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
Go to topicThank you for liking
You have already liked this page, you can only like it once!
Engineers recently began the preliminary design of ESA’s Asteroid Impact Mission mission concept and are including a lander. If the mission comes to fruition touchdown would occur in late 2022.
The asteroid lander is under study by the DLR German Aerospace Center, and is known as Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout-2, or Mascot-2. Mascot-1 is already in flight, carried on Japan’s Hayabusa-2 mission, which was launched on 3 December 2014 to land on its target asteroid during 2018.
To find out more about the AIM mission concept, visit its new website.