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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Georges Lemaître teaching at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.
In 1927, Georges Lemaître discovered a family of solutions to Einstein’s relativity equations that described an expanding Universe rather than a static one, and provided the first observational estimation of the Hubble constant. The theory later became much better known as the Big Bang theory.
Naming ESA's fifth Automated Transfer Vehicle after Belgian scientist Georges Lemaître continues the tradition of drawing on great European visionaries to reflect Europe’s deep roots in science, technology and culture.