoring the body’s vital signs is offering a lifeline to medical workers in the remotest areas on Earth – and it was developed with the support of ESA's Integrated Applications Promotion programme. At the leading edge of medical monitoring technology, this is a shining example of how space can be utilised to enable value-added services.

Even before the success of Rosetta, another European probe had captured the world's imagination ten years earlier when it touched down on a different distant world. Huygens landed on a moon of Saturn – still the farthest landing of any man-made object. In A Date to Remember, we give a quick nod on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Huygens landing in January.

The ESA Bulletin is published four times a year to inform the space-interested public of ESA’s activities. In addition to a wide range of articles, every issue provides an overview of the status of ESA's major space projects.

The full archive of Bulletins is also available at ESA's Publications web site, www.esa.int/publications