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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Over the past 50 years, Europe has marked a series of firsts in the exploration of the Solar System and of our Universe: from an encounter with Comet Halley in 1986, parachuting a probe on to Saturn’s moon Titan in 2005 and landing on a comet in 2014, to studying our Sun in unprecedented detail and photographing the farthest galaxies.
To continue such successful achievements, ESA is now looking ahead to the next 20 years with its Cosmic Vision programme.
Several fundamental themes lie at the core of this programme:
- the conditions for planetary formation and the emergence of life
- how the Solar System works
- the fundamental physical laws of the Universe
- the origins of the Universe and what it is made of