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!
An impression of XEUS, as a telescope comprising a detector spacecraft that receives cosmic X-rays focused by a mirror spacecraft, flying exactly 50 metres in front of it.
Imagine a telescope that can grow, out in space, like a blossoming flower. Think of it hunting among faint X-rays from the farthest reaches of cosmic space, in search of swarms of black holes that are suspected of being the very first objects to appear in the Universe. Then you will know the spirit of XEUS, an imaginative project under study by the European Space Agency together with European industry and a team of experts from universities and research institutes in Europe and Japan