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 above is a map of all the observatories on ground, combined with ground footprints of satellite measurements taken on 25 November 2001.
Ionospheric footprints in pink for ESA’s Cluster, in purple for NASA’s Polar and green for the GOES satellites. The projection looks down on the northern hemisphere. The field-of-view of radars of the SuperDARN network is underlined in black. In red, the positions of the CARISMA (University of Alberta, Canada) and SAMNET (Lancaster University, UK) magnetometers chains have been indicated.
12 MLT indicates noon, Magnetic Local Time, or the direction of the Sun, the source of solar wind. 24 MLT indicates the direction opposite to noon, Magnetic Local Time, least affected by solar wind.