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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Cosmonauts Yuri Malenchenko and Sergei Volkov during their International Space Station spacewalk.
They placed new experiments on the outpost's hull and retrieved ESA's Expose facility on 3 February 2015.
Expose is a series of chemistry laboratories that place samples in the harsh environment of space unprotected. Subjected to vacuum, radiation, temperature differences and the full blast of our Sun’s energy, 46 species of small organisms and over 150 organic compounds have returned after spending 18 months bolted to the Zvezda module.