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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Taken back in May 2002, this image shows Rosetta being checked in the ESTEC Test Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
One of Rosetta’s massive solar wings is undergoing a deployment test, supported on a rig to allow it to unfurl in Earth gravity instead of weightlessness.
Each made up of five hinged panels, the pair of wings stretches 32 m tip-to-tip from the box-shaped spacecraft. Steerable, they have provided sufficient solar power to allow Rosetta to operate as far as 800 million km from the Sun, further than any previous solar-powered mission. New ‘LILT’ ‘low intensity low temperature’ solar cells were specially designed for the array.
On the top of the spacecraft can be glimpsed Rosetta’s 2.2 m-diameter high-gain antenna, a steerable dish used to return science data to Earth.