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!
A strip of four black-coloured solar panels, centre, are surrounded by raised triangular mirrors to focus extra sunlight on them and increase their efficiency. A second strip of four panels (on left) serves as a control for the experiment. Deveoped by CSL and flown on the front panel of Proba-2, the aim is to increase efficiency so less complex and expensive solar panels can be used on telecom satellites and other power-hungry missions. Sunlight has been concentrated by a factor of 1.55 in the initial eight months of Proba-2's lifetime.