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 André Kuipers at Mission-X kick-off event 2013.
European astronaut André Kuipers signalled the start for participants aged 8–12 joining from over 20 countries during a live webcast from ESA’s ESTEC space research and technology centre in the Netherlands.
On his André's flightsuit is the Soyuz spacecraft patch and underneath his PromISSe mission patch for the six-month mission to the International Space Station that André completed in 2012.
André answered dozens of questions from students at ESTEC and via Twitter. From Colombia to Spain, from Japan to the Netherlands, students asked about space food, the calories that astronauts need per day and what it feels like to be weightless.
The Mission-X challenge features training modules and healthy activities inspired by those used by astronauts during their spaceflights.