The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Mission controllers cheer the first signal received from the Rosetta spacecraft on 20 January 2014. Rosetta had woken up 807 million km away after 31 months of deep-space hibernation. At ESA’s Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, mission controllers, ESA staff and press waited for the first sign of Rosetta’s revival.
Rosetta is chasing Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, where it will become the first mission to rendezvous with a comet, the first to land on a comet and the first to follow a comet around the Sun.
The greatest adventure in the Rosetta saga has just begun.