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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The Skinsuit is a tailor-made overall with a bi-directional weave specially designed to counteract the lack of gravity by squeezing the body from the shoulders to the feet with a similar force to that felt on Earth.
Floating in space, astronauts’ bodies adapt to weightlessness in ways that are not always wanted. Bone and muscle waste away as they have less work to do without gravity.
The Space Medicine Office of ESA’s European Astronaut Centre is managing a project that could help astronauts overcome back problems in space, simply by wearing this high-tech tight-fitting ‘skinsuit’.
Here the force the suit is producing is being measured at the feet with a computer using force transducers in the soles of the footwear.