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!
The structure for Europe’s second service module for NASA’s Orion spacecraft arrived at the Airbus clean room in Bremen, Germany, on 28 April. Technicians started working on installing over 12 km of cables, fuel, water and air tanks, computers, engines and everything else that is needed to support astronauts further from Earth than any human being has been before.
The European Service Module is a crucial element of Orion, providing support to the crew module that will house up to four astronauts. The crew will travel over one million kilometres in total.