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!
ESA astronaut Frank De Winne (BE) joined ISS Expedition 20 as Flight Engineer on Soyuz TMA-15 in May 2009. He, Roman Romanenko and Bob Thirsk joined Gennadi Padalka, Mike Barratt and Koichi Wakata (later replaced by Tim Kopra) on the ISS, making the first permanent six-person crew.
The Expedition 20 crew patch symbolises this new era in space exploration, with the first six-person crew living and working on board ISS represented by six gold stars. The astronaut symbol extends from the base of the patch to the star at the top to represent the international team, both on the ground and on orbit, that are working together to further our knowledge of living and working in space. The ISS in the foreground represents where we are now and the important role it is playing towards meeting our exploration goals. The blue, grey and red arcs represent our exploration goals as symbols of Earth, the moon and Mars.